ACAMH Yorkshire Branch Report 2010-2011

2010-2011 has been a relatively successful year for Yorkshire ACAMH. We have had good attendance at events despite the current economic climate and have had a calendar full of collaborative events. Since the last AGM we have hosted the travelling fellow event on Functional Family Therapy with the Northeast branch, which was the 2nd travelling fellow event for our branch in 2010. Next we had a cancelled Winter Festivity event, though hopefully the subject matter (Self Harm in Family Therapy Trial) will be available later in 2012. In January 2010 we hosted a national ACAMH conference on Child Learning Disabilities in collaboration with the ACAMH Special Interest Group, the British Psychological Society special interest group and the Child and Adolescent Learning Disability Psychiatry Network. The theme of joint events continued with the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and finally the joint event with the recently re-formed Northwest branch on Trauma.
There have been changes to the committee with Juliette Kennedy being co-opted to vice chair and Clare Nolan co-opted as a committee member and Emal Lemdani became the branch treasurer at the last AGM. I have also been elected onto the board of ACAMH as the branch liaison officer, so sadly I will be stepping down after approximately 6 years as chair of the Yorkshire branch. I will remain on the committee in an advisory capacity and look forward to attendance at future events. For the next year there are proposals for joint chair positions and a selection of events are already being planned for 2012 into 2013.
Once again there are economic pressures within local services and attendance at events is difficult for some of our members. The tasks of staffing a committee (with trainees leaving to take on permanent positions) and attendance at events by members will be a continuing challenge. The creation of novel and interesting topics for events is also difficult owing to staff only being released for 'job specific' events that contain theory, evidence base and tips for practice. We have addressed these by keeping costs low through the use of less costly venues and caterers and through the generosity of our speakers. In addition to this, events have concentrated on 'major' topics in collaboration with other branches or agencies and titles have been used that are more 'manager friendly' to aid our membership being allowed the time away from work to attend events. We also have an active recruitment drive to maintain a committee membership that reflects the different modalities of working and the different teams within the geographical area.
I wish my successors the best for the future and I am sure that the Yorkshire Branch will flourish under their leadership.
Mark Lovell
Chair, Yorkshire Branch
Branch Liaison Officer, ACAMH

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