Dear NTA Community,  

At the NTA annual conference in March, we had our first open panel discussion with the leadership team and board members.  It was incredibly insightful for the leadership team. We took those conversations to heart and thought to ourselves, how do we best support, equip and engage our community? How do we create a platform for our community to be represented at the NTA?   

As a result of these conversations, the NTA recently created an official Community Engagement Department, which I am proud and humbled to lead. This newly established department brings together our community and events teams, and I could not be more excited to work with this dedicated, passionate, entertaining group of people. Our goal with this department is to provide lifelong learning and support for you, our community. We see this as a major differentiator for the NTA, as most schools simply graduate practitioners and let them figure things out.  We want to be a part of your journey and provide a space for you to tap into the collective resource of over 5,000 NTC/NTP graduates. 

My two main areas of focus are to ensure the NTA community voice is represented at the leadership table and create new ways the NTA can support the community. We have several projects in the works including membership forums and Teach and Learns that will offer continuing opportunities for shared knowledge and connection. This year we are also launching our annual conference content committee where two graduate representatives will have a chance to help us shape our biggest event of the year. We are starting dialogues about inclusion and diversity work and will be reaching out to you to help us with this. Basically, we will be cooking up even more opportunities for you to be involved with initiatives and events that support the NTA community.  We need your help, your ideas, and your energy to make the community engagement department thrive!  

,As this department gains traction in the coming months, we will share opportunities with you to engage in molding the future of the NTA community.  In the meantime, we have set up dedicated communication channels for you to reach out directly to me and the rest of the community engagement team with your thoughts, dreams, and ideas for the NTA community. One will be a dedicated email address, hello@nutritionaltherapy.com, which you can use to email me your ideas, suggestions, and stories. Let us know what it‘s like to be a practitioner in your community. If you could have anyone as a keynote speaker at the conference, who would it be? Perhaps you want to host a community gathering and are looking for some advice? Let us know!  

One of the NTA’s values is direct, authentic communication. My door is always open to our community. The second opportunity for formal communication will be dedicated weekly office hours starting on June 21. My office hours will be Fridays from 10 am to 1 pm pacific time.  Interested in chatting over a cup of coffee with a dash of butter? Let me know! You can sign up by using this Calendy link. 

It’s my hope that the NTA team can get to know all of you better, to learn from your journey as a graduate, and come together to not only support each other, but to support all the future practitioners and consultants out there. To create the change we want to see in the way the world looks at food, nutrition and health, we must do it together. I consider you all a part of the Community Engagement department, and a part of the work we do at the NTA. Your voice, your experience matter. Let‘s see what magic we can create together.  

In health,

Dana Nardi, NTP 
Chief Community Engagement Officer

Want to learn more about Dana? Read her Faces of the NTA post.

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