INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF DEMOCRATIC THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITIES Meeting of the Advisory Panel held on 20st June 2014 Matera, Italy

Present
John Gale – in the Chair
Raffaele Barone
Marino De Crescente
Simone Bruschetta
Sladjana ŠtrkaljIvezić

Also present
Rex Haigh
Alberto Fergusson
Lili Valk¢
Nesha Kelly
Hiroko Sakate
Laura Porry Pastorel

Apologies
Natalie Scofield
Josè Mannu
Luca Mingarelli
Vesna Švab
Dóra Lőrik
Dimitris Moschonas
Terry Saftis
Zsolt Zalka
Yoo Mee

1 Minutes
The minutes of the Advisory Panel meeting held on were accepted as a true record.
2 Matters arising
We need to follow up the action points which were raised in the last meeting.
3 News from the regions
UK
We are planning to start a local INDTC group in London in July 2014. Prof Gary Winship (Institute for Mental Health, Nottingham University), Dr Chris Nicholson (Course Director, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, Essex University), Bill McGowan (Senior Lecturer, University of Brighton), Dr Jo Stubley (Adult Lead, Tavistock Centre) and Piero Moliterni (Research Assistant, Cassel Hospital) have agreed to form the committee. For the time being Terry is convening the group but as he is leaving CHT we will need to appoint a successor.

Italy
Rafaelle and Simone are cooperating with Rex Haigh on an experiential training programme in Sicily. They hope to start a local INDTC group in Sicily soon.

Marino had organised the first local INDTC group in Rome. It was held at the Comunità CasettaRossa on 31st May, and was very successful, and Laura was able to join them. The committee was made up of 10 participates who were mainly psychiatrists and they have planned exchange workshops with the London group to be held in Rome on 29th November 2014 and in May 2015 in London. Rex Haigh and Mike Goodwin, a Lacanian analyst and former Wing Therapist at HMP Grendon have agree to speak at the November meeting. John thanked Marino for all the hard work he had put in to make this first meeting such a success.

Hungary
Lilli – who was present as Zsolt’s representative – informed the committee that Thalassa Haz plan to hold a workshop, although the details have not been decided. When the details have been decided, Lilli will send the information to us.

Mexico
The local group in Mexico, which we hope to pilot this year, is in progress but has been delayed due to changes in personnel at CHT. The convenor, Maria Teresa Albarràn is a Lacanian analyst and teaches at one of the universities in Mexico. Laura is providing administrative support to Maria.

Alberto Fergusson kindly offered to promote INDTC among his South American contacts.

Japan
Rafaelle had visited Kyoto and Hiroko had managed to arrange a meeting for him with a number of leading clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. They showed strong interests in therapeutic communities. A video was made of one of the meetings and this has been posted on the INDTC website.

CHT will host some visitors from Japan in September.

Other countries
CHT has had a steady flow of international visitors and internships from Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.

Action: Laura to follow up the regional group in Greece.

4 Membership
1,025 members have now joined INDTC either through the INDTC website or the INDTC Linkedin group. The members are from 64 counties.
5 Website
The website was discussed and the following was agreed:

• The website needs more papers to be submitted; especially sharing papers and information from informal young members– all panel members will work on this.
• The news about local groups will be uploaded.
• All to encourage new members to sign up to the website
• Lili said some functions on the website did not work properly and Hiroko agreed to follow this up.
Action: Hiroko to contact the web designer to fix the problems on INDTC website.
Any Other Business
The papers from the 1st INDTC conference, which was held in Rome last November, has been published as a special edition of the European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling.

Next meeting:
We have two opportunities for the next panel meeting. One is to hold it at a workshop /conference organised by Sladjana at Zagreb in December and the other one is to link it to the first conference at Casa de Alba Portugal taking place on the 7th of November 2014.

After some discussion it was agreed that Hiroko would send round an email to all Advisory Panel members to see which would be most likely to maximise attendance.
Hiroko Sakate: 27th June 2014