(Unsuccessful) Conference Abstract Proposal

“Potential Role and Contribution of Counselling Psychology to the Care of Street-Connected Children and Young People”

Parneet Chahal & Richard Fay (University of Manchester)

Abstract: This paper is based on a recently-completed, multilingually undertaken, counselling psychology study exploring the narrativised meanings made by young people in India regarding their street-connected experiences. In this paper, we briefly report the study and its innovative design and processes, before presenting the key insights arising from a thematic analysis of the stories. We then draw implications from these insights regarding the potential role and contribution of Counselling Psychology – working within and/or alongside interdisciplinary services in various settings – to the care of such young people for whom limited and inadequate provision of mental health care is evident in voluntary and state sector services, and with whom little qualitative research has been undertaken to date. Thus, working within the philosophical approach of the scientist-practitioner model, the potential contributions of Counselling Psychology are discussed in relation to not only research, but also in developing psychologically-informed theoretical and practice perspectives.

Submitted to the Counselling Psychology conference (London, July 2014)

And here was the response – anyone had experience of a Pecha Kucha presentation?

The Division of Counselling Psychology Conference Committee wish to thank you for your submission to this year’s conference, and we appreciate you taking the time to form an abstract. All submissions were blind reviewed by at least two members of the Division of Counselling Psychology who have experience in the subject area.

We have received an overwhelming number of high quality submissions this year, and were tasked with selecting the most evident high quality submissions for the programme. Based on the abstract provided, our panel feel the submission is not yet ready for a full-session presentation. We are keen to have your work presented at this year’s conference, and would very much like for you to resubmit your submission as a poster or be part of a new presentation initiative based on the Pecha Kucha style of presenting.  The poster submission deadline has been extended to 23 April 2014.

The format brief for a Pecha Kucha presentation is to prepare 20 slides, with 20 seconds per slide and time to answer one question.  Many presenters have found this new format to be an engaging and exciting way to disseminate their work, where the emphasis is on the unique and novel.  Please let us know if you would like to go ahead with this.

Below are some comments provided by those that reviewed your submission:

A well written Abstract however there is no indication of the scale and scope of the research.  A brief overview of the themes identified should also be presented.  Revise and re-submit as a poster/7 min presentation.

If you have any questions about preparing the presentation format, please direct them to the conference team at dcopconference@bps.org.uk . If you need to refer to the submission guidelines, these can be found on the event website. We very much hope that you will be able to attend the conference in July and would like to express the appreciation of the Committee for the interest you have shown in this Conference. If there is anything further you would like to know please do not hesitate to contact us.  It would be helpful if, in any correspondence, you quoted the reference number given at the top of this email. Thank you again for your submission and we look forward to seeing you at the conference.