Matthew Evans
President, LA-CAMFT

Dear colleagues,

As this year comes to a close, I want to take a moment to recap some of the monumental events that occurred throughout the past 12 months. It truly has been an unprecedented year, from a global pandemic, continued racial injustice leading to peaceful demonstrations and advocation for policy reform to draw attention to and reduce/eliminate police discrimination and brutality, the death of Kobe Bryant, and a stressful and uneasy election process. However, over the past month, glimmers of hope have emerged and while there is much work to be done in our society, for the first time in years we are able to take a momentary breath of relief.

COVID-19 changed several aspects of how we run LA-CAMFT as an organization, such as altering the structure of our monthly, networking events, trainings, and our Diversity Committee’s Therapists of Color Support Group. Being no small task, it truly took a collaborative effort from our entire Board of Directors to make a change like this possible. From holding individual Zoom trainings for our presenters to teach the fundamentals of Zoom prior to networking events, to creating new workflows for CEU administration, communications, and materials distribution, those in chapter management stepped in and stepped up. Not one area of our chapter’s efforts has been untouched by the current pandemic.

As President of LA-CAMFT there have been many twists and turns, which I would not have been able to navigate as gracefully without the guidance from the Presidential Team and Past Presidents. Also, thank you to all the 2020 Board members for your hard work, collaboration, and professionalism over the past year. Navigating this year’s challenges truly was a team effort.

I am overcome with excitement to welcome Jenni Wilson, LMFT into the role of President, starting in January. As President-elect, she hit the ground running by taking on many different responsibilities Including but not limited to co-facilitating this year’s leadership retreat; taking the lead in writing LA-CAMFT’s Declaration of Inclusion, Diversity, and Anti-Racism; and advocating for racially-diverse leaders to become Board members.

Warm welcome to the incoming 2021 Board members, I look forward to seeing you all grow and pursue your visions within LA-CAMFT. We are all in this together.

With warm regards,

Matthew Evans

Matthew Evans, LMFT, utilizes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in his work with adults struggling with anxiety and depression at Kaiser Permanente. Matthew may be contacted through December 31, 2020 at president@lacamft.org.