DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

The DCP has been publishing regular Covid-19 bulletins throughout the ongoing pandemic, with important updates and new guidance for clinical psychologists. All seven previous editions are available on the resources section of our website.

England chair’s update – Dr Roman Raczka

I will keep my introduction to the newsletter brief this month as we have a very full edition! I just wanted to bring your attention to a few of the key articles and items included.

As a DCP Executive, we are committed to increasing diversity in the profession as well as in the DCP Executive and the various DCP committees, so we are setting up a task and finish group to move the action plan forward. The work of this group will be linked to the BPS EDI taskforce.

The advert for statements of interest to join and to chair this group can be found here.

We hope that members will come forward from a wide

range of backgrounds to contribute to this working group.

Amra Rao has been working with colleagues to develop a live position paper taking forward the very important conversations about racial and social disparities.You can read an introduction to their paper in this newsletter.

Tony Lavender continues to chair the DCP workforce and training sub-committee and he has summarised some of the current activities, including the process for establishing a Chief Psychological Professions Officer. There is also an update on the review of the National Assessors for Consultant Posts.

ENGLAND

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

England chair’s update, continued

During the pandemic we are all having to quickly develop our digital skills and improve our competencies. The DCP Digital healthcare sub-committee has been developing a range of resources for psychologists which can be accessed from the digital health skills website.

As I announced last month, I am keen to recruit to the DCP England chair role so that I can focus on my role as DCP-UK chair elect.

As previously stated, we would like to encourage psychologists from BAME communities to stand for election. The nomination forms can be found here.

Finally, I would like to welcome Elaine Amoah to the editorial team. Elaine has shared some thoughts below.

Welcoming Elaine Amoah to the editorial teamI am honoured and excited to join the Editorial Team of the DCP England newsletter!

I look forward to working with a wonderful team and collaborating with the team to further cultivate and grow the newsletter.

The newsletter already serves as an informative resource for the division, and I hope to help the newsletter expand to continue to be an invaluable resource for all members.

Together with the team, I will work passionately to maintain the high editorial standards of the newsletter. As a new member, I plan to dedicate my time to develop and support this newsletter to be applicable across all specialities for clinical psychologists as well as to trainees and qualified members.

Elaine is currently conducting research in the clinical,

educational and health psychology department at UCL, working with a team at UCL and the University of York to investigate the extent to which evidence-based and non-evidence-based treatments are currently being used by practitioners for children with attachment difficulties in order to develop treatment guidelines.

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

Racial and social inequalities, taking the conversations forward - Dr Amra Rao

This live position paper aims to begin conversations and engagement with stakeholders to co-produce a change strategy to counter racial and social inequalities.

It offers initial thoughts on the risks and impact of Covid-19 on pre-existing racial and social inequalities and structural racism. It takes up an inward and outward facing approach to considering barriers to change at individual, professional, social and institutional levels.

It also starts to develop an understanding of why this is happening. It outlines an urgent call to action to centre, support, and learn from at risk communities. A framework for change, informed by the literature, our experiences and consultation with others is put forward for the profession, organisations and policy makers.

We acknowledge that every person has been impacted by the pandemic, but there is an inequity in the impact on individuals and groups of people. We aspire to ensure that recovery and transformation plans will tackle the socioeconomic and societal injustices that have led to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups being disproportionately affected by Covid-19 (PHE, 2020). This requires working in partnership with communities to understand and co-create solutions.

The lost lives are situated within a social context. That social context is one in which simply asserting that ‘Black lives matter’ is a radical statement, challenging the institutional and structural racism of government, education, the police, the NHS, mental health services and of clinical psychology.

Racism is also a virus. It has spread throughout our society and the world, and has caused extreme harm to many individuals and communities. While our focus has

been on the impact of Covid-19 on BAME people, this can’t be separated from the wider issues around stigma, discrimination and racism.

