IAP2 USA January 2025 News
From IAP2 USA's Board President Josh Stephenson
Happy New Year! Looking Ahead to 2025 As we begin 2025, I acknowledge that we are stepping into a time of both change and opportunity. While the landscape around public participation continues to evolve, I am confident in the resilience, dedication, and passion of our IAP2 USA community. This past year has demonstrated our ability to adapt, grow, and continue making meaningful contributions to the field. First, I want to express my gratitude. To our incredible members, board members, trainers, volunteers, and staff—thank you for your dedication, expertise, and passion. Together, we’ve built a strong foundation, positioning us for even greater impact in the year ahead. In 2024, several highlights were IAP2 USA expanded our national staff’s expertise and capacity, established a strategic plan to guide our work for the next three years, delivered valuable training on a wide range of topics, and strengthened our commitment to advancing equity—both within our organization and in public participation practices. The Board of Directors also continued its essential work of ensuring strong governance, financial stewardship, and strategic direction to support our mission. Looking to 2025, we’re excited about the ongoing trainings happening across the country, the inspiring grassroots work of our regional chapters, and the IAP2 North American Conference in San Antonio September 28-30th—be sure to watch for announcements for early registration! Later this year, we’ll roll out the newly revised IAP2 Spectrum, an updated version of the foundational resource that has guided public participation practitioners for over 30 years. We also know that 2025 will bring challenges. Growing deemphasis on priorities like inclusion, meaningful public processes, and fact-based decision-making makes our work more critical than ever. This is a pivotal moment for our organization and for each of us to stay engaged. IAP2 USA is following federal actions closely and are connected into other organizations who are also monitoring and navigating the changes. I encourage you to reach out to staff and share your needs, opportunities, ideas, and challenges. Together, we have the privilege and responsibility to work toward positive change. I encourage all of us to reflect on the vital role we play in shaping inclusive, respectful, and welcoming communities where everyone has a voice. Thank you again for being a part of IAP2. Here’s to a great year ahead! Josh Stepherson IAP2 USA Board President |
IAP2 USA Member Engagement Survey
IAP2 USA Members – We Value Your Feedback!
Please take a moment to complete the IAP2 USA Member Engagement Survey. Your input is essential in shaping the future of IAP2 USA.
The deadline to submit your feedback is February 14, 2025.
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Young Professionals Cup of Tea
February 26, 2025
Theme: “Elevating YP Voices in P2”
Join the IAP2 Young Professionals for our quarterly networking session! These virtual gatherings are a great opportunity for young professionals in the public participation field to expand their network and get new ideas and resources.
Q1 discussion theme: Elevating YP voices in P2 Together, we will brainstorm and share examples of how YP voices have been elevated within P2 spaces. The goal is to see how our network can make the field more inclusive of young voices!
IAP2 USA DEI Coffee Talk Session February 26, 2025 The landscape of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives is evolving rapidly, especially in federal and business settings. With growing conversations and challenges around DEI efforts, it’s more crucial than ever to engage in open and inclusive public participation. We invite you to join the IAP2 USA DEI Committee to take part in this discussion where we will discuss:
Bring your thoughts, questions, and experiences for an open conversation focused on how we can support our IAP2 Community.
IAP2 USA Corner from Our Licensed Trainers "Trauma Informed Facilitation Techniques" LA burning is what writer Joan Didion described about sixty years ago as an image deep in the psyche of anyone who calls this place home due to its topography and its fierce Santa Ana winds. And it’s what has occurred in the past two weeks. The fires throughout this county that holds more people than many states is all too real and too devasting; whole communities are gone and tens of thousands of lives are forever changed. They are also a metaphor for all the other “fires” that have burnt down people’s lives—natural disasters, social and civil injustices, war, violence, and the pandemic are but a few. So we are taking this moment to highlight the principles of trauma informed facilitation as shared by the Non Profit Learning Lab. We’ve summarized these principles to highlight them for your practice:
These principles align with our best practices of engagement. They align with our relationship-focused and equity-centered foundations to understand people, what they have experienced or still are experiencing, and how they want to be engaged. They show up in our engagement planning so that we craft the methods best suited to the situation. They are in how we facilitate, co-facilitate, share power to how we show up and help others do the same so that we build capacity in each other and ourselves to ask for and extend relief, co-create options and make choices about them. We have a unique role and opportunity to help people turn current, ongoing, overlapping trauma and traumas into deeper levels of understanding and support. To co-create resilience, reinvention and how make change together. A key part of our practice is the need to create enough safety with each other so that we can make a difference, together, even when the winds are blowing too strong. - Cathy Smith, JD |
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Member/Project Spotlight If your organization has had any recent P2 successes or thought of creative solutions we want to hear about it! Please contact info@iap2usa.org to be featured on our website or newsletter. |