CPD in the South West

Yvonne Stevens, 2006. CPD in the South West. Reformulation, Summer, p.18.

CPD IN THE SOUTH WEST

Yvonne Stevens

The first meeting of CAT in the South West was held at Crossmead Conference, Centre, Exeter on 2nd May organised by Maddy Jevon, Sonia Hilder and myself.

Since being asked to initiate and co-ordinate CPD events in the South West, the first task, which is still on-going, was to locate, make contact with and consult the many CAT practitioners, trainees and psychotherapist living and working in the South West. To be added to the contact list please contact Maddy Jevon at: madjevon@blueyonder.co.uk

Our first information gathering exercise reaped about 50 responses, with more having been added since, asking what people wanted from CPD events, and what they could give or offer of their own time, experience and expertise.

The turn-out to our first meeting of 34 delegates from Cornwall to Bristol to Poole was a confirmation that this was something that was both needed and wanted – an opportunity to network and meet other CAT therapists either working locally or with the same patient group or in the same context.

There was plenty of time for networking and discussion built into the programme for the day, and a focus on issues of interest and concern for future CPD events and preparation of questions to ask our first guest speaker Mary Dunn, chair of ACAT.

We were delighted to have Mary to talk to us about the work of ACAT, presented in a very user-friendly way, and she left us all well informed, and I for one, impressed, by the variety of issues that the ACAT committee and sub-committees are addressing.

After the usual excellent fayre from Crossmead our “after-lunch entertainment” was from Dr Jason Hepple who led us on a scenic path to visit some of the thoughts of Bakhtin that he had been considering and invited us to consider their implications and relevance for our work.

The plenary focused on “where next” – and this together with the morning’s groups, covered issues from training, regionalisation, research, promoting CAT in the NHS to interest in setting up local interest groups, a directory of CAT resources and thinking about the future constitution of CAT SW. More specific interests included events on CAT in groups; Attachments Theory; research; specialisms; personality disorder; hearing voices groups and more on Bakhtin. The strong feeling emerging from the energy and enthusiasm of the day was for a wish to have a place to keep the dialogue alive.

Our next meeting is to be held in Bristol in the autumn, date and programme t.b.a. Please check the web-site for news.

Yvonne Stevens