Harold S. Bernard Group Psychotherapy Training Award

Rationale:

In an effort to promote the visibility of practice standards and to encourage life-long learning, an award was established by the International Board for Certification of Group Psychotherapists in 2002 to recognize individuals, programs or institutes that make an outstanding contribution to group psychotherapy education and/or training or contribute to standards of practice in a meaningful way. This highly regarded award is presented at the Community Meeting held at the AGPA Annual Meeting.

Endowment:

In 2012, the annual training award was renamed the "Harold S. Bernard Group Psychotherapy Training Award" though a legacy gift provided to the Group Foundation for Advancing Mental Health by Dr. Bernard's estate for the purpose of endowing the award. Dr. Bernard was an esteemed leader, teacher, colleague, and friend in the field of group psychotherapy and AGPA and its related organizations were his second family. His contributions to the field in general and to AGPA specifically were impressive in their scope and their impact on the field. Throughout his lifetime, training in group psychotherapy was near and dear to Dr. Bernard's heart. His legacy bequest ensures that individuals and programs meeting a high standard of training quality are identified and honored for their contributions to the field in developing the next generation of clinicians who use group psychotherapy to help people.


Our team is so humbled and honoured to be recognized in this way, and all 5 Co-Directors travelled to New York City in March 2023 to receive this award. While at the conference, we also presented an Open Session titled, On Becoming the Toronto Institute of Group Studies.

We are grateful to so many of our colleagues and trainees, who nominated us for this award, and wrote letters of support on our behalf. We believe that this recognition will increase our exposure and credibility, allowing us to expand our access to more international and local invited faculty, as well as potential funding sources. In addition, it will potentially give our graduates increased acknowledgement in their own workplaces and with clients.