Cooperation with the Professional Community

  • Members of the Cooperation with the Professional Community Committee provide information about A.A. to those who have contact with alcoholics through their profession.  This group includes health care professionals, educators, and members of the clergy, lawyers, social workers, union leaders and industrial managers, as well as those working in the field of alcoholism.

  • The Area CPC Chair shall be available to visit and/or communicate with the Districts about working with professionals.  This shall include helping establish  and support District CPC Committees.

  • The Area CPC Committee shall cooperate with and support the Area Public Information (PI), Area Corrections, Area Treatment and Area Bridging the Gap (BTG) Committees.

  •  The Area CPC Committee shall communicate through printed material(s), presentations and other means as appropriate.The Area Chair appoints the CPC Committee Chair following the Election Assembly in October and shall serve a two-year term beginning in January the following year.

  • The Area CPC Committee consists of a Chairperson appointed by the Area Chair, a District Chair appointed by the Area Chair to sit on the committee, any District CPC Chairs and any AA member who desires to work with the Professional Community.

  • The Area CPC Committee meets at each Area 28 Meeting (4 times per year), and at the Spring and Fall Assemblies.  The CPC Chair may call for other meetings if a need arises.  The Area CPC Chair should attend all committee meetings.  In the event that the CPC Chair cannot attend a scheduled meeting then it is the responsibility of the CPC Chair to find a substitute for that meeting.

  • Each member of the CPC Committee has a vote within the committee and a simple majority shall constitute a passing vote within the committee.

Area 28 CPC chair is Rudy St. P.,  who can be reached at [email protected]

The General Service Office has developed Guidelines for CPC.

There is also a CPC Workbook available online.

There is a wealth of CPC materials available from GSO. Go the the GSO website at http://www.aa.org/lang/en/catalog.cfm?origpage=244&product=102.

Since our guidelines suggest that speakers often come from other districts, setting up programs can be challenging. As part of a joint initiative with Public Information, the area28 contact and coordinator to help arrange speakers is Mike L who can be reached at [email protected].If you have a request for a school speaker or are trying to arrange a program for students or for professionals, please feel free to contact him for assistance.

A major CPC initiative is trying to reach out to health care professionals through a Sponsor Your Health Care Professional program and packet. For a powerpoint presentation about this initiative see Info on Sponsor Your Healthcare Professional Packets.

Materials included in the Sponsor Your Healthcare Professional packet and available on this website: A Healthcare Professional Looks at AA, Note to Professional and Note to the AA member.

Doing presentations is an important part of CPC and PI work. Here are some Notes on Doing Presentations from the CPC Workbook and a model/sample/template presentation adapted for Area 28 in a PDF file for presentations.

Anonymity is a major issue in doing both Public Information and Cooperation with the Professional Community (CPC) work. The AA Pamphlet, Understanding Anonymity is an important resource and here is an excellent recent article on anonymity.