Family therapy training—give the customers what they want

Family therapy training is an area of current interest and debate within the Association for Family Therapy. At a local level regional groups and branches have been promoting family therapy through a variety of sources and events (Bott, 1979; Haldane, 1980). The development of training has therefore been of a haphazard and ad hoc nature. More recently the Sub-Committee on Training for Family Therapy has addressed itself to establishing and co-ordinating formalized training programmes and to the attendant issues of course structure, content and accreditation.
The Workshop at Bangor looked at the rationale behind and organization involved in setting up introductory training in family therapy. Several introductory training schemes already in operation throughout the U.K. were described and the results of a recent consumer survey conducted in Northern Ireland were presented.