Expanding Mental Health Care, Literacy and Policy Around the World

Vision Statement
The ISPN Regional Initiative will build and expand upon the work of ISPN within a specific geographic area, generating new forms of scholarship, education, clinical practice knowledge, and expanding community voice grounded in the Scope and Standards for Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses. Regional connections build on the global history and legacy of advanced practice psychiatric mental health nurses influence and impact on mental health care worldwide.

Mission
The mission of the ISPN Regional Initiative is to extend the ISPN mission -- Support advanced-practice psychiatric-mental health nurses in promoting mental health care, literacy, and policy worldwide.

Purpose

  1. Expand diverse ways to bring mental health care to communities, clinical and academic settings by supporting and learning from each other
  2. Share leadership experiences, build and disseminate knowledge, and guide self and others in the advancement of psychiatric mental health nursing
  3. Regional Initiative gatherings will:
    • Provide an intimate forum to renew, restore, and deepen each person’s, and each system’s, commitment and the specialty or unique practices of psychiatric mental health nurses
    • Learn from each other through shared work of original scholarship, diverse forms of inquiry and models of practice
    • Mentor self and others in using and extending the mental health concepts to transform research/scholarship, education, clinical practice, and leadership
    • Develop and disseminate models of clinical scholarship and professional excellence within communities, locally and globally

Membership
The participants of the Regional Initiative are ISPN members residing in one of the six (6) dedicated geographic regions. Participation is a free member benefit.

Structure
Two regional members will volunteer, for one year with renewable option for two terms, to facilitate strategic and operational needs of the Regional Initiative.  These chairs will:

  • Work collaboratively to organize and facilitate gatherings/meetings
  • Develop a more specific outline of roles and responsibilities, terms of service, and duties will be outlined within the first year and reviewed annually thereafter
  • Submit an annual report at the end of each calendar year to ISPN that includes the activities and outcomes of the regional initiative for the year

Meetings
Regional Initiative members and invitees shall meet at least twice a year, per the sponsorship of member/s who request to host the gathering in their setting, including the coordination of online attendance (when feasible and appropriate) in order to build a virtual expanded community. 

Responsibilities /Activities for Gatherings

  • Provide a safe forum to explore, create and model self and system through reflection and renewal
  • Share ideas, inspire each other, and learn together
  • Participate using scholarship methods such as appreciative inquiry to assure each member is facilitative of each other’s work, each learning from others
  • Create opportunities for original scholarship and new models of care
  • Generate and share multiple-site projects and scholarship
  • Network for educational, professional, and community models for advancing psychiatric mental health nursing practices and transformative models of care
  • Share unique experiences for authentic self-growth
  • Educate, implement and disseminate exemplary experiences and findings to broader professional audiences through scholarly work, presence, and consultation
  • Envision new possibilities for transforming psychiatric mental health nursing and health care

ISPN Regions

International

Northeast – CT, DC, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT

Southeast – AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV

Midwest – IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WI

Southwest – AZ, NM, OK, TX 

West – AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY