Bespoke Members
PWP Conference 2026
24 Sept 2026 10.00 to 16.15
The event will be equivalent to 4.3/4hrs of CPD.
Introduction
This is a FREE conference for Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners working in NHS Talking Therapies in England and equivalent in Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.
The conference includes a Keynote Address by Dr Adrian Whittington, National Clinical Lead for Psychological Professions at NHS England, a Panel Discussion, two Clinical Skills Classes, a research presentation and a session sharing progress in updating the PWP Best Practice Guide.
Timing of the Day
Presenters | Topic | Time |
|---|---|---|
Pam Myles-Hooton | Welcome and housekeeping | 10.00-10.05 |
Dr Adrian Whittington chaired by Liz Kell | Keynote Address: One size does not fit all - how to help people get the right treatment first time | 10.05-11.00 |
Break | 11.00-11.15 | |
Dr Adrain Whittington, Simon Winter, Palvisha Iqbal, Lizzie Gray-Smith, and Mark Frost, chaired by Liz Kell | Panel Discussion: Ensuring right treatment first time - what helps? | 11.15-12.00 |
Break | 12.00-12.45 | |
Faaiza Vadia | Skills Class 1: From Challenge to Change - Exploring strategies to support Young People with common mental health difficulties within the Low Intensity Environment | 12.45-13.45 |
Break | 13.45-14.00 | |
Lizzie Gray | Skills Class 2: Flexibility within Fidelity: How to be client led within your scope of practice | 14.00-15.00 |
Break | 15.00-15.15 | |
Kathryn Elliot and Faithful Odusote | Research Presentation: Towards Inclusive Workforce: Investigating Inequalities in Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Careers | 15.15-15.40 |
Sarah Barker and Jessica Fawcett | Updating the PWP Best Practice Guide: sharing progress | 15.40-16.05 |
Liz Kell | Closing Remarks | 16.05-16.15 |
Details of the Day
Keynote: Dr Adrian Whittington is National Clinical Lead for the Psychological Professions at NHS England. In this role Adrian provides professional leadership across the national NHS teams aimed at maximising the impact of the psychological professions for the public, to deliver NHS policy.
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Chair: Liz Kell is Co-Chair of the Psychological Professions Network North West and Co-Director of the LICBT Portfolio at University of Exeter. Liz has national roles as Co-Chair of the National MHWP Steering Group, Co-Chair of the BPS PWP & MHWP Training Committee and Chair of the BABCP Wellbeing Sub-Committee.
15-minute break
Panel Discussion: Ensuring right treatment first time – what helps?
Dr Adrian Whittington (as above)
Simon Winter is a Lead PWP at West Sussex Talking Therapies, having practiced since 2009. He is co-chair of the National PWP Leads Network and part of their working group currently updating the PWP Best Practice Guide. He helped found, and co-chaired, the PPN South East PWP Network, now the Psychological Practitioners CoP.
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Palvisha Iqbal is a practising PWP and former PWP lecturer. She has presented work on improving inclusion in PWP training at national conferences and is a lead chapter author in the Low Intensity CBT Skills and Interventions practitioner manual (2025). She is Co-Chair of the Anti-Racist Community of Practice at Psychological Professions Network (NW-PPN).
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Lizzie Gray-Smith has been a practicing Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner for over 13 years and held PWP supervision and leadership roles as well as supporting PWP training courses. She is currently an elected trustee for the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies representing members across the five nations.
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Mark Frost has been the Clinical Lead for Inclusion’s mental health services in Essex for the past ten years. He qualified as a PWP in 2010, was involved in the trailblazer working group for PWP Apprenticeship and has long championed the development of a genuine career path for PWPs.
Chair: Liz Kell
45-minute break
Clinical Skills Class 1: From Challenge to Change – Exploring strategies to support Young People with common mental health difficulties within the Low Intensity Environment
Introduction
NHS digital notes 1 in 5 children and young people have a probable mental health condition with 23.3% of 17 to 19 year olds and 21.7% of 20 to 25 year olds being affected. Supporting young people aged 18-25 comes with both challenge and opportunity. Within this clinical skills session we will explore the challenges typically faced by young people as they navigate moving from adolescence to adulthood. This life stage is filled with transition as they navigate identity, independence, education, relationships and social pressures. Young people can arrive with complex histories, challenges with motivation and ambivalence towards seeking mental health support. This session explores how we can meet young people where they are at and meaningfully engage them within their treatment.
Content
This session will explore how low intensity CBT can be adapted for young people aged 18–25 and outline the developmental and psychosocial characteristics of emerging adulthood. We will examine how identity, autonomy, and transitions shape engagement.
We will also consider barriers to accessing and remaining engaged with sessions, identifying where adaptations are most useful.
We will discuss how to integrate digital tools and blended delivery to enhance accessibility.
We will work to understand the additional challenges faced by young people from marginalised groups, which can compound existing mental health difficulties, and explore how we can support young people in a trauma informed, culturally responsive way.
Using case examples, we will consider how to support fluctuating motivation and ambivalence and examine strategies to strengthen engagement and therapeutic alliance in the low intensity environment.
The session concludes with practical tools for adapting practice, leaving participants with a clearer framework. The overall aim is to enhance confidence, flexibility, and effectiveness when working with 18–25-year-olds.
Learning objectives
1. Be able to identify key developmental, social and cultural factors that affect young person’s mental health.
2. Be able to understand key differences between CAHMS, MHST and PWP provision.
3. Understand opportunities available to incorporate flexibility to increase engagement during sessions.
4. Reflect on opportunities to make service-based provisions more youth responsive.
Training modalities
This session will include a variation of didactic content, Q&A, polls and self-experiential components such as reflective prompts you can complete outside of the session.
Key References
NHS Digital (2023) Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2023: Wave 4 follow up to the 2017 survey. Published 21 November 2023. Available at: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2023-wave-4-follow-up
Rosina, R., McMaster, R., Lovecchio, V. & Wu, C J. (2024) Young people transitioning from child and adolescent to adult mental health services: A qualitative systematic review. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing.
Gondek, D. et al. (2021) ‘Facilitators and barriers to mental health help seeking among young adults: A systematic review’, BMC Psychiatry, 21, 116.
Baggio, S. et al. (2022) ‘Identity development and mental health in emerging adulthood’, Journal of Adolescence, 94, pp. 1–12.
Fleming, T. et al. (2019) ‘Digital CBT for young people: A review of evidence’, Journal of Mental Health.
About the presenter:
Faiiza Vadia is an Education Mental Health Practitioner who has worked across diverse settings supporting children and young people’s mental health from primary schools to university based mental health teams. She recently completed her role as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Lecturer, teaching across postgraduate and undergraduate programmes at Edge Hill University.
Faaiza is also Co Chair of the Anti Racism Community of Practice within the Psychological Professionals Network North West. She is committed to equitable mental health care and leads initiatives in her local community to reduce barriers for marginalised communities accessing mental health support. Her recent work includes developing faith sensitive suicide prevention training and is a CYP Project Lead for the British Islamic Medical Association.
15-minute break
Clinical Skills Class 2: Flexibility within Fidelity: How to be client led within your scope of practice
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Introduction
Delivering low intensity psychological interventions as a PWP can often feel like walking a tightrope between maintaining fidelity to the evidence base and individualising treatment for your client.
This can be especially challenging if we are working with presentations at ‘the top end’ of Step 2 and can lead us to either stick too rigidly to a manualised approach or drift away from the guided self-help principles.
Being able to flex confidently and appropriately within our scope of practice leads to better outcomes and experience for our clients and makes our roles less stressful and more rewarding.
Content
This workshop will:
• Consider what we mean by fidelity and what can get in the way
• Highlight the evidence base for a ‘flexibility within fidelity’
• Explore ways we can achieve this with case study examples
• Invite participants to reflect on their skills and confidence and identify actions to improve these
Learning objectives
• Understand the benefits of, and evidence base for, a flexibility within fidelity approach
• Be better equipped to use this approach with your clients
• Consider barriers to using this approach
• Create an action plan to put learning into practice
Training modalities
The session will include didactic content, reflective exercises, Q&As, and polls.
Key References
Bennett-Levy, J., Richards, D., Farrand, P., Christensen, H., Griffiths, K., Kavanagh, D. & Williams, C. (Eds.). (2010). Oxford guide to low intensity CBT interventions. OUP Oxford.
Green, H., Barkham, M., Kellett, S., & Saxon, D. (2014). Therapist effects and IAPT Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs): A multilevel modelling and mixed methods analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 63, 43–54.
Farrand, P. (Ed.). (2024). Low-intensity CBT skills & interventions: a practitioner’s manual (Second edition.). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Ruth, E., & Spiers, J. (2023). A Pragmatic Guide to Low Intensity Psychological Therapy: Care in High Volume. Academic Press.
Vivolo, M., Owen, J., & Fisher, P. (2024). Building resilience in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) role: a qualitative grounded theory study. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 52(2), 135–148.
About the presenter:
Lizzie Gray Smith (as above)
15-minute break
Research Presentation: Towards Inclusive Workforce: Investigating Inequalities in Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Careers
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About the Presenters:
Kathryn Elliot is a Senior Clinical Researcher at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, specialising in mental health research, service innovation, and global collaboration. She co leads a national project examining the academic and clinical experiences of Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs), with a focus on addressing inequalities faced by practitioners from global majority backgrounds. Kathryn leads and manages multiple research programmes across the NHS, including VR assisted therapies for psychosis, immersive sensory interventions for people with learning disabilities and older adults, and large scale studies on student mental health and menopause. She also leads KOLABO, an international initiative supporting the development of a Pan African CBT community. Her work centres on developing evidence based, equitable, and innovative approaches to improving mental health care.
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Faithful Odusote works across NHS Talking Therapies and private practice, with experience spanning CBT and Low-Intensity CBT (LICBT), alongside roles in training, lecturing, and supervision. She is committed to developing inclusive, humane, and sustainable psychological services.
Presentation: Updating the PWP Best Practice Guide: sharing progress
(more to follow)
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About the Presenters:
Sarah Barker has practiced as a PWP since 2015 and continues to work clinically alongside her role as Clinical Lead for the Step 2 pathway. She is LTC trained and an experienced supervisor, providing caseload management and meta supervision to PWP supervisors and line managers. She co-chaired the National PWP Leads Network (2024–2025) and has co-chaired the North East and Yorkshire Senior PWP Community of Practice since 2021. She is deeply committed to the PWP role, with a strong focus on developing low intensity CBT and improving support for neurodiverse patients.
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Jess Fawcett became a PWP in 2014, progressed to Senior PWP in 2017, and moved into the Low Intensity Service Lead role at Sunderland Talking Therapies in 2021. Due to a passion for step 2 work, she supports the North East and Yorkshire Senior PWP Community of Practice and co-chairs the National PWP Leads Network. Jess has experience in both clinical and line management supervision and remains an advocate for step 2 practice.
Closing Remarks: Liz Kell (as above)
Conference Close
Who should attend?
Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners working in NHS Talking Therapies in England and equivalent in Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.