At the beginning of this year, I was pleased to receive an


invitation from the International Family Therapy Association to join their board. It is good for AFT to be looking outwardly and working with our colleagues from overseas and I have accepted. Relationships with our family therapy colleagues overseas has always been so important. We mourn the loss of Salvador Minuchin and also Lynn Hoff man, who sadly died at the end of last year: they have both greatly infl uenced our teaching and thinking and work with families. I will keep you updated on the international association’s activities and am aware they are looking at hosting their 2019 conference in Aberdeen. Still a long way to travel, but somewhat closer than recent destinations they have had. It is in Bangkok this year and I will let you know some of the highlights in the next AFT news. By the time you read this current news, the AFT board of directors


and trustees will have met with chairs of committees and, following that, the chief executive of UKCP at our January board meeting. We are looking at what AFT needs to do over the coming months and our strategy over the next fi ve years. My personal objectives are to ensure we keep the training review, started last year, together with research, on the agenda and look at developing our social media and communication with government, so that family and systemic psychotherapy is at the heart of people’s thinking. Demonstrating our good practice and ethical principles is important. Thanks to the eff orts of Myrna Gower and the work group, you will see below a launch of our new Red Book on training standards for supervision. Also, see the report below from Anni Hilton and our ethics committee. Our thanks to them for keeping our ethics policy under review and dealing with ethical issues that arise. I know that they are seeking new members and if you are interested in ethics, please get in touch.


With my best wishes Shan Tate, chair


The launch of the Red Book (3rd edition)


Training standards and requirements for systemic supervisors and supervision training courses I extend my congratulations to AFT on the launch of the Red


Book (3rd edition). The 4th edition of the Blue Book was successfully launched at the


conference in 2015 and the Red Book (3rd edition) was announced at the conference AGM in September, 2017. All training programs are now working towards the standards contained in these two volumes with changes expected to be fully implemented by 2019. The newly reviewed Red Book can now stand side-by-side, updated, in line with current supervision training and also in line with procedures for the recognition of supervisors. My special appreciation extends to the core Red Book review


working group: Barry Mason Gary Robinson Hannah Shebersky John Burnham Paul Tibbles Judith Lask Marie McGovern Ros Draper Thanks go to all others who showed interest in our work and added to the thinking in the reformulation of the text. The


Context 155, February 2018


attention and feedback from committees, training courses and then from the board was invaluable. CRED took the lead on the Blue Book project and has also been the reference committee to the Red Book review group. This was a truly collaborative enterprise achieved via regular


monthly telephone meetings over the year, paired reviewing of text outside of meetings, multiple exchanges of emails and the co- ordination of renewed drafts as we progressed. A lengthy face-to- face meeting was important in the development of the fi nal draft before submitting that draft for wide circulation and feedback. In brief, the scope of document sets out the following:


1. The requirements which courses have to meet to become “AFT Accredited” as well as the process of accreditation and 4 yearly review.


2. The competences required for a supervisor to be considered eligible for inclusion on the list of AFT Approved Supervisors and the UKCP Supervision Directory of Approved Supervisors. It is important for us to remember this remains a document


in permanent/constant development (as with the Blue Book) – its publication a punctuation in time – that will continue to respond to the landscape of training and practice and in coming years will need further review and renewal. I hope that all (even those not directly involved with training) will


be tempted to read both documents as a way of becoming familiar with the landscape of training and thereby being reassured of the high standards that underpin our professional practices in line with UKCP policies. Please fi nd them on the training page of our website. This message could not be complete without my thanks to Sue


and Dawn who have supported me all the way through this process and for trusting me, even when not always convinced of the chosen ways forward. You have promoted the updated standards of training and supervision, edited the document over and over and allowed the development of visions for the future. Albert Einstein said that he never taught his pupils. He only


attempted to provide the conditions in which they could learn. This is refl ective of our task. It has been a privilege to lead both of these projects and to bring


them to fruition.


With my best wishes Myrna Gower The AFT board would like to extend its own thanks to Myrna for


the amount of work that has gone into developing the new Blue and Red books. We admire her organisational skill, patience and determination in dealing with numerous versions, comments and edits. Thank you Myrna.


Ethics committee At the ethics committee last year, we decided we should draw our


member’s attention to the work of this committee and our code of ethics and practice on a more regular basis. The committee constantly strives to obtain best practice, but also to protect our members in their work. We hope that our AFT code of ethics strives to do this and we review and amend this regularly. We have reviewed this in light of recommendations made in our quinquennial review by UKCP and in response to recent discussions, paragraphs 13 and 43 have been expanded with regard to sexual attraction and relationships with clients. The current code of ethics is printed on page 57.


55


AFT news


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