ANNUAL BRANCH REPORT (presented to the AGM 2009)
by Peter Hindley, Chair, London and South East Branch Committee

2008 has been a mixed year for ACAMH London and South East.
We continued to present a wide range of popular, high quality events, beginning the year with an excellent twilight presentation by Professor Arlene Vetere on Domestic Violence. The meeting was well attended and Professor Vetere gave a challenging and stimulating talk.
In May, Paul Stallard gave an excellent talk on School Based Interventions. Again the meeting was very well attended and Paul's talk was warmly received by a diverse audience. Thanks to the topic we attracted a wide range of professionals, with many educationalists present.
Sadly we had to cancel our spring day conference on Problems with Food: Looking at both sides. A series of events meant that we were not able to put together a full programme and with regret we cancelled the event.
Our September meeting was presented by Ann Phoenix and concentrated on young men's sense of masculinity. Ann was an excellent presenter. She presented her research with great clarity and it was a fascinating opportunity for Branch members to see how a more theoretical social sciences approach could give us insight into our clinical work with young men. Again the event attracted a very diverse audience and continued this year's theme of opening the branch events up to people who are not necessarily CAMHS professionals but are interested in the mental health of children and young people.
Our autumn day conference for new researchers was organised by Fiona Tasker. Fiona did an outstanding job, marshalling our two expert speakers Charlotte Burck and Alison Clark, and a combination of plenary speakers and poster presentations. The theme of the conference was qualitative research and we provided a platform for speakers from across the country.
Our year was rounded off by an excellent debate "Antisocial Personality Disorder is Preventable in Young People". Peter Wilson proposed the motion and he was ably opposed by Professor Stephen Scott. Alison Wintgens chaired the session, with a suitable combination of seriousness and lightness of touch.
Finally, my thanks as ever, to the branch committee for their ideas, inspiration and innovation, without which none of this would be possible, and also to the head office staff for their ongoing support.
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For all enquiries please contact Martin Pratt at the ACAMH Head Office, St Saviours House, 39-41 Union Street on 020 7403 7458 or by
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