FAND 2022 New Year Update!

Hello fellow friends, dietitians and diet technicians, registered. Happy New year!!  We hope you enjoyed the holidays. Your FAND board and committee members have worked hard this past quarter. We have had monthly board meetings as well as numerous committee calls, including the FANS Planning Committee, our Finance Committee, the Diversity and Inclusion committee and the nominating committee to just name a few. Boy, do we have some great news to share with you.

Greetings Florida Academy!

I am both humbled and excited to start my term as your 2023-2024 FAND president. The presidents before me, particularly Mandy Layman and Peggy O’Neill, have done a phenomenal job of laying the foundation for my term. Now, it is time for us to build upon that groundwork and expand into the future. The theme for this year is “Future Focused” because we are looking ahead at what is possible and expanding the reach of our organization.

I am passionate about diversifying the scope of FAND to include all aspects of dietetics, such as public health, academia, private practice, industry, and clinical dietetics. All facets of nutrition care are of importance and should have representation within our organization. To this effect, one goal this year is to host a variety of learning opportunities to meet the needs of all practitioners and enhance engagement. One such opportunity is the in person pediatric symposium “Enhanced Nutrition Practice in Pediatrics” taking place on August 26th in Orlando. This symposium delves into the hot topics in pediatrics and is an excellent learning opportunity for any dietitian working in the field.

I also strongly believe that we must be leaders in the advancement and communication of evidenced based nutrition. The future of healthcare is evolving, and we need to assert ourselves as the nutrition experts. To accomplish this, we must promote our profession through legislative initiatives, research, media, and with third party payers. This year, we look to the future and realign our profession with the ever-changing landscape of healthcare to assure that we are on the forefront of the nutrition dialog.
Importantly, we will also be reassessing the long-term goals of FAND this year as we develop our 2024-2029 strategic plan. This is a big undertaking, but one that I and the FAND leadership team are enthusiastic to embark on as this plan will set the course for the next five years.

It is going to be an eventful year with many opportunities for engagement as we stay “Future Focused”!

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Bobo, MS, RD, LDN, CNSC, FAND
FAND President

Other Updates: 

1. The FAND board members voted to adjust our fiscal year to align it with that of the Academy, which runs from June – May.
   2023. That means the current board will serve a full year PLUS another 7 months to get us to the next new fiscal year, June 2023.
   2024. This also means our elections will be adjusted and you may not see a call for new board and committee members for a little while since that new board won’t start until June 2023
2. We have a new Diversity and Inclusion team.
   1. Sheetal Parikh and Karen Two Shoes lead this committee and the D&I initiatives
   2. Keep an eye out for great D&I resources and webinars for next year.
3. Our House of Delegates Chair, Jennifer Farrell, and delegate, Claudia Sealy-Potts, will attend two upcoming HOD meetings. Below is an update from our Delegates:
   1. A survey revealed multiple issues of interest to be addressed in the upcoming year. Some of these issues such as: nationwide licensure, reimbursement for nutrition services and diversity and inclusion are already being addressed by AND. AND is working to increase communication to keep members abreast of these issues. Three critical issues have been selected for the House of Delegates to work on.

We will be sending updates as the year continues which will include student and member highlights, and calls to action.

Quick recap on Federal Legislation efforts to recruit support for the MNT expansion bill.

Former AND and FAND president and longtime Nutrition legislation advocate, Lucille Beseler, invited me and fellow South Florida dietitian, Krista Yoder Latortue, to attend a fundraiser for FL Senator Marco Rubio. We had an amazing learning experience and have further connections scheduled with his team to recruit support the MNT expansion bill. I have attached Lucille’s experience [attach PDF].

• Don’t forget to fund the FAND PAC so we can keep reaching out to legislators in the state of Florida or those representing our state at the federal level to support all important nutrition legislation.
• Please check the AND Action Center page regularly to ask your federal representatives for support of important nutrition initiatives by using the email templates.