This was highlighted very clearly at our listening and engagement event, where it was highlighted that misgivings exist in our own profession. The message was clear - we need to put our own house in order.

We seriously need to consider what part we have played in keeping the status quo, what we can do individually and collectively in our roles in organisations and institutions to open our eyes, understand, validate, apologise, forgive, work towards change and be stronger together.

We want to acknowledge the difficulty and emotional labour involved in thinking about inequalities, power dynamics and racism. However, we all have to embrace this to move towards change.

Working on this paper has had a significant emotional impact on each of us, which may also be the case for readers. There is a content and length warning. We decided not to cut short the paper to share the emergent process of our thinking, to understand this complex subject and to open a transparent dialogue.

We want to hear from as many people as possible, especially those from diverse perspectives, to further build upon the foundation we have begun to set in this paper. This will shape and inform the DCP’s equality, diversity and inclusion and anti-racism work going forward.

We will set up a listening post to take this work further. You can contact us and a member of our work group will get back to you.

Environment, public health, human rights and psychology - Dr Annette Schlosser in conversation with Tony Wainwright

Tony has been working as a clinical psychologist for many years and is passionate about ethics and social justice. He recounts his work and interests in a scholarly and committed manner. His day job is as senior academic tutor on the Exeter Clinical Psychology

Doctorate, where he teaches on leadership and public policy as well as ethical competence. In 2019 he won the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations’ prestigious Robert A Roe award, given for making an outstanding contribution to bringing psychologists

from all over Europe together, either from a scientific, professional, practical, or policy making perspective.

You can download a recording of his award lecture where he describes his national and international work here.

Over the past few years, Tony has been a member of and has chaired the BPS Ethics Committee and has represented the BPS on the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations’ (EFPA) Board of Ethics, the EFPA Board of Human Rights and Psychology, and convened the EFPA Board of Prevention and Intervention.

In these various roles he has dealt with questions concerning the ethics of climate change, and the fall out of the pandemic, racism and oppression, taking forward policy and practice issues in a psychological framework.

Tony is also actively supporting the BPS in its work with EFPA through his membership of the editorial board of the EFPA News Magazine. He is delighted to see that the BPS has been developing a stronger advocacy orientation, to engage with public policy in a local and global capacity, to further this urgent international agenda.

Tony’s current main DCP work is with the DCP Professional Standards Unit, and the DCP Executive subcommittee on Prevention and Public Health.

The latter aims to address what clinical psychology can do to contribute in the field of public health. The current BPS theme Poverty to Flourishing is highly relevant here. The group has an interdisciplinary commitment and hopes to develop guidance on supporting clinical psychology courses in developing their training in psychology and public health, and considering how courses could provide relevant public health placements.

Human rights and psychology is another important area of his interest. Working with Debra Malpass, Director of Knowledge and Insight at the BPS, and Roger Paxton, Chair of the Ethics Committee, a workstream on this important area is being developed – more on this in the coming weeks.

They are also working together on another workstream on the climate and environmental emergency. In both

of these areas there is a strong link to community psychology and the current global context of the pandemic, and the national context of post-Brexit plans feeds into this important development.

He has also been working on developing a global network for psychology and human rights that now has a website, and Tony sits on its steering committee. The website highlights psychology and human rights topics related to, among other things, Covid-19, the climate and environmental emergency, human rights education in psychology, LGBTQI+, migration, data rights and young people.

Tony has written and contributed to many books and articles. Look out too for the August special issue of Clinical Psychology Forum on psychology and the climate and environmental crisis. You can follow him on twitter @wainwrto and read his blog.

Recent book: Hagenaars et al (Eds) (2020): Human Rights Education for Psychologists. London: Routledge. Selected highlights were published in The Psychologist.

From EFPA: UK-specific resources.

On human rights: Special issue of European Psychologist.

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

‘Be kind to one another’: Psychologists and the new normal - Sarajane Aris and Patrick Roycroft

‘Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind’. Henry James.

