How can I support the work of FSPA? – Fire Service Psychology Association

By: Robert Avsec, Battalion Chief (Ret.) and FSPA Fire Service Member

Well, if you are reading this, you’ve already taken the most important action–you joined FSPA! And for that we thank you! Before we go any further, let me quickly share some information with a post from June of 2024, What can I do as a member of FSPA?, because we’re had many new members who’ve joined since then.

Now, let’s “plow some new ground,” shall we? First, we’ve started the Planning Process for our upcoming 8th Annual FSPA Conference in Pearland, Texas (A suburb of Houston), October 9-10, 2025. We hope that you’re making plans to join your fellow FSPA members at this, YOUR premiere annual event, where we are going to build upon our successful conference last October in Washington, D.C. (Thank you, Chief John Donnelly and the DC Fire and EMS Department for being such wonderful hosts!).

Continuing with the conference planning, it’s not too late to get actively involved as a member of that team! If you’re interested, “shoot me an email” at chiefavsec@firepsychology.org. You can also help by helping to promote and amplify YOUR FSPA Conference!

We ask that YOU help in “spreading the word” about YOUR conference using your social media networks! Just look at the demographics for our current membership. If everyone posted information about the upcoming conference once a week, on one social media platform think of the reach we would get! (I did the math for you, that would be 155 posts weekly!)

We ask that you help us keep the messages accurate and consistent and we’ve created a one-pager with all the pertinent information. You don’t need to post everyday, once a week would be great!

Now It’s Time to “Think Big!”

One of the ideas that the Conference Planning Team is “kicking around” is the idea of creating an annual scholarship to help develop future psychologists that would have “fire psychology DNA” upon completing their education and licensure. The idea is to provide a scholarship to those masters-level clinicians in FSPA who may be thinking of “taking the next step” in their professional development and may not have the money to get started.

Now, we’re not talking a “full-ride” scholarship–Baby steps, right?–but rather a good first step that would hope would grow over time. So, here’s the “ask”–And you knew there was going to be an “ask” at some point, right?–for what could help make this idea a reality.

If everyone of us were to donate $10 to FSPA, using the Donate Page on our website (pictured below) that would yield $1,550 to be used to initiate a scholarship award starting with YOUR conference in October! And I’m going to put some “seed money” into this effort with my donation of $100.00. If you choose to join me in this effort, please include the text I used in your Comment when you donate.