Psychology Careers Festival: Programme of events and speakers released

Keynote speaker Dr Marianne Trent is helping launch our festival on Monday morning at 10. Marianne is the owner of Good Thinking Psychological Services and host of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, and has had a fascinating and varied career journey so far.

She will be speaking about her career journey, including the skills she gained from her qualifications which she still uses every day, and what she loves most about what she does. She’ll be sharing her top piece of advice for a psychology graduate thinking of taking their training forward.

Other highlights of day one include:

• 11am - ‘ The importance of work experience and transferrable skills’ - workshop hosted by The University of Liverpool
• 11:30am - ‘My super mind!’ - A great event for GCSE and A-Level/Highers students, thinking about where studying psychology can lead
• 12pm - ‘How psychology interacts with influencer marketing’ with Dr Alan Gray
• 3pm - ‘Maths anxiety and women in STEM and scholarship opportunities, with Khudaija Ashfaq Ahmad

Tuesday 7 November 

Our second careers festival day hosts a packed schedule of diverse and fascinating speakers, including (at 11.15am) Denise Olukitibi who works as a senior product manager in the government’s Central Digital and Data Office.

Denise is the founder of Teach Her, a community organisation dedicated to creating pathways for women of colour into digital, data and technology careers. She will be speaking about how her psychology training informs her career in product management and her role providing training and support in a community start-up.

Other Tuesday highlights include:

• 10am - ‘Division of Health Psychology - the whats and the hows’
• 1:30pm - ‘A career within the Civil Service  - how Occupational Psychology fits in’ - Dr Antonia Dietmann
• 1:30pm - Employment Opportunity - Where roles within Beyond Autism can lead you - David Anthony from Beyond Autism

Wednesday 8 November 

Alongside traditional pathways for psychologists, there are a host of careers which are indebted to psychology, employing those with psychological expertise and training. At 2pm on Wednesday Dr Carolyn Mair, fashion business consultant and chartered cognitive psychologist, will be speaking about applying psychology in the world of fashion, the barriers she has overcome and her work as a consultant.

Carolyn is an author – her book The Psychology of Fashion was published in 2018 – and is frequently cited in press and media. Before becoming a psychologist she had a career as a visual merchandiser and graphic designer.

Other Wednesday highlights include:

• 9:30am - ‘Division of Clinical Psychology - the whats and the hows’?
• 10am - Practising as a Counsellor - Punam Farmah
• 1pm - The diverse applications of neuropsychology - Dr Alistair Teager
• 5pm - Virtual Employers Fayre

On Friday we host our Wider Psychological Professions day, where we take a deeper dive into the psychological professions within the NHS commissioned psychological healthcare.

Our keynote for the day is Adrian Whittington, a clinical specialist in psychological therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the National Clinical Lead for Psychological Professions.

Adrian provides professional leadership and advice across national NHS teams, and is passionate about making the NHS more psychological. His keynote will lay out the routes and opportunities to create a career within the psychological professions, which is currently the fastest growing group of occupations in the NHS.

Other Friday highlights include:

• 10am - A 'Day in the life of' a Psychological Professional within the NHS
• 1:30pm –-‘The Clinical Associate in Psychology Role - the whats and the hows’ - from the CAP Trailblazer group, GTiCAP and CAP Professionals

Saturday 11 November

Our festival’s Closing Ceremony takes place at 2.30pm on Saturday, as our final keynote Dr Tara Quinn-Cirillo takes the stage. Tara is a counselling psychologist with over 20 years clinical experience, but has now grown into a range of other roles including broadcaster, collaborator, social enterprise founder and podcast host, as well as running her own independent practice.

Tara is passionate about furthering the public's understanding of mental health issues and the ethics of good quality knowledge dissemination, and will be sharing her experience of stepping outside traditional 'expected' psychology roles into a ‘world of opportunity’!

Other Saturday highlights include:

• 10am - A ‘day in the life of’ a probation services officer - Kitty Pott
• 12pm - ‘Educational Psychology - My career journey’ - Elizabeth McGrory