Dear CO NAPNAP Members,

I am so excited for the upcoming 2014-2015 year for the Colorado NAPNAP chapter! Our Board is hopeful and expectant to form greater connections between primary care and acute care PNPs in the state of Colorado. We also are excited to have the a new role of a Rural Community Outreach Liaison; in this role Bridget Marshall will serve as a resource and connect PNPs located outside the Denver area. It is our hope to eventually have PNP representatives from Northern CO/Ft. Collins, Southern CO (including Colorado Springs and Pueblo), Western CO, and Grand Junction. We also welcome two new board members with our President-Elect Dan Michaud and Student Representative Lynn Deutschmann.

Our next CO NAPNAP event will be a Happy Hour on Wednesday, August 6th at 6:30 pm at The Village Cork. Then we will kick off the Fall 2014 with the 14th Annual NAPNAP Night Out on Thursday, September 25th at a exciting new venue at the Space Gallery off 4th and Santa Fe. We also plan to have several other social mixers throughout the year as a means to network and connect with other PNPs. We will continue to have Board/Member Meetings on Monday evenings in 2014 on August 25 and November 11, and in 2015 on January 12, February 9, March 2, May 11, and June 8. Please RSVP if you would like to attend any of these events by going to the Upcoming Events section on our ENP website. Also, the 36th Annual NAPNAP conference will be March 11-14th, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada at Caesars Palace. We hope you can attend!

Now, a little about me: I recently moved back to Colorado from southern California, where I served on the board of NAPNAP-LA chapter and worked at Children's Hospital in Los Angles in the craniofacial/plastic surgery department. I also served on the board of the CO NAPNAP chapter from 2010-2012. I have been a PNP since 2005 and finished my DNP at CU in 2012. I am thrilled to be back near friends and family in Colorado and working for Pediatrics 5280 in Centennial and Castle Rock. I have passion for medical missions and helping the needy locally and internationally. I am excited that through our NAPNAP Night Out we will have a raffle and raise support for the Colorado I Have a Dream Foundation. This program aids Denver's most at-risk youth achieve their dreams through mentoring, academic assistance, life-skills development, cultural enrichment and partial scholarships for higher education. Please consider helping us raise support for such a great cause! I personally want to thank Kirstin Cox and Janel Saunders for their immense help and support as I take on the role as your chapter president.

I hope you will decide to be involved in the Colorado NAPNAP chapter through our local events, precepting NP students, or volunteering as a Board member. It is our desire to continue what Loretta Ford stated as the nurse practitioner philosophy as a holistic approach to the health of the patient and "the end result, of course, is to empower the patient or the family or the person to advance to self-care and to be responsible for that."

Amy D. Goodier, DNP, CPNP, IBCLC
a.goodier@pediatrics5280.com
President of Colorado Rocky Mountain Chapter of NAPNAP