The Abstracts of the 2nd APS Psychology and Ageing Interest Group Conference

This second PAIG national conference has been exciting in a different way to the first. In 2005 we as a group were feeling our way, constantly pleasantly surprised that our speakers and the conference itself were so successful. This year we are approaching the conference with some experience under our belts, and have been more confident and bold with our plans. We have expanded the conference from two to three days, setting aside two separate streams to work on policy issues, namely increasing the number of practical placements for clinical students in old-age settings, and working together to draft a set of Australian guidelines for training in clinical geropsychology. Stakeholders from state and commonwealth government, industry representatives and relevant APS college chairs and senior management have been invited to participate in these important endeavours. For the guidelines we are pleased to have Bob Knight, the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology, Psychology and Counselling Psychology at the Andrus Gerontology Centre, University of California, revisit our conference and lend his support. (Bob was instrumental in bringing together the American guidelines for clinical geropsychology training.) We are also pleased this year to have two distinguished keynote speakers - Louis D. Burgio, Ph.D, Director of the Applied Gerontology Program at the University of Alabama, and architect of the influential Resources for Enhancing Alzheimerʹs Caregiver Health (REACH) intervention training program, and John Snowden, professor of psychiatry at the University of Sydney with a longstanding interest in residential care. In addition to papers, symposia and workshops on many aspects of clinical ageing, we will take time to award our Elsie Harwood Award for the best honours/coursework masters thesis on ageing, to its two corecipients (a first this year!). We look forward to meeting with our colleagues across Australia and further afield, and sharing our knowledge and enthusiasm for the field of geropsychology.