A Division of BACP |
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A Division of BACP |
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Conference 2004 Feedback from the 2004 Conference 14/05/04 Making the most of your career: getting there! staying there! This conference marked a departure from the majority of ACW conferences both in terms of its content and its duration - it was the first event we have put on which had, as its primary focus the individual practitioner and their career development. It is also the first annual conference to move away from the 2 - day model, long associated with ACW. 95% of respondents felt that one day events like this are a good idea which seems to endorse the decision. Meeting the need ACW is an extremely diverse organisation and within our membership are people at many different stages of their careers; some recently qualified, others seasoned practitioners. There are service managers amongst us, whilst others work in private practice. Most, but by no means all of our members, are counsellors first and foremost, but there are many counsellors seeking to extend their practice into coaching, mediation, training and other related specialisms. This is of course no less true of the wider community of people involved in workplace counselling, some of whom, whilst not ACW members, regularly attend ACW events. We recognised from the start that putting on an event that sought to satisfy the development interests of such a diverse constituency was going to be a difficult proposition. Nevertheless we felt, that as the counselling field is so lacking in conventional career pathways, there was a real need for a conference that looked at the different development routes open to people. Conference feedback The feedback suggested we were reasonably successful in addressing this need, with 85% of those who attended feeling the conference was good value for money. 15% did not and whilst this is of course disappointing, we are pleased to have received their feedback as it will hopefully enable us to plan future events in such a way as to satisfy all participants. On the positive side the conference was described in the following terms "really good", "enjoyable" and "very welcoming". Others said "I will look forward to further ACW events" and "I enjoyed the obvious professionalism and ready welcome". The more negative views expressed included "there wasn’t enough time for everything", that "some network events were poorly facilitated" and that "there wasn’t enough on for experienced counsellors". Overall however the conference was enthusiastically received. Most of the programme scored highly, with the workshop on managing a workplace portfolio and the careers audits going down especially well. The market place was popular and generally the conference was felt to be professional and well organised. Finally, a big thank you to everyone that returned questionnaires. There is much in the responses that gives us food for thought as we look forward. A recurrent suggestion for future themes was to explore dimensions of the counsellor/organisation interface including connections with HR, organisational awareness and workplace trauma care. It was suggested that more information on EAPs would be appreciated and that relaxation opportunities, jacuzzi, massage etc. would add a welcome splash of hedonism to the occasion We will bear these and other suggestions in mind for the future. We also hope that the lessons learnt from this will inform the quality of future events and in particular the trauma conference, earmarked for early next year, which promises to be a very exciting prospect. Information on this can be found under Conference 2005 on the homepage and other ACW activities are listed under Events.
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