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Siobhain O'Riordan
At the time of writing it is a little over half way through 2007. In this, our third year, the SGCP Committee has remained dynamic and active with a strong ‘future focus’ providing further momentum. To ensure sustainability this has been set within the context of a period of consolidation to also take account of changes taking place within the British Psychological Society, which may impact on our work areas. We are now also in the final stages of producing a business plan for 2007-2008 to map out our current and planned future activities.
The SGCP is a very busy subsystem and I would like to thank all of the people who voluntarily give their time to support the many different areas of our work. In my last Chair’s Report (TCP, Vol. 3, No. 1, April, 2007) I provided an update regarding the restructure of our sub-committees. I would now like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank members of the former Professional Practice and Research and Professional Development, Training & Event Management sub-committees, for their significant contributions on behalf of SGCP.
Being a member of the SGCP enables you to be part of a dynamic, multi-disciplinary network focussed around our common interest in coaching psychology. We continue to provide a number of member benefits that include our regular publications The Coaching Psychologist (TCP) and The International Coaching Psychology Review (ICPR), membership delegate rates at SGCP events/conferences and being part of an online community of coaching psychologists via the SGCP E-mail Discussion List. I hope you agree that this offers good value in terms of the current £3.50 membership subscription rate.
As part of our overarching strategic aim, to promote the development of coaching psychology, we are currently focusing on a number of initiatives to further establish our existing links and develop new opportunities to work with other psychological professional bodies in Europe and beyond. Psychology professional bodies share similar aims and interests; therefore, it is timely for the SGCP to move forward with this strategy for the purpose of developing the coaching psychology brand and promoting coaching psychology.
As part of this initiative, representatives from different psychological bodies and associations across Europe were invited to attend the 1st International Coaching Psychology Conference, hosted by the SGCP. Additionally, an International News section has now been introduced to TCP. This year representatives from European psychology bodies are being invited to attend our 3rd National Coaching Psychology Conference in December. The SGCP view that strengthening these relationships will provide more opportunities to encourage, promote and support the research and study of coaching psychology and enable greater opportunities to promote the application of appropriate ethical standards and guidelines for the practice of coaching psychology.
Our leading international coaching psychology publication, ICPR, will be appearing three times this year. The ICPR is a testimony of what is possible through creating links with other psychological professional bodies, as it is a joint publication between the Australian Psychological Society’s Interest Group in Coaching Psychology and the SGCP.
We are currently focused on our planning for the 3rd Annual National Conference, which will be held on 17th to 18th December, 2007, at City University. We are pleased to announce that the keynote speakers are now confirmed. With Dr Tony Grant, Prof. Carol Kauffman, Prof. Ernesto Spinelli, Sir John Whitmore and Dr Alison Whybrow as our main speakers we are looking forward to a very good conference. Please do review the separate adverts in this issue of TCP for further information about the conference and details regarding the submission of abstracts if you would like to present your research or work as a coaching psychologist at the conference.
At the time of writing our first regional half-day event since 2005 will be held in Edinburgh, in July, titled ‘Using Cognitive, Imaginal and Relaxation Techniques in Health Coaching: A Skills Based Workshop’ and will be facilitated by Prof. Stephen Palmer. This follows a very successful event earlier in June, facilitated by Carey Glass on the topic of Solution Focused Coaching. Our next one-day event planned for this year will be held at the Society’s London Office in September and further details are available on our website.
Where resources allow we are engaging with the branches of the Society. Dr Ho Law represented the SGCP and gave a well received overview of Coaching Psychology and the SGCP at the recent ‘Life Coaching in the Workplace’ event run in association with West Midlands Branch and UCE Business School. We are keen to engage in other appropriate opportunities to promote coaching psychology in line with our overarching strategic aim.
The question of accreditation is being very firmly pursued by the SGCP. The SGCP committee has recently asked the Society for advice, support and clarification in terms of the accreditation frameworks or options that are available now or likely to be available in the near future for coaching psychologists within the Society. You will see that we have provided the letter received in response to our request from Professor Pam Maras, Society President, for your information in this issue of TCP. An SGCP Accreditation Working Party has been formed, which with our committee will now continue focusing on issues relating to an accreditation process for coaching psychologists. In terms of broader external developments, the SGCP has had no news from ENTO about when the consultation around the new unit on the psychological underpinnings of ‘coaching and mentoring' will commence. This is an issue of growing concern that SGCP will follow-up in the coming months.
For more information about the activities undertaken by the SGCP and to check for news updates, please visit our website (www.sgcp.org.uk). If you would like to become involved in any aspect of SGCP activities I would like to encourage you to e-mail Helen Barnett at the Society’s subsystems office for an expression of interest form (Helen.Barnett@bps.org.uk).
On a practical note, the SGCP publications TCP and ICPR are available online on the SGCP website during the month shown for publication on their inside cover. However, due to matters relating to postage it may be the following month before hard copy versions are received. For the next issue of TCP, Dr Ho Law (SGCP Ethics Liaison Officer) will be writing an article to provide you with some further information about appropriate referencing and use of the Society and SGCP membership descriptions. In the meantime further information relating to the Society’s Statute 31 is available on-line at:
/the-society/ethics-rules-charter-code-of-conduct/ethics-rules-charter-code-of-conduct_home.cfm.
Finally, it is, of course, only ever possible to provide an overview of activity within the context of a short report but I hope that this has provided a flavour of progress and developments since my last update. If you do have any thoughts, comments or feedback about the SGCP I would welcome you getting in touch with me.
Siobhain O’Riordan
E-mail: sgcpchair@bps.org.uk
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