ANNUAL BRANCH REPORT (presented to the AGM 2007)
by Dr Mark Lovell, Chair, Yorkshire Branch

Once again, another busy year has flown by. The committee has remained unchanged since last year and, through everyone's hard work, has been able to plan further ahead and be more organised.

We put on a series of more diverse events this year in an attempt to appeal to a wider spectrum of professionals working with children, adolescents and their families/carers. In doing so we stepped away from the safe domains of the core interests of our traditional bulk membership of Psychologists and Psychiatrists. We have consequently had small numbers attending the events, though those attending have included a wide array of professional modalities (some traveling appreciable distances). So in some ways we have further to go in creating annual programs that both appeal to a range of professionals and pull in the numbers, without alienating our current membership. In other ways, all changes have a start and we have embarked upon a new journey alongside the changes from ACPP to ACAMH. We are hopeful that the membership of Yorkshire ACAMH will expand to a wider range of professionals as we continue to offer a variety of events.

At the last Yorkshire AGM we offered an interesting day on Hypnotherapy and the experiences of Jackie Swift, from Bradford CAMHS of working with children and their families. This was coupled with theory and practice with Christine Blessing from the Northern College of Therapeutic Hypnosis. The small numbers allowed great interaction, with all involved trying out hypnotising someone and to be hypnotised under supervision. It was certainly a relaxing day involving a nice mix of theory and practice.

In September we offered a half day on Filial Therapy which was led by Pam Wilkinson, also from Bradford CAMHS. This was an interactive session with toys and props receiving thorough attention from all of the adults in attendance during the role-play sessions. Fun was had by all.

Our Winter Festive event drew good numbers for the meal at Hazlewood Castle. To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of ACAMH we arranged for a talk to be held on the subject of 'the history of CAMHS' by Yorkshire's resident CAMHS historian, Dr Abdullah Kraam. Who would have realised that there were so many interesting beards involved in the early days? The event was attended by the incoming chair of ACAMH, Professor David Cottrell. It was so nice to catch up with colleagues from around Yorkshire in a lovely venue.

March had possibly our most complicated title to date: "Addressing Attentional and Behavioural Concerns of Children from a Sensory Modulation Perspective". This was very well attended (by our standards) and Lois Addy, University of York was well received with good feedback from the attendees.

For our AGM event in 2007 we have Professor Bryan Lask, University of London giving a talk on the fun of working in the field of Eating Disorders and in September we are currently planning a day on Child and Adolescent Learning Disabilities.

We have managed to send representation to all of the Sub-branch meetings in London and it is great to meet up with representatives from all around England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. These meetings have proved useful in sharing ideas for conferences and solutions to membership numbers and attendance at events. We appreciate that it is difficult for some, with the pressures of workload and scarce time to attend voluntary meetings, particularly with the travel time involved. London would still appear to be the best venue for these meetings with the multiple ways of getting there and these meetings are a useful forum for feeding information into the organisation from the branch-level up.

Finally I would like to thank all of the members of the committee who have contributed to organising events this year, all of the staff at ACAMH and in particular Ingrid King, Marie-Christine Rieder and Rosemary Mackenzie without whom, my job would be almost impossible.
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For all enquiries please contact:

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