The pandemic has had a massive impact on all of our communities - yet we are witnessing courage, compassion, kindness, creativity, a revival in some communities’ sense of connectedness and belonging.

Given the social and economic impact of the pandemic, returning to life “as it was” is not going to happen. A new normal will have components of the old; many will not return to the life they knew or anticipated.

How can the experience of the pandemic, the spirit of kindness, community and compassion shown be sustained? What role can psychologists play?

Role 1: Sharing and developing the psychological science for the new normal.

The BPS Covid-19 workstreams are ‘bringing psychological scientists together to work on solutions to problems posed by the pandemic, to avoid silos hindering past work.’ These could look at ways to build a culture of compassion, connectedness and kindness.

Connecting compassionately with others goes hand in hand with courage, creativity, and growth. It has a powerful motivational force (Gilbert, 2019) that can be nurtured and learnt. Psychologists can demonstrate professional and public acts of kindness and compassion. A focused research agenda could identify specific processes involved.

Psychologists are in advisory roles for health commissioning and government, often advising on population behaviour change. These roles could be used to build on kindness, compassion and connections developed during lockdown.

Role 2: Supporting the development of psychologically informed environments and healthy teams within health, social care, education

Psychologists in many health and social care settings have worked to maintain psychologically healthy environments. The BPS Covid-19 Staff Welfare Group has produced guidance on the psychological needs of healthcare staff. This needs to be used as the basis of a learning programme for the next generation.

Role 3: Supporting the development of psychologically informed environments in communities and workplaces

Clinical psychologists can help build sustainable psychologically healthy environments, and compassionate care for those engaged in this work.

Role 4: Helping public and social media become more humane, caring and compassionate

Psychologists are challenging narratives pressurising frontline healthcare staff to be heroes despite the risks to their own lives.

Psychologists have a key role in helping journalists and social influencers understand compassionate social engagement, communication, and the consequence of damaging stories.

Psychologists as scientist practitioners, advisors, agents of individual, organisational and community change are working towards the new normal alongside others, to influence our rapidly changing environment.

More roles and pathways will emerge for building resilience, connectedness, kindness and compassion as hallmarks of the new normal. Psychologists need to champion a kinder, compassionate, resilient new future.

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

Workforce and training update - Professor Tony Lavender

The National Psychological Professions Workforce Planning Group

This National Stakeholder Group (established in April 2019), chaired by Adrian Whittington and Louisa Stewart (and on which the DCP have representatives in the form of Esther Cohen-Tovee and Tony Lavender), has established that the delivery of the NHS Plan will require an increase of 8,500 new psychological professions.

The 25% increase in clinical psychologists in England provides a welcome but relatively small step in achieving the required numbers. It came just in time to deliver the increase for the 2020 intake, which meant that some reserve list applicants were offered places immediately.

It is not yet established that this increase will be maintained next year, but we will be arguing strongly that it should and that there should be a further increase given the numbers required for the delivery of the NHS Plan.

Chief Psychological Professions Officer (CPPO)

There are moves across the four nations to establish a CPPO. In England, the National Stakeholder Group received a paper outlining the options for developing such a role (to parallel the Chief Nurse and Chief Allied Health Professions Officer roles).

A small leadership team accountable to NHSE/I and HEE will be funded from October 2020 to March

2021, but this is not permanent and needs further development and consolidation.

In response to the options, a joint letter explaining what is required has been sent from all the eight psychological professions’ organisations. The role is necessary if the psychological professions are to be closely involved in the development of policy and workforce plans rather than just being involved in providing responses to consultations.

It would be part of such a role to ensure there was psychological leadership in all parts of the system. The DCP and the BPS policy leads alongside the other psychological professions organisations are playing a key role in this work.

National Assessor Review

The review of the National Assessor system is almost complete and new Guidelines have been written and shortly be published. National Assessors should be used for any appointments into consultant level posts (