03/11/2024
High Leigh Conference Centre, Lord St, Hoddesdon En11 8Sg, Hoddesdon EN11 8SG ·
The 45th Annual International TCTC Conference
Containing Organisations in Complex Times
3rd – 6th November 2024
High Leigh Conference Centre, Lord St, Hoddesdon En11 8Sg, Hoddesdon EN11 8SG
“Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other”
Mother Theresa, Saint Teresa of Calcutta
| This Year’s Theme |
| A sense of belong is at the heart of human nature and the therapeutic endeavour, whether the secure base for an infant in their earliest years, a client engaging in one to one therapy, or one’s sense of connection to a group or community. Belonging can be to a home, a family, a place, an idea and a culture. What are the conditions needed to enhance belonging, and what are the factors that disrupt or prevent it? We are living in an ever more divisive society, where under the pressure of political, social and organisational fragmentation, it becomes more difficult to invest in one another and our joint enterprises. Finding and retaining staff who can build containing organisations seems to take longer. Blame, scapegoating and projection can seem to be easier than holding a ‘culture of enquiry’ and thoughtfulness, where understanding and opportunities for reparation and rebuilding can exist. How can we adapt, managing necessary organisational change and development while holding on to value-based and principled methods, theories and practices in our work? What new practices, concepts and ideas are emerging in TCs and other settings that can assist us in creating more containing organisations? |
Whether you are in a therapeutic community, an enabling environment, a therapeutic childcare setting or aspiring to work in a less medicalised and more relational and value-based way, come and find your place.
This event is designed for those who work with Children and Young People, in Adult Mental Health settings, or the Criminal Justice and Addictions settings, and for anyone who has lived experience of such settings. We hope to see more people of colour, and those identifying as LGBTQ+ or non-binary, who may not have attended our events before. All are welcome. We believe everyone can bring something of value and find value in community.
We invite submissions of abstracts for keynote presentations, research papers and for workshops which explore this title theme in creative and diverse ways. Please share innovative and imaginative practice from group, community and relational settings.
Guidance on call for papers
We invite submissions of abstracts of no more than 300 words for
keynote presentations, research papers and for workshops which explore this title theme in creative and diverse ways. Please share innovative and imaginative practice from group, community and relational settings. Since ours is an inclusive event, for practitioners thinking about and sharing their work as well as those presenting new ideas and research, please gear presentations to the widest audience.
Possible themes and topics for papers or workshops:
- Can different therapeutic communities models and approaches be unified or must they be segregated?
- How to we manage the often high staff turnover, and difficulties with recruitment into our complex organisations?
- What impact is there when culture carrying members, whether service users or staff, leave our communities and organisations and how can we transmit the culture and keep psychodynamic thinking alive?
- The intersectional TC: working with difference
- How is ‘belonging’ understood and experienced in different cultural and national contexts?
- How can therapeutic communities, enabling environments and other value-based relational or groups settings influence and improve the wider landscape of mental health services?
- Are Enabling Environments therapeutic communities by any other name?
- What is the future for therapeutic communities and enabling environments?
- How can we understand and articulate our approach in a way that has social and political influence?
- Is ‘community’ itself the method – in other words, the technology of therapeutic change? If so, how can we unpack and explain this ‘technology of therapeutic change’?
- Is TC a form of psychotherapy at the social level or just a place where different kinds of therapy happen?
- How can we hold on to these containing spaces, and what is needed to protect them from external impacts?
- How much is divisionism (the way we separate into tribal groups) a necessity for navigating the objective world we inhabit, and how much comes from psychological forces within us being projected onto others?
- In what ways can we hold onto the value of investment in each other, in community, in learning from groups, in reflecting on our behaviours and how we affect each other?
- Unsung heroes: profiling key people who have not been recognised for their contributions
If you would like to be part of the conference please email admin@therapeuticcommunities.org
Whether you are in a therapeutic community, an enabling environment, a therapeutic childcare settings or aspiring to work in a less medicalised and more relational, psychodynamic and value-based way, come and find your place.
This event is designed for those who work with Children and Young People, in Adult Mental Health settings, in the Voluntary Sector, in Criminal Justice and Addictions settings, and for those who have lived experience of all such settings.
All are welcome.
We believe everyone can bring something of value and find value in community.
Getting there
Car:
There is amble parking at High Leigh, including electric car charging points
Rail:
The nearest station is Rye House on the Greateranglia line, which can be caught from Liverpool Street, London.
Bus:
The buses 341, 641, 410 and C392 come into Lord Street, which is a 6 minute (0.3 mile) walk from the venue.
Air:
The nearest airports are Stanstead, Heathrow, London City and Gatwick.
To register your interest for the conference please email admin@therapeuticcommunities.org
