Lipscomb professor Turner tapped to co-chair prestigious international conference
Office of Public Relations and Communications |
Dr. William Lofton Turner, distinguished professor of leadership and public policy and special counsel to the president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Lipscomb University was appointed as co-chair of the Family Process Journal 60th Anniversary Celebration and Symposium.
The intent of this symposium is to engender dialogue, highlighting concerns about the interconnectedness of systemic racism, internalized racism and health disparities, and how these interactions have been starkly uncovered by the COVID pandemic. Coordinators plan to share clinical and advocacy approaches that may be helpful in effecting change and determining the next steps to heal our world.
"I am very humbled to have been asked by the board of directors and president to take on this task,” Turner said. “Family Process is one of the most important and influential academic journals that focuses on the mental health and well-being of families across multiple disciplines with both a national and international sphere of influence.
“Moreover, these symposia are only held every 10 years, and the papers presented have a long, lasting impact on research and practice. I count it a very high honor and responsibility to help shape the theme, select the presenters and develop the program. I count it as one of the highlights of my career.”
Family Process is a quarterly, peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on family system issues, including policy and applied practice. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Family Process Institute. Since 2007, the journal has published its abstracts in Chinese and Spanish in addition to English.
Family Process publishes original articles, including theory and practice, philosophical underpinnings, qualitative and quantitative clinical research, and training in couples and family therapy, family interaction, and family relationships with networks and larger systems. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has an impact factor of 3.0, ranking it first out of 40 journals in the category "family studies" and 21 out of 119 journals in the category "clinical psychology."
The title of the symposium is The Heart of the Matter: Systemic Imperatives to Address Health Disparities and Racism in the Time of Covid.
Turner, a professor of marriage and family therapy and a clinical fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy previously served on the board of directors and as an officer of the Family Process Institute. Turner will also provide the opening plenary for the virtual meeting to set the stage for the remainder of the program. Leading scholars in the fields of psychiatry, family therapy, family psychology, and public health comprise the conference presenters.