The Joint Committee on Higher Psychiatric Training (JCHPT) was set up to monitor the standards of higher training in psychiatry and also ‘to accredit completion of training by the award of an appropriate certificate’.*

Dr William H. Sheldon, Director of the Biological Humanics Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, died there on 16 September 1977. Sheldon is the man who invented somatotyping—a classification of variations in human body structure, to which he related variations in temperament, in physical and mental illness, and in patterns of growth and ageing.

As stated in ‘President's Press’ in the November issue, it has been agreed to hold a special meeting of Council members to discuss matters of mutual interest, to identify problem areas, and to begin to formulate College policy for the future development of our discipline. This meeting will be held at the College on 8 and 9 February 1979, following the Quarterly Meeting. The Divisions and Sections have been circularized and invited to discuss the selected topics in advance of the meeting, if possible. After the meeting the results of the discussion will be communicated to the Divisions and Sections for continuing debate.

This paper discusses the special problems of consultants' responsibilities in child and adolescent psychiatry, following the College memorandum (Bulletin, September 1977, pp 4–7). In particular consideration is given to the implications of consultants working in multidisciplinary teams and attached to clinics, residential homes and schools administered by the Local Authority. Ever since 1927, when Emanuel Miller opened the East London Child Guidance Clinic, a multidisciplinary team approach has been the elected method for dealing with psychiatric problems of children and their families.

This conference, under the title ‘Psychological and Psychiatric Perspectives in Mental Health’, was held at the University of Durham on 28 September 1977. I suppose that among the regular attenders of clinical symposia there can be few who, with the passing years, do not have cause to adjust their levels of expectation. Our earlier attendances at meetings may have carried hopes for blinding revelations of new educational horizons, but as time goes by one is more than grateful if the slightest snippet of a new idea escapes from the formal proceedings, and one looks most eagerly towards the byways of ‘between session’ encounters for the greatest personal, professional—and vocational—revivals. This is a premise which some may regard as cynical but I believe is simply realistic.

Any contribution to the debate on the pros and cons of accreditation is to be welcomed, but I am not sure that Dr Gill's notice does full justice to the complexities of the issue.