ANNUAL BRANCH REPORT (presented to the AGM 2007)
by Alistair Lyon, Chair, Scottish Branch

As the end of my first year as Chairperson of ACAMH Scotland draws to a close, I am pleased to report another varied and successful year of stimulating conferences with excellent speakers, some of whom have traveled from the USA to support ACAMH here in Scotland.

Over the year, we have had six extremely interesting events, with the total number of delegates at 603. Out of these 603 delegates who attended, only 85 were ACAMH members - 15%. It is concerning that only a small number of ACAMH members support their annual programme of events - however we continue to actively recruit new members and encourage them to attend events as much as possible.

Our programme is always well supported by a wide audience of multidisciplinary professionals and it is interesting to note that the majority attending last year's events were in fact from the field of education - 214 out of 603 delegates. Others included educational psychologists, paediatricians, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, nurses, social workers, speech & language therapists and GPs.

The 14 strong branch committee, made up of psychiatrists [2] clinical psychologists [2] educational psychologists [2] nursing [2] education [3] speech & language [1] and paediatricians [2] are now working towards the next programme of events which is based on the information received from delegates' evaluation forms and direct requests. This year the average percentage of returned evaluation forms was 84% - a positive sign that our delegates believe in our commitment to listening to their thoughts and wishes regarding speakers and topics and in our commitment to constantly improving our yearly programme.

Our meetings clearly follow the aims and objectives of ACAMH in supporting and promoting the scientific study of the mental health of children and young people. The Scottish Committee continue to maintain their reputation for offering very high standard evidence based research meetings and continue to work hard to ensure that the programme of events will appeal to a very diverse audience. I would therefore like to thank all the committee members for their hard work in preparing the yearly programmes and for their varied roles at each of the events.

However the biggest vote of thanks has to go to Rosemary Mackenzie our Branch Administrator and her faithful voluntary assistant Sharon Kinloch. Without Rosemary and Sharon we would not be able to produce such a varied and professional programme of well planned events!
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For all enquiries please contact:

Rosemary Mackenzie
Branch Administrator
ACAMH - Glasgow Office
Unit 33, Six Harmony Row
GLASGOW G51 3BA

Tel: 0141 445 4340
Fax: 0141 445 6051

Contact Rosemary Mackenzie directly by email