Establishing and promoting the CPNP Collegiate Chapter at Purdue University

The Purdue collegiate chapter of CPNP, established in the fall of 2010, was one of four pilot chapters launched across the nation. CPNP Purdue became the 19^th organization in the Purdue College of Pharmacy, but the first to serve a psychiatric and neurologic population. The founders of CPNP Purdue wanted to create an organization to help students become more aware of a growing field of pharmacy. As a result, they wanted the opportunity to fuel their compassion for those afflicted by mental illnesses by serving and interacting with the mental health community. Because of CPNP Purdue's success, the objective of this manuscript is to share their experience forming a collegiate chapter to teach other schools of pharmacy how to form their own academic chapters.

CHAPTER DEVELOPMENT

The Purdue collegiate chapter began with an interest and an offer. Two pharmacy students expressed their interest in psychiatric pharmacy to their psychiatric pharmacy professor. The professor knew of the pilot CPNP collegiate chapters and offered the two students the opportunity to start a new collegiate chapter at Purdue University. There were several steps that were completed to form the CPNP collegiate chapter. First, leadership positions were created and approval received from CPNP and the Purdue College of Pharmacy. According to the University's guidelines, Purdue requires every new organization to begin with a president, treasurer, and advisor. CPNP and the Purdue College of Pharmacy granted permission to form the new chapter after these positions were filled. The two students became the president and treasurer, and the psychiatric pharmacy professor became the chapter's advisor. Next, an application, constitution, and bylaws were submitted to CPNP. CPNP's constitution and bylaws template was utilized as an initial draft. This was combined with Purdue's specific requirements to become an official organization. The president and treasurer worked on the constitution and bylaws together, and then sent them to the advisor to review before the official submission to CPNP. After CPNP offered revisions and subsequent approval, the revised constitution and bylaws were submitted to Purdue University. Purdue has a formal approval process for all new organizations through a department called Student Activities and Organizations.

Some obstacles encountered related to the wording of the constitution and bylaws template. The first dilemma was regarding insurance coverage for the collegiate chapter. Originally, the wording in the template was interpreted as the insurance Purdue provided to its organizations also had to cover CPNP on a national level. This section had to be rewritten and approved by the University. The other issue related to the collegiate chapter's tax ID status. The template said the chapter would obtain its own tax ID number, but Purdue requires all organizations on campus to share the same tax ID number. This was another section that had to be revised and approved by the University. After all of the edits were made to the template, the final draft of the constitution and bylaws was sent to Purdue and CPNP for official approval. Additionally, a financial account was created with Purdue Business Office for Student Organizations (BOSO). BOSO is responsible for managing all of the chapter's funds.

After the chapter was officially established and recognized, the president and treasurer met with local mental health programs, which included Mental Health America Tippecanoe County and the Counseling and Psychological Services at Purdue (CAPS). As a result, partnerships and volunteer activities were formed for future members. Finally, the new chapter began recruiting pharmacy students. The College of Pharmacy's Organization Information Night was the first form of advertisement. Then a callout was held to give students more information about the organization. The Purdue chapter's membership dues were $20 dollars and members were required to be in the Purdue College of Pharmacy (P1–P4). Overall, the first two years as a collegiate chapter were successful with close to twenty-five members each year and multiple events held throughout the year.

CPNP PURDUE'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE COLLEGE OF PHARMACY

As a student chapter, CPNP Purdue had the opportunity to take part in many activities that have made an impact in psychiatric pharmacy. Many of the activities can easily be initiated and reproduced by other student CPNP chapters. To begin with, the Purdue chapter has cosponsored and taken part in a Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) Suicide Prevention Training with the Purdue Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists (PSSHP), which allowed members and fellow pharmacy students to become certified in suicide prevention. Additionally, the Purdue chapter along with Kappa Psi Pharmaceutical Fraternity hosted a hypnotist event. This event featured Mr. Rich Richardson, focusing on the impact of hypnotism as a form of treatment for a variety of conditions such as smoking cessation, phobias, or test anxiety. CPNP Purdue leaders wrote and received a grant of $300 dollars to pay for the hypnotist, and subsequently planned and hosted the session for student CPNP members and fellow classmates.

CPNP PURDUE'S INVOLVEMENT ON A NATIONAL LEVEL

The Purdue chapter also strives to stay active at the national level of CPNP. Members have taken part in preparing and publishing movie reviews for the CPNP's online publication, the Mental Health Clinician. Members review various movies that in some part depict mental health, and then provide critique and evaluation of the accuracy of the movie's depiction. Although the Purdue chapter has currently only submitted one review (Girl Interrupted), many motivated students have shown great enthusiasm in producing numerous other reviews to share with the CPNP community. Purdue's CPNP chapter has been extremely enthusiastic and motivated to take part in opportunities such as those mentioned above and hope fellow CPNP student chapters can also organize and take part in similar activities. The two founding members, Caitlin Lentz and Nora Roman, attended the 16^th Annual Midwest Neuropsychopharmacology Update in September 2010. The two founding members also took part in the 2011 NAMI convention in Chicago, where they volunteered at the “Ask the Pharmacist Booth” and the CPNP information table. There were six members that went to Tampa, Florida for the CPNP Annual meeting in May 2012, where they presented a poster.

