Last week we held our first ever Partnership Allied Health Professions (AHP) Conference titled ‘AHPs Deliver: Inclusion – Innovation – Inspiration’. This took place on Wednesday 7 June 2023 at London South Bank University.
Over 150 delegates - predominantly AHPs, AHP support workers and AHP students, along with a few key Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDT) and peer support colleagues from across the partnership, were also joined by colleagues from local community organisations, London South Bank University, and national and regional AHP leaders. Delegates represented all eight of the Allied Health Professions we offer within the partnership – Art Therapists, Drama Therapists, Dietitians, Music Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Podiatrists, and Speech and Language Therapists.
Our themes and aims for the conference were based on the ambition to bring the AHP workforce from across the Partnership together and lay foundations for a thriving AHP community within the organisation, while also considering the significant and ongoing change at every level and recognising the unique contribution and potential of AHPs in the transformation of care and services for people with mental health needs, their carers and our communities.
The conference was delivered with environmental sustainability in mind and all conference resources were recycled and reusable wherever possible with only minimal paper usage throughout. The other key feature of the conference was to showcase examples of good practice from across the partnership to illustrate guest speaker presentations.
To help make the conference paper-lite the team developed a Padlet, to host key information and resources you may expect to find at a conference and delegates were also encouraged to use the social functionality in Padlet to meet new colleagues, network and collaborate and share learning from the conference with each other throughout the day.
The conference was an opportunity to launch this resource, which will continue to be updated over coming weeks and used to share links, resources, and slides to create an interactive and useful repository of information related to conference topics for future ease of access and use.
Some of our keynote presentations and speakers included:
Linda Hindle OBE, Deputy Chief AHP Officer for England and National Engagement Lead for Emergency Services from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (Department of Health and Social Care). Linda spoke about some of the key areas of focus in the national AHPs Deliver strategy, highlighting the key role AHPs in Mental Health settings have in improving the public’s health, optimising and reducing health and care inequalities.
AHP Community: Delivered by Dominik Havsteen-Franklin – Professor of Arts Therapies at Brunel University and Jenni de Knopp – Dance Psychotherapist at Central North West London NHS Trust, this immersive workshop explored the role of arts and creativity for staff wellbeing in NHS environments.
Leadership: This session, expertly and authentically delivered by Rachael Moses OBE – Head of Clinical Leadership Development at the NHS Leadership Academy, was an engaging and reflective journey in understanding yourself, your imposter and inner critic and the importance of this in overcoming challenges in leading.
The day concluded with an engaging plenary session covering topics such as environmental sustainability, promoting AHP role and AHP leadership at organisational, system and national level, the use of technology to enhance services, fostering equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging in our professions, and mental health and wellbeing of our staff and leaders.
Here's what keynote speakers and attendees told us about the conference:
“It was great to host the conference today and to see so much AHP brilliance on site with students, academics, clinicians, support workers and policy leaders all working together.” Rachel Picton – Dean of Allied and Community Health, London South Bank University.
“The title says it all! What an amazing event, thank you for the invitation” – Philippa Wright – Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for London, NHS England.
“Such a great conference today! Left feeling inspired and motivated! Looking forward to the next steps for the Partnership and my team! Thank you!!’ – Sudha Boojhowon – Occupational Therapist at BEH.
“It was a great opportunity to network and gain insight.” – Abigail Ackah, Ocupational Therapist at C&I.
What’s next?
We want the conference to be a springboard for developing a shared and strategic period of development for AHPs across the Partnership and we want to hear what matter to our colleagues – what are our priorities to take forward and how. Get in touch and let us know so we can formulate actions and working groups to deliver on the ambitions set out during this wonderful conference. We will also be sharing a survey with attendees so keep an eye out and share your thoughts and views.
Other resources and Dietitians Week 2023
We also created a video which showcases our AHP community and their role in optimising care, addressing health and care inequalities, bridging physical and mental health, and building the future AHP workforce. The video was created by three student physios on a non-clinical leadership placement with the AHP workforce development team. Watch the video here.
North London Mental Health Partnership AHP Conference – highlights from the event
Last week we held our first ever Partnership Allied Health Professions (AHP) Conference titled ‘AHPs Deliver: Inclusion – Innovation – Inspiration’. This took place on Wednesday 7 June 2023 at London South Bank University.
Over 150 delegates - predominantly AHPs, AHP support workers and AHP students, along with a few key Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDT) and peer support colleagues from across the partnership, were also joined by colleagues from local community organisations, London South Bank University, and national and regional AHP leaders. Delegates represented all eight of the Allied Health Professions we offer within the partnership – Art Therapists, Drama Therapists, Dietitians, Music Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Podiatrists, and Speech and Language Therapists.
Our themes and aims for the conference were based on the ambition to bring the AHP workforce from across the Partnership together and lay foundations for a thriving AHP community within the organisation, while also considering the significant and ongoing change at every level and recognising the unique contribution and potential of AHPs in the transformation of care and services for people with mental health needs, their carers and our communities.
The conference was delivered with environmental sustainability in mind and all conference resources were recycled and reusable wherever possible with only minimal paper usage throughout. The other key feature of the conference was to showcase examples of good practice from across the partnership to illustrate guest speaker presentations.
To help make the conference paper-lite the team developed a Padlet, to host key information and resources you may expect to find at a conference and delegates were also encouraged to use the social functionality in Padlet to meet new colleagues, network and collaborate and share learning from the conference with each other throughout the day.
The conference was an opportunity to launch this resource, which will continue to be updated over coming weeks and used to share links, resources, and slides to create an interactive and useful repository of information related to conference topics for future ease of access and use.
Some of our keynote presentations and speakers included:
Here's what keynote speakers and attendees told us about the conference:
“It was great to host the conference today and to see so much AHP brilliance on site with students, academics, clinicians, support workers and policy leaders all working together.” Rachel Picton – Dean of Allied and Community Health, London South Bank University.
“The title says it all! What an amazing event, thank you for the invitation” – Philippa Wright – Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for London, NHS England.
“Such a great conference today! Left feeling inspired and motivated! Looking forward to the next steps for the Partnership and my team! Thank you!!’ – Sudha Boojhowon – Occupational Therapist at BEH.
“It was a great opportunity to network and gain insight.” – Abigail Ackah, Ocupational Therapist at C&I.
What’s next?
We want the conference to be a springboard for developing a shared and strategic period of development for AHPs across the Partnership and we want to hear what matter to our colleagues – what are our priorities to take forward and how. Get in touch and let us know so we can formulate actions and working groups to deliver on the ambitions set out during this wonderful conference. We will also be sharing a survey with attendees so keep an eye out and share your thoughts and views.
Other resources and Dietitians Week 2023
We also created a video which showcases our AHP community and their role in optimising care, addressing health and care inequalities, bridging physical and mental health, and building the future AHP workforce. The video was created by three student physios on a non-clinical leadership placement with the AHP workforce development team. Watch the video here.
In all our excitement for the conference we must not forget a special mention to our Dietetic colleagues who celebrated Dietitians week last week. To mark the occasion, watch our BEH Dietitian talking about her role in the Partnership.