Following the success of last year’s Inaugural Conference the BABCP Bipolar Disorder Special Interest Group (BD-SIG) will be hosting a one-day conference on the 19^th May 2011.

The SIG was formed in July 2009 following an initial meeting at the BABCP Conference at Exeter. Professor Steven Jones and Paul Hammersley from the Spectrum Centre at Lancaster University have been elected to act as joint presidents of the SIG, with Dr Kim Wright from Exeter University and Dr Kim Bowen Jones acting as treasurer and secretary respectively, the other three BABCP members making up the SIG committee are Dr Bill Sellwood from Liverpool University, Dr Graeme Reid from Mersey Care Early Intervention Service and Dr Emily Holmes from the University of Oxford.

The aims of the BD-SIG are:

1. To facilitate dissemination and awareness of developments in psychological understanding of the experiences of individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder and of those with related mood experiences in the wider community.

2. To support cooperation of clinicians and researchers in research designed to develop and evaluate improved psychological approaches for individuals with experience of bipolar disorder.

3. To support dissemination of evidence-based psychological approaches for individuals with experience of bipolar disorder including enhancing training opportunities for clinicians.

A core principle of the BD-SIG is that the work we do should be directed towards improving service-user valued outcomes employing therapies which service users themselves regard as appropriate and helpful. It is therefore central to our endeavours that we will liaise and collaborate with service users in all of our future discussions and projects. At the BD-SIG inaugural meeting, it was discussed that future conferences should benefit from clinical and service user input as well as academic input. Therefore, our 2^nd annual BD-SIG conference will include a half-day of talks from the perspective of clinicians and service users, and a half-day of talks on current research in bipolar disorder.

The second annual BD-SIG one day conference will be held at Lancaster University on May 19^th 2011. Speakers will include Dr Erin Michalak from the University of British Columbia, Dr Kim Wright from the University of Exeter, Professor Steve Jones, Dr Fiona Lobban and Paul Hammersley from Lancaster University.

Further information can be obtained from Jayjay Sanson at j.sanson@lancaster.ac.uk.