Reflections on SMARTVR, our 2013 Conference

I am just coming ‘down to earth’ following another exceptionally successful VRA conference, this year held in Manchester. Yet again, this was superbly organised by Chris Parker and the Professional Development Committee. It was good to welcome visitors from Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Portugal and particularly to welcome two founding members of the VRA, Peter Davies and Judy Reading-Kitchen, in all about 140 delegates.

The conference would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors who are Back on Track, Broadspire, Bush and Company, , Dyslexia Foundation, The Inguz Project, Innovate HMG, KMG Health Partners, Obair Associates, Rehab Options and Spring Active Rehabilitation. 

The most important event at the conference was the launch of the heavily revised and updated VRA Standards of Practice. The first edition has been well used, frequently being downloaded by the international fraternity as well as within the UK. We were delighted and honoured that Dr Bill Gunnyeon from the Department for Work and Pensions agreed to launch them for us. He stressed the importance of vocational rehabilitation professionals practicing to the highest standards, a point I reemphasised at the Annual General Meeting – one of the best attended yet.

The VRA is very grateful to the Continuing Education Group for all their hard work on the standards and to ABI Solutions and KMG Health Partners for supporting their production. You can find links to download the standards and some supporting documents including an audit tool here.  I am delighted to report that within just twenty-four hours, over 50 people had already downloaded the standards from the web in addition to the many copies we handed out at the conference. 

Bill’s keynote and the standards launch was just the beginning of an exciting event We had three more excellent keynote speeches and a total of fourteen workshops covering areas as varied as ‘mental health and workplace adjustments’ to ‘Mindfulness’ and  ‘auditing your practice against the new VRA standards’.  Again, it was good to see four posters that generated much interest.  You can find copies of most of the presentations here and more about the speakers here.

For me the student presentations were always going to be a highlight, with student bursary holders from 1st year undergraduate to 2nd year MSc students presenting on really difficult topics like homelessness and conversion disorder.  I think it is important that we encourage students interested in VR and am delighted that each year we sponsor five students to attend the conference on a full bursary.  We also very much appreciated the help of our conference hosts, students who are currently graduating from the University of Salford.  They and other volunteers helped greatly with the smooth running of the event.

A further demonstration of VR innovations were shown in the VR initiative award with many congratulations to Remploy’s Mental Health Support Service.  Steve Little, Operations Manager for the Vocational and Medical Rehabilitation service at Papworth Trust and a long-standing VRA member was awarded VR Practitioner 2013.  Our winners were completed by Victoria Mandrell whose research was sponsored by Bush and Co; this was on Acquired Brain Injury and the Negotiation of workplace reasonable adjustments: An exploration of the experience of case managers and took the new VR Research and Education category. I was delighted at the number of nominations and only sorry that more couldn’t have won! Details of all our finalists can be found here and we will be publishing features about our winners and finalists on the website in due course.

Victoria Mandrell, Vanessa Moore and Steve Little

As always there was plenty of good networking and I was glad to find that some members had contacted each other in advance to arrange to meet at the conference – what a sensible arrangement!  To all of you who came and made it the educational and enjoyable meeting it was – a heartfelt thank you. An even bigger thank you to all the speakers and workshop organisers. 

As many of your know I am stepping down as Chair at the end of June.  However, I will still be around over the next year to support your new Chair John Pilkington.  My thanks for the Honorary Lifetime Membership and your kind comments at the event.

Professor Andrew Frank, VRA Chair receiving his Honorary Lifetime Membership from Professional Development Committee Chair Christine Parker

Next year is special as we will be turning 21. Let us know if you feel we should celebrate that in any special way.  Till next year then..... 

Professor Andrew Frank

VRA Chair