Sloane

Veshinski

President

February 26, 2008

Dear members and friends of BAMFT:

The year is off to a tremendous start!  BAMFT continues to expand its membership and maintain an extraordinary offering of workshops.  Your support and participation are deeply appreciated.

It’s hard to restrain myself from overusing superlatives!  On January 25th, BAMFT sponsored an All-Day Couples Conference that offered a selection of six different workshops.  It was an ambitious event for us and 52 participants gave us high marks in their evaluations of the workshops.  Our presenters, student volunteers, and board members all contributed to make this a very professional, very well-organized event.  One presenter commented, “I’ve presented at state and national conferences and I wasn’t treated this well!”  It’s all part of BAMFT’s efforts to advance our profession.  Mark your calendar for next January (2009) when we will offer the second bi-annual, day-long conference of workshops to help clinicians (LMFTs, LCSWs, LMHCs) earn CEUs required for licensure renewal.

I want to acknowledge Paul Gallant, PhD, LMFT, who presented the workshop on Friday, February 22nd: The Metaphor of “Strength”: Applying the Skills of Narrative Therapy in Work with Children and Young Adults.  It was an informative and engaging morning.  Paul graciously accommodated a change in the workshop calendar when the originally scheduled presenters had an emergency.  Kate Warner, PhD, LMFT; and Martha Laughlin, PhD, LMFT (of Valdosta State University), have rescheduled their presentation, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Recipes for Resilience, for Friday, April 25th.  Plan now to attend!

In the meantime, Dawn Shelton, PhD, LMFT, presents A Clinician's Guide to Working with Families and Adoption: Bonding with Forever Children, on Friday, March 28th.  Be sure to continue to check the BAMFT website at www.bamft.org for details and the most current information.  We’re doing a better job of consistently updating the website with news and events, so check it out!

The willingness of such high-quality speakers to accept our invitation and volunteer their time is a testament to the work of the BAMFT board and how the chapter, with the support of AAMFT members and professional colleagues, is maturing.  This is part of BAMFT’s mission to serve as a resource for South Florida’s marriage and family therapists and our professional colleagues.

If you would be interested in assisting BAMFT in any capacity, please feel free to contact me—or any board member.  See the “Contact Us” page on the website (www.bamft.org) or just mention it to any of us when you see us at a workshop.  We’re always looking for new ideas, energy, and new faces!

If you have any questions or concerns of any kind, feel free to contact me or a member of the board!  I look forward to seeing you at the next workshop on March 28th!

Sincerely,    

Sloane Veshinski, MS, LMFT, CAP

President