The Malta Association for the Counselling Profession (MACP) recently organised its third national training week, entitled Narrative Approaches in the Helping Professions.
Over 60 professionals from various helping professions participated in one or more of the sessions. More than 30 participants attended the whole training week.
MACP invited Jane Speedy as the main speaker. Dr Speedy, BA (York), PGCE (York), M.Sc.(Bris), Dip.Counselling (Lon), Dip Narra Th (Adelaide), Ph.D.(Bris), a well-known figure in the field of narrative, is a senior lecturer in education (Counselling) and coordinator of CeNTraL - The Centre for Narratives and Transformative Learning.
She spent her earlier career in special education before moving into counselling and counsellor education. She teaches narrative therapy practice at Master's level and narrative and life story research at doctoral level. She has a keen interest in the development of practitioner research training environments. Her doctoral research, a narrative inquiry, explored the interrelationships between therapeutic and academic cultures.
Dr Speedy is interested in "troubling the edges" between therapy and research and in the development of new research methodologies that blur the genres between the arts and the social sciences such as auto-ethnographies, collective biographies, poetic and visual narratives and writing as inquiry.
Feedback about the training week shows that this year's theme was well received by the participants, who commented that the training week was very well organised and the speaker was enthusiastic about the subject. Dr Speedy reiterated that she never expected so many people to attend the training sessions after a long day at their respective places of work.
MACP has for the past three years organised successful training weeks, bringing to Malta world renowned practitioners from the counselling profession.
Tim Bond, an expert in counselling ethics, came over in 2004. Kim Etherington, an expert in working with survivors of child abuse, delivered last year training week. Preparations have already started for next year's training week.
Furthermore, MACP was invited by the International Association for Counselling (IAC) to organise the 2008 International Conference in Malta, with the theme Counselling for Peace.