CPNP PURDUE'S INVOLVEMENT ON A LOCAL LEVEL

CPNP Purdue also stays highly active at the local level in both professional and social activities. Student members take part in many volunteer events that allow members to take a hands-on role in interacting with and helping those with mental illness in the community. The Compeer Director of Mental Health America (MHA) Tippecanoe County was happy to share the following comment about CPNP Purdue's involvement with the Tippecanoe chapter of MHA: “We love having CPNP Purdue host Compeer Circle events! They always prepare fun and exciting activities for the Compeer participants. Many of the participants grew up here and have great pride in Purdue's students - thanks for sharing your kindness and energy with Compeer!”

The members of the Purdue chapter create drug information sheets for the MHA Tippecanoe website in order to provide resources about medications (See Figure 1). These information sheets are helpful because this material may not be in the patient handouts provided with the prescription. The information sheets are reviewed by the CPNP Purdue chapter advisor. The Purdue chapter finished about eight drug information sheets this year and will continue to work on completing more for next year.

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Members are happy to take part in various opportunities with MHA, one of which includes a dinner for clients hosted by MHA Tippecanoe. This activity takes place at the MHA Tippecanoe day shelter for the homeless, and gives students the opportunity to feed the hungry in the greater Lafayette area. CPNP Purdue students plan, purchase, prepare, and serve dinner to clients, and more importantly have the opportunity to interact with those clients. The student members take part in hosting these dinners several times per month. The Purdue chapter also hosts a picnic for MHA in the fall of each year. This is a great activity for clients to socialize with the members of the organization. Compeer Circle is another activity that the Purdue chapter is involved with. For Compeer Circle, the Purdue chapter hosts evening social events, such as bingo and karaoke, and provides snacks and encourages client participation. Members also help with a 5K walk/run that supports MHA Tippecanoe. For the Jay Cooprider 5K, the Purdue chapter helps advertise the 5K and volunteers to set-up and serve food.

PUBLICIZING CPNP PURDUE CHAPTER

The Pharmacy Spring Fling, which is held every year, provides an opportunity for the Purdue chapter to distribute pamphlets to spread awareness of mental health as well as organize trivia games with prizes. In order to accrue more members, the Purdue chapter organizes Ice Cream Social Callouts. These callouts provide information about CPNP to other pharmacy students who are interested in psychiatric pharmacy.

FUNDRAISING

With all of the events that the chapter does, having funds is necessary. In order to keep membership costs at a reasonable rate, one of CPNP Purdue's goals is fundraising. During the first year as a collegiate chapter, one of their primary goals was to fundraise to establish a financially sound account for future students. Before any items could be sold, certain regulations had to be followed. The regulations were as follows: anything containing the CPNP logo can only be sold to CPNP national members; anything sold must not contradict the values and mission of CPNP; and finally, anything sold under the CPNP name must be approved by the CPNP national representatives, the chapter's faculty advisor, and the Dean of the College of Pharmacy. For the Purdue chapter's first fundraiser, zip-up sweatshirts were sold with the Purdue College of Pharmacy logo. The next idea was to sell items with a “Peace, Love, Pharmacy” design which consists of a peace symbol, heart, and the Purdue College of Pharmacy's mortar and pestle symbol. CPNP Purdue has sold t-shirts, tote bags, and flip-flops with this design with great success.

The other type of fundraiser conducted is called “Skip-a-Meal”. In order to organize a “Skip-a-Meal” fundraiser, the campus organization approaches a local restaurant. The restaurant agrees to donate a certain percentage of the cost of a student's meal if the student presents a flier created by the campus organization. Then, members of the campus organization create and distribute the flyers to students so they can present them to the restaurant when they order their food. Most organizations on campus participate in these fundraisers to raise money for charitable causes. Purdue's chapter partnered with Panda Express to raise money for MHA Tippecanoe. In total, the chapter raised forty dollars. Even though this was not a substantial amount of money, it was still a donation that went to MHA Tippecanoe; however, the cost to profit ratio was not very successful for this fundraiser. Instead of attempting another similar fundraiser, the Purdue chapter will focus their efforts on other types of fundraisers to raise money for MHA Tippecanoe. Future fundraising ideas include selling items such as soda koozies, laptop cases, along with continued sales of the “Peace, Love, Pharmacy” tote bags.

FUTURE PLANS

Future plans for CPNP Purdue include continuing to create the medication information sheets for MHA Tippecanoe's website, further involvement with NAMI, projects with CAPS, and spreading mental health awareness on Purdue's campus. CPNP Purdue also plans to take part in future activities with MHA Tippecanoe, collaborate and network with other CPNP student chapters to promote collegiate CPNP presence, and expand CPNP Purdue to involve more students.

The members of Purdue's CPNP chapter have had the opportunity to show the community and their patients just how far the reach of a psychiatric pharmacist can be. By forming a strong partnership with MHA Tippecanoe in the community, the pharmacy students have come to be active volunteers, friendly faces, trusted healthcare professionals, and a staple of medical help and information for mental health patients. The CPNP Purdue members hope their dedication and involvement in CPNP will allow them to continue to make strides in the role of the pharmacist in psychiatric medicine.