ANNUAL BRANCH REPORT (presented to the AGM 2007)
by Jean Tomsett, Secretary, Welsh Branch

This has been a year of mixed fortunes for ACAMH in Wales. We have continued to arrange meetings for professionals in the local area and have been pleased by the response. However the participants have been primarily non-members, and the membership of the branch is now about 70 - a drop of 30% from ten years ago. Many of our members have no contact with their local branch apart from receiving details of meetings. We are not sure if we should be providing more to meet their needs or if they are needing the Association solely for its publications and national meetings. We would welcome feedback about this. We do try to recruit new members at meetings and hope that we will be able to reverse the fall in numbers.

Our local programme now involves three or four half days meetings and two full day conferences. Though most of the delegates are from the local area some come from wider afield, for example the Midlands and South West England. We use venues in Cardiff because this seems to be the most convenient for travel though we remain open to consider new locations.

The move from evening meetings to afternoon half days meetings seems to have been appropriate. However the fact that these meetings are no longer free and take place in work time means the content has to be more directly beneficial to the participants' work. We had to cancel a meeting of more general interest on the work of charitable organisations in the voluntary sector by Dr Mike Shooter because of lack of applications for the half day. The remainder of the meetings however have been well attended and of a high standard. The full day meetings on Diet Nutrition & Behaviour and on Bullying in Schools were much appreciated by both delegates and presenters. We all enjoyed the contribution of pupils from a local primary school to the conference on Bullying in Schools. Lisa Waycott inspired many with her session on therapeutic play; we had to limit numbers for this because of the experimental nature of the presentation and may repeat it in the future. Dr Anne Jasper's talk on the multiagency management of risk drew a good audience and showed how much concern is present about young people who are violent both to themselves and to others.

We have two further half day meetings this year and we look forward to them, though our particular excitement at present concerns our November day meeting when we will welcome Mary Dozier from Delaware in the USA to talk about attachment and biobehavioural catchup for foster children who have had to cope with early adversity. Professor Dozier is presenting her work in Ireland and Scotland as well as Wales and the meeting in Cardiff will be advertised over a wide area.

We are greatly indebted to Rosemary Mackenzie and the Glasgow Office for all the work they do for us in organising the meetings, arranging publicity and providing such wonderful admin support. We also need to thank the members of the local committee for their work over the year. It was appropriate that our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Association involved the reunion of many who have contributed to the work of ACPP/ACAMH in South Wales over recent years. It was a very enjoyable occasion.
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For all enquiries please contact:

Ms Jean Tomsett or Judith Hodge
c/o The Harvey Jones Adolescent Unit
Velendre Road
Whitchurch
CARDIFF
Tel: 02920 336302

Alternatively please contact Rosemary at the ACAMH Glasgow Office on 0141 445 4340 or by
email