DCP In Focus: August 2024

There are a number of important updates and interesting opportunities in this months newsletter and we hope you will find the time to read through it all.

We are also keen to flag the BPS statement on the violent racist attacks which have taken place in recent days in communities across the country.

As always, we welcome any comments or feedback.

- Julia Faulconbridge, DCP communications and publications lead

EDI podcast - we want to hear from you

We are getting in touch from the EDI sub-committee to hear your thoughts and ideas about our upcoming podcast. We would like to ensure that the podcast is created in collaboration with you, is inclusive, and meets your needs.

To help us co-produce the format and ethos of our podcast with you, please complete this short survey.

Could you be our Membership & CPD Lead?

We have a vacancy on the executive for someone to be co-opted to be our membership and CPD lead. This is a key role, looking at how we can best meet the needs of existing members and encourage more people to join.

Part of this is working to develop what DCP offers in CPD and training opportunities and includes working closely with our networks. You will be supported by the whole of the executive in this endeavour.

It would be possible to split this role so that two people share it; one taking the lead on membership and the other on CPD. If you would like to have a chat about this role then please contact our chair Kalpita Kunde.

Nominate or apply for the 2024 DCP Awards

Our 2024 awards are open for nominations and applications until 30 September 2024.

The M.B. Shapiro Award is a lifetime career award for psychologists who have achieved eminence in the profession, while the May Davidson Award recognises clinical psychologists who have made a significant contribution to the profession during the first ten years of their career.

Our Pre-Qualification Award promotes and encourages the contribution of pre-doctoral clinical work, while the Trainee Research Excellence Award and the Trainee Excellence in Practice Award both recognise the work of our fantastic trainees.

Individuals can be nominated for these awards by colleagues who recognise their contribution or by the individual themselves. More information these awards and about nominations and applications can be found on our website.

How to speak to children about trauma and tragedy

Following the tragic events in Southport, expert psychologists from the BPS have given their advice for parents on how to support their children through distressing events.

They include Dr Sarah Parry from our Faculty for Children, Young People and their Families -you can read the full article on the BPS website.

News

South Asian Heritage Month

The EDI sub-committee is keen to draw on the arts to highlight issues around difference, diversity and intersectionality in line with the theme 'Free to be me'. For South Asian Heritage Month 2024, we are currently offering an exciting opportunity for members to take part in a 12 month music and film making project.

This will entail joining a task and finish group, which will meet bi-monthly to work on a music video using a song written by Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. This song, which asks for peace for humanity during times of turbulence was translated by Sidrah Muntaha, EDI lead, earlier this year and used as part of a reflective piece on our trauma reactions to political violence and war.

This music project will give members an opportunity to creatively work with the DCP's EDI sub-committee, as well as the BPS EDI team, a filmmaker, a music producer, and potentially a local artist to highlight a specific theme in relation to EDI. This theme will be selected by the task and finish group from a range of potential areas of concern in regards to EDI including (but not exclusively) the following:

• Disproportionate impact of climate crisis in specific parts of the world
• Experience of discrimination in minoritised communities
• Impact of poverty on mental health
• Trauma and substance misuse in young men
• Racism in mental health care
• Domestic abuse and gender-based violence

Members of the task and finish group will have the choice of whether to appear in the footage used or to contribute behind the scenes. The final music video is anticipated to be completed by July 2025 and will be shared publicly across all DCP platforms, including social media, for South Asian Heritage Month 2025.

If you would like to know more, please contact Sidrah Muntaha.

Guidance on planetary health and its relevance for clinical psychology

We are pleased to announce new guidance 'Clinical psychology and planetary health: Changing course in the storm'. 

This comprehensive guide is the result of a collaboration between the GTiCP's Planetary Health Subgroup, DCP Faculties, and the BPS. It highlights the relevance and implications of the climate and ecological emergency (CEE) across a range of specialities, including children, older adults, learning disabilities, and physical health conditions, detailing implications for clinical psychologists' practice.

Discover how clinical psychologists can adapt and help others to adapt to the realities of the CEE. Also learn about the many ways in which clinical psychologists can get involved in action to mitigate against further environmental harms. 

You can access the guidance now on the DCP website under 'climate and environment' (you will need to log in).

New Environmental Psychology Section Approved

Following a successful member vote at the recent AGM, members are now able to join the new Environmental Psychology Section.

The section will bring together members and aim to unite and engage the broader environmental psychology community, provide dissemination, networking, and career development opportunities, and position environmental psychology in the UK as a prominent advocate for positive societal and environmental change.

Members can apply to join the section via the applications button in their BPS portal account.

Leadership and management developmental programme

Improving competence and impact

• 27 February 2025
• 28 February 2025
• 28 April 2025

Location: BPS London offices

Following a successful 2024 Leadership Development Programme, the faculty is setting up its 2025 programme exclusively for clinical psychologists.

Given the profound impact of the pandemic on the psychological workforce, combined with other social and political events, and the new challenges facing our services, the work of clinical and professional leadership is changing. The faculty remains committed to supporting the development of confident and competent leaders who can help steer the profession through these challenges. Our work and learning from the 2024 programme has highlighted the value of support for leadership and management development.

We have noted the following key areas of leadership and management development in the current changing and complex environment:

• Development around self-confidence and competence
• Development to manage and influence systems
• Ability to enhance quality service delivery, and a thriving and inclusive work culture

With this in mind, we are setting out our second Leadership Development Programme in 2025.

Programme content:

This programme will offer a blend of conceptual, experiential, and reflective learning, which will enable participants to explore and develop their leadership capability with lasting impact. The curriculum includes a range of relevant leadership models, approaches and tools looking at how they can be utilised on the ground to address key challenges. The key aspects of the programme include:

• Leadership, authority and power - professional and personal meaning
• Development of self-awareness and use of self in leadership and followership
• Models of organisations and change processes
• Inclusive leadership and management
• Working with conflicts and team dynamics
• Maximising impact and influence
• Sustaining self in leadership and management roles

The programme will consist of three full days across three months, with opportunities for action learning sets and a follow-up individual consultation as well as exposure to experienced and inspiring leaders. Opportunities for mentoring will be explored. There will also be a chance to meet and form a peer group, which will become an important resource.

The content across the three days will blend three elements covering key concepts and tools related to leadership, an experiential component, and opportunities throughout the sessions for participants to reflect on and apply their learning to their particular situation and context.

Cost

The programme is partly funded by the DCP Leadership and Management Faculty.

The total fee is £400, which includes all elements of the programme.

Who can apply:

The programme is intended as a valuable developmental opportunity for those in AfC 8B and 8C roles with current leadership responsibilities across the public, private and third sectors. If you are interested, please contact Dr Amra Rao for further information, or access our application form. We aim to open recruitment in late autumn and notify successful candidates by mid-December.

Leadership and transformation event - 9 October

The faculty is setting out a national leadership event focused on transformation of services. It will address transformative ways of supporting people's emotional well-being that respects and responds to their experiences, to their communities, and the central importance of their financial and social security.

The event is part of the faculty's activities to mark its 20 years and think ahead about professional leadership.

Examples of good practice will be shared to consider ways to support each other to embrace the required cultural and systemic shift in the provision of more community led psychological services

Faculty for the Psychology of Older People updates

The Faculty of Psychology of Older People delivers a number of different outputs. Some work is specifically put into workstreams, and these have continued to progress.

The autism workstream, led by Dr Louise Rutter and Dr Anna Crabtree, has been really active. Louise presented at an NHS England webinar, and has been asked to present at the Royal College of Psychiatry Conference.

Dr Elspeth Webb has been leading on a piece of work looking at how therapies are adapted for older people with autism as as well as the workstream considering scoping the national picture regarding identification and diagnosis of autism in older adult mental health services: the experiences of psychologists and psychological therapists.

The carehomes workstream has hosted three national 'Let's talk' sessions so far, that have been very well attended. The working group members will be highlighting the ideas and developments at the 2024 FPOP conference, with a view to gathering more input from the membership for developing an onward plan for delivering specific outputs.

Our briefing papers on older people and the NHS England therapies are progressing through wider consultation. Feedback has been extremely positive and the first ones have been through the design team. Do look out for the launch at the end of the year/early 2025.

Within our inpatient workstream, we have identified that, although there is good guidance now out to support the psychological workforce, on the ground, our members tell us that their experiences are different and feel there is a gap which they would like support with.

We have put out a survey to understand our inpatient psychological provision (including CAPs, MHWPs, and assistant psychologists) better. We are looking at both workforce and activity. We will be showcasing some of the initial data at our annual conference.  

Our annual conference will be held online on 17 and 18 September. Although aimed at FPOP members, there is a lot of information that wider DCP members would be able to take a lot from.

We have sessions on behaviours that challenge and new ways of working, working neuropsychologically with people, as well as an update on the briefing papers for adapting therapies for older people.

We are also calling for nominations for our awards. Please do put forward older adult psychologists who have gone above and beyond in your local areas!

We want to be able to acknowledge the whispers as well as the more vocal among us.

We have held a number of networking events. These are smaller events for our membership which allows more opportunities to discuss an area of interest.

On 13 June,  we offered 'Writing for FPOP publication', as members have reported that they are doing a lot of work but fear around how to write up their work was a barrier to submitting. It was facilitated by Dr Anna Crabtree and Dr Catriona Craig (clinical psychologist) who are our current editors of the FPOP Bulletin.

The event informed attendees how to submit articles to the FPOP bulletin, and the gave advice on what it is that the editors are looking for. Anna and Catriona are always happy to support potential authors so do get in touch with them if you are thinking of writing something.

The second session on 27 July provided an opportunity for participants to discuss some of the issues around the introduction of new roles for psychologists in the NHS, and had three presentations.

In the first presentation, Gill Mackie talked about the development of the CAP role from her perspective as CAP course director at Exeter University.

In the second presentation, Helen Carter and Emma Hand described their experiences of the CAP role from their differing perspectives (Helen is the service's professional lead, and Emma is a CAP) in Devon Partnership Trust.

Finally, Laura Sawyer and Dee Barrenger-Higgins described the Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner roles in the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership trust. It allowed members to gain a better understanding of how these roles can be utilised within older adult services.

As well as some of our more core work, the national committee responded to a request from the Royal College of Psychiatrists to record an interview with a clinical psychologist to form part of a module for an international diploma in older people's mental health.

Dr Angela Smith was interviewed and provided an overview of the psychological aspects of older people's mental health to an audience of qualified psychiatrists looking to improve their knowledge in the field. Thank you for doing this Angela!

FPOP, alongside the DCP and other faculties, also contributed to the BPS manifesto, ensuring that the needs of older people are also highlighted.

Finally, Dr Angela Smith has agreed to a one-hour webinar providing an overview and taster as to the relationship between older people and planetary health in November.

This is an extension of the work started with her contribution to the document being coordinated by Marc Williams that has recently been though the BPS publication committee. The event link will be coming out shortly.

All information about FPOP can be found on our microsite, as well as how to join!

Upcoming events

The BPS Expert Witness Conference 2024 is taking place on 4 September.

A DCP East Midlands Branch event on 10 September will support clinical psychologists to understand contemporary thinking around gender identity, its relationship to therapeutic work, and clinical approaches to best meet the needs of service users regardless of gender identity.

A BPS webinar on World Suicide Day, 10 September, will provide insights into the origins of the social construct of suicide and suicide prevention in order to allow a relationship to develop with suicide – reducing fear.

Our Faculty of Psychosis and Complex Mental Health is hosting a webinar on acute services on 10 September.

Our Faculty for the Psychology of Older People is holding its annual conference online on 17 and 18 September.

Our Faculty of Forensic Clinical Psychology is holding its autumn meeting at Broadmoor Hospital on 19 September.

Our Faculty of Holistic Psychology is celebrating its twentieth anniversary at an event in London on 20 September