Celebrating Psychological Professions Week

Posted by: southeastregionalteam - Posted on:

Since its inception three years ago, the Psychological Professions Network (PPN) in the south east has been going from strength to strength. The network originally started in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and has been expanding across the south east footprint into Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West with now over 1,700 members.

Due to the pandemic, the network decided not to have a regional conference this year but joined forces with all of the PPNs across England to host the first national and online Psychological Professions Week (16-20 November). The network celebrated innovation in psychological professions both nationally and regionally, including with a south east showcase event. Over 3,300 people registered to attend events during the week.

The conference week was also the culmination of the national #PsychologicalProfessionsIntoAction campaign that was driven by the south east and engaged psychological professionals, colleagues in health and social care and the public to co-create an impactful, visionary and actionable future together.

Report cover for the national vision for psychological professions

The conference also saw the unveiling of the first national vision for psychological professions by Adrian Whittington, Chair of the PPN in the south east and National Lead for Psychological Professions at NHS England & Improvement and HEE.

Alice Plummer, Clinical Programme Manager for the PPN in the south east, said, “The virtual events throughout the week provided a great opportunity to promote our work in the south east, including the career map for the psychological professions and one of our three recent publications on maximising psychological practice in physical healthcare.”

If you were unable to join or you would like to catch up with the event recordings (available until May 2021), please register to log onto the Psychological Professions Week website.

Speaking about the network, Alice said, “Colleagues can expect to hear a lot more from the network, and our latest projects which will develop a foundation programme for psychological wellbeing practitioner apprenticeships, and focus on widening participation into HEE funded psychological professions roles.

“I am especially proud that all of our work is produced in partnership with experts by experience and is underpinned by our co-produced engagement strategy. We regularly review the invaluable impact our experts by experience colleagues make on all the workstreams of our network.”

The PPN in the south east is funded by HEE and provides a joined-up voice for the psychological professions’ workforce in policy-making, and builds bridges between all those involved in psychological healthcare in the NHS, in partnership with experts by experience.

Recent projects and publications include the following:

If you would like to get involved with the network and keep up to date with projects, events and news, join the network and follow them on Twitter using the following handle @SE_PPN.