The Value of Conferences
EDITORIAL
Most readers were no doubt either present at, or regretted their absence from, the Association’s Conference at Seymour Hall on January 15th and 16th. This meeting is now an integral part of the work of the Association, and this year the large number of delegates provided evidence of the growth of interest in an ever-widening circle : the audience included many representatives of local authorities and of industry from all over the country, as well, of course, as of the medical and nursing professions and the social services.
It is, therefore, perhaps pertinent to enquire in this journal what are the greatest benefits of such a conference. Its success in the past and its present standing should be a challenge to us all to ensure that it is now serving the most useful function it can. The Association is anxious to benefit from the views and constructive suggestions of our readers on this very point. Conferences as a class, we feel, should provide certain opportunities?firstly, for instruction, by hearing the views of experts, and also the experiences of others in like (but not too like) situations;’ secondly, for a social gathering ; and thirdly, for objective thought, by allowing the delegates to step outside their own environment and see their own problems in perspective.
There can be no doubt that the experts were there, with great benefit to us ; and all our congratulations should go to the organizers, as well as to the eight speakers themselves, on the quality of the papers provided. Again, the opportunity of stepping out of a small circle into a larger one was freely given and freely taken, and we cannot be too grateful to the Government and other authorities for their encouragement and help in arranging for many delegates to attend.
We cannot, however, be so confident that individual delegates were able to voice or to hear many views which were really representative. Indeed some of the speakers in discussion (naturally only a fraction of a vast audience) found it obviously difficult in their few minutes to build constructively on the fundamental topics, or do more than pose their personal difficulties ; and there was no way of discovering how much they had the sympathy of the majority ; so that a comprehensive summing up could not be achieved. Naturally, there are difficulties inherent in the size of this gathering.
It seems, however, logical to consider the desirability of arranging some time for the conference to break up into sections, to allow more members to discuss their own views on perhaps narrower topics, to attempt to resolve their own difficulties in the light of their neighbours, and finally to determine constructive proposals for the future. This would entail the splitting of the long sessions into shorter periods?which would not necessarily be a disadvantage ; and it might also take an extra day. This would be well spent.
Note. We publish in this issue, as the third article of a series on special problems, a study of adolescent patients, written by Dr R. W. Pickford. The first and second articles appeared in our last two numbers. We also are beginning another series dealing with services of interest to the Social Worker, the first being on the work of a School Psychological Service by Miss Agatha H. Bowley, Ph.D., of the City of Leicester Education Department.
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