Dear Colleagues:
We have just completed our first virtual AGPA Connect and we are so pleased and grateful to see and hear how it went for everyone. We know without a doubt that we are adaptive and innovative in a crisis. The past year has taught us a lot! It is now time to begin the planning to be back together in person in Denver, Colorado for AGPA Connect 2022!
AGPA Connect for 2022 will be held from February 28 to March 5, 2022 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel in the Mile High City: Denver, Colorado. The theme for the meeting is “Uniting Through Groups: Pathways to Understanding and Inclusion”.
Denver is a unique setting with beautiful parks inside the city and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains unfolding to the west. The Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel locates us near excellent restaurants, the craft beer scene, the Art District of Santa Fe, and plenty of shopping. Arrive early and stay late before AGPA Connect to take advantage of the mountain snow whether it be to ski, snowboard, cross-country ski, snowshoe, or just hang out in a lodge on top of a mountain.
As always AGPA Connect is about connection. We gather and connect with people from all over the world in our training events, in the hallways of the hotel, in coffee shops, the hotel bar, and at social events. Our training events are world-class and have a focus on interaction that encompasses conversations about research, theory, and the latest in clinical application. Relationships develop in Connect that last a lifetime.
We offer our attendees a wide array of learning opportunities that include formal presentations and lectures, experiential learning and demonstration groups, courses, and plenary presentations. We are open to multiple theoretical perspectives and embrace recent research findings. Our attendees come from diverse disciplines and backgrounds and serve a variety of populations within a wide range of settings.
Some of the questions we address are: What is the difference that groups make in the challenging world within which we live? If group is about relationships and connection, then how do we deepen people’s experience of each other in a world that seems increasingly disconnected, disembodied, and polarized, especially after the last year of a pandemic, racial unrest, and distortions of truth? How can group leaders more effectively respond to peoples’ complex identities? How can groups become a place to address structural and systemic racism? What is the research that supports the idea of group having the power to make a difference and bring about change? What are the future directions in research that will help us meet the challenges before us? How do we utilize and integrate the latest findings in neuroscience? What are some of the imaginative ways that the creative arts can be applied to groups? What did we learn from the pandemic and the climate disasters this year and how group helps people and communities work through these challenges to existence? These are some of the questions that you can address in the submission of proposals for the Specific Interest Sections, Workshops, and Open Sessions that are relevant to the theme: “Uniting Through Groups: Pathways to Understanding and Inclusion". We welcome proposals that focus on research findings, or theoretical approaches, or techniques and interventions geared to specific populations, or models of group therapy.
Diversity issues are integral to all the work we do as group psychotherapists. A culturally-responsive approach to group therapy respects peoples’ complex identities. In your proposal, it is mandatory that you explain how you will address and incorporate issues related to diversity (e.g., differing ages, races, sexual orientations, religions, gender identities, cultures, body size, abilities, or socio-economic realities), social justice, and/or anti-oppressive practices. Examples of how diversity can be addressed are provided on the submission form.
PLEASE NOTE: For those interested in leading Process Group Experience (PGE) sections for AGPA Connect, the National Institute Instructor Designate (NID) section will be held in 2022, the application may be found under the Institute section of the online submission form. In order to lead a PGE section, you must complete this training.
Qualifications for the National Instructor Designate (NID) Section:
- Applicant must have attended three Two-Day Institutes, either at the national or local level with at least one being a process group experience at the national level.
- Applicant should submit personal data including training, years and frequency of running groups, theoretical orientation and courses in group therapy (e.g., CGP course).
- Applicant should submit two letters of recommendation from supervisors and/or trainers familiar with their work and with the Institute or its equivalent.
We hope that you will join us this year and be a part of our community that is committed to group work and deepening our connections through training and learning together.
We look forward to receiving your proposals and to an enriching and exciting experience in 2022!
Sincerely,
Katie L. Steele, PhD, CGP, FAGPA
D. Thomas Stone, Jr., PhD, ABPP, CGP, FAGPA
Co-Chairs, AGPA Connect
