Welcome the the ACAMH Avon Branch.

CHAIR'S REPORT 2009/2010
ACAMH Avon Branch Annual General Meeting: 12th November 2010
Engineers House, The Promenade, Clifton Down, Bristol BS8 3NB; commencing at 1.00pm



AVON BRANCH Annual Chair Report 2009/10

As joint Chairs of the Avon Branch we work very closely together. We are also used to working in harmony within our professional lives as job sharers, and this has been a beneficial quality we have brought to organising the Avon Branch Conference programme for this year.

This last 12 months has been punctuated with 2 full Day Events for the ACAMH Avon Branch which, although one of the smallest ACAMH Branches, is enthusiastically taking on some excellent full day events with leading topics which attract good sized audiences. Events also have the added opportunity for Practitioners of all disciplines to meet and network with other like-minded professionals, and assist in knowledge sharing across the topics explored in the presentations. We certainly have the ambition now, after a year of our success following a long 'fallow' period for the Branch in the mid-noughties, to grow and to expand the currently rather small committee, not only with a good interdisciplinary mix of members, but also gaining new members throughout the entire Avon Branch catchment area.

A very successful conference was held in November 2009 on Emerging Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescents in Bristol. The presenters were experts in their field, each one delivering quality presentations. There were valuable opportunities for networking, which were quickly taken up, and all in all, there was a terrific atmosphere, which everyone agreed produced a very inspiring day.

We are really looking forward with great hopes for the forthcoming 'Attachment: From Theory to Creative Therapeutic Solutions' event which will be the base for our annual 2009/10 Annual General Meeting on the 12th November 2010. This conference aims to help develop an understanding of attachment theory as well as exploring ways in which creative therapies can be used to work with carer and child dyads where children are presenting with attachment difficulties. This event will provide a chance to juxtapose the theory with practical creative therapies, and make a joined up interdisciplinary interface, which will be of great interest to professionals across the divide between the therapeutic arts and sciences.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee Members and the ACAMH Head Office staff for their support during this last year, in which we have steadlily started to grow.


Dr Clare Short and Dr Helen Stephens Joint Chairs of the ACAMH Avon Branch


For all enquiries please contact Karyn Ambridge at the ACAMH Head Office, St Saviours House, 39-41 Union Street on 020 7403 7458 or by
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