‘So much of my work has come out of a clinical issue for a particular person’

A clinical psychologist who has spent their whole career working with people with learning disabilities has won the 2024 British Psychological Society's Practice Board Lifetime Achievement in Psychology Award. The winner, Dr Karen Dodd, has recently retired after working in the NHS for almost 40 years.

Dodd started her career in psychology with a degree at University College London, followed by a PhD at Manchester University and later an MSc at the University of Surrey. She spent the first six years of her working life at Richmond, Twickenham & Roehampton Health Authority followed by 33 years at what is now Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. 

She said the moment she knew she wanted to work in the area was after a learning disability placement during her clinical psychology training. 'It just got me. I explain it as having the ability to use everything I've ever learned in clinical psychology, but using it creatively. At that time I was seeing children, I was seeing adults, I was seeing older adults, people with a whole range of different issues and needs. It was that combination of everything I ever learned and then thinking how I could use that with individuals and being able to think creatively about what each person needed.'

During her career, Dodd has worked on supporting people with learning disabilities to overcome health and social inequalities, helped to understand how people with learning disabilities experience pain, and helped staff who work with this population learn to understand and normalise different emotions. More recently her interest has been in three areas including developing a service for those with Down's syndrome who also have dementia – a service which is seen as the gold standard.

Dodd said, looking back on her career, she was particularly proud of any piece of work which had led to making the life of someone with a learning disability better. 'So much of the work I've done has always come out of a clinical issue for a particular person. It's never been blue-sky thinking – it's always been about a person who presents with an issue and we haven't had a solution. So we've tried to think about what do we do? What can we develop?

'Some of the proudest moments I've had have been working with individuals with Down's syndrome who have developed dementia and supporting them with their care, care team, and family to give them the best quality of life while they're living with the disease.'

Dodd added that seeing the next generation of clinical psychologists come through training was also a highlight of her career. 'When I see assistant psychologists, trainees on placement with us, and newly qualified clinical psychologists who get it and really want to come and work with people with learning disabilities, that makes me feel so proud.'

Dodd has also recently developed a web-based tool, thanks to a grant from the Nurse Technology Fund, to ensure that mental capacity was accurately assessed for people with learning disabilities. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she also led a major project within the Trust to develop over 45 videos for people with learning disabilities, their families, and carers on a range of topics including understanding Covid and ongoing feelings of anxiety.

After almost 40 years working in the NHS, Dodd retired in October, but she continues to undertake external supervision for clinical psychologists and is a committee member for the BPS Division of Clinical Psychology's Faculty for People with Intellectual Disabilities. 'I have also agreed to convene a new group with the Royal College of Psychiatrists Intellectual Disability Faculty to update the dementia guidance that I chaired for the Faculty in 2015. I'm also doing some work for the Down's Syndrome Association to update Down's syndrome and dementia information that they published in 2006.'