It was an honour and a pleasure to be invited to attend and take part in the fifth annual conference on the Czech and Slovak School Psychologists' Association, held in Brno in February 1998. I am grateful to ISPA for providing the contact network without which, I am sure, the invitation would not have come about

Readers of »World-Go-Round« may recall than when he was studying in England last year Anton Furman, then President Elect of ISPA, accepted an invitation to attend a conference of the British Psychological Society and the annual course of the Society's Division of Educational and Child Psychology. As reported at the time, those were highly succesful visits from everyone's point of view.

In a section in the Brno conference dedicated to educational and school psychology in other countries, Joan Figg and Andrew Richards, who work in south London, gave a practical itroduction to dynamic assesment, using Anton as hapless volunteer for their demonstration. My own contribution was a more general talk about the current state of the proffesion in Britain, structures, training, and influence on public opinion. Our input was well received, arousing much immediate questioning, for which in fact the Chair allowed the session to overrun. Andrew and Joan then had to leave, but I was fortunately able to stay on there was much informal follow-up discussion throughout the rest of the day and the night.

Not surprisingly to anyone who has attended ISPA colloquia, there were many similarities between those concerns being expresed by participants, during discussions, and those which are familiar in Britain. There were, though, differences in emphasis arising largely from many of the Czechs and Slovaks being single-school based, whereas in Britain educational psychologists generally work for local education authorities.

Colleagues in the Czech and Slovak Republics are looking to develop their services in various ways. As in any international discussion, there are lessons to be learned, mistakes already made ones which can perhaps be avoided next time round, strategies which have proved succesful and maybe worth imitation. Of course, it would be quite wrong to imagine that any group of us has all the answers. Neither are the benefits of such discussion one-way: I believe it is always valuable to all of us to share experiences and plan together. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at Brno and hope that I shall have an oportunity to contribute to this conference again one day. This is the spirit of ISPA!

WORLD-GO-AROUND, March 1998, Vol. 25, No. 2, p. 4