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No one else was in the room, but ten other practitioners considered her problem and offered advice. Some were at their desks in northern Ontario. Some were at home or at work in towns and cities across southern Ontario. People from all across the country and even south of the border have been invited to the next meeting. It could have been a conference call, costing hundreds of dollars, but this didn’t cost her a cent. It was a virtual meeting at Contact Point’s C-SPACE.

ACA Annual Conference

By Marc Verhoeve, Cybertraining Consultant

The city of San Antonio, Texas, is a picturesque city located within 200 kilometers of the Gulf of Mexico. Comparable to Toronto in population, it is imbued with Mexican culture and cuisine; its economy is dependent on two industries: five armed forces bases and conventions.

San Antonio is this year’s location for the 2001 American Counseling Association Conference, which hosted from March 15th to 20th professional caregivers, representing specialties such as career development , mental health, geriatrics, rehabilitation, marriage, social work, spirituality, and gay, lesbian and bisexual issues. Daily, from 8AM to 8PM, a total of 578 workshops competed for the professional development thirst of 4100 delegates

The delegates and presenters were primarily American; the non-American presenters [in addition to myself] hailed from Israel, Mexico, and Taiwan. My two sessions were “Cybercounselor’s Professional Toolkit” and “It Takes a Community to Develop a Career“.

The conference theme, “Counseling at Its Best: Celebrating the Human Spirit” nurtured a plethora of workshop topics, such as:

• Violence Prevention in Urban Schools
• Recovery from Severe Long-Term Illness
• Empowering Women for Equity
• Living a Virtual Existence: A Look at Internet Addiction
• Adoption and Family Rituals
• Strategies for Developing Web-Based Counseling Courses
• Counselor Training Model in Taiwan: Retrospection and Future Development.

Because of the number of simultaneous workshops, the delegates utilize a “drive-thru learning model”. They plot their workshop priorities, and may only stay in a session until the handouts are distributed. Presenters respond to this tactic by keeping the handouts until the end of their session. One popular format are the poster sessions, where the presenter posts details of a project, and responds to delegates’ questions.

Despite the expenses involved in attending this conference, it provides an incredible smorgasbord of professional development experiences. I heartily encourage counselling practitioners to consider attending [and presenting] at this outstanding conference. The locale for next March’s ACA Conference is New Orleans.

If you wish more details [or advice about proposal/ presentation protocols], please feel free to contact me:

Marc Verhoeve
Cybertraining Consultant
verhoeve@sympatico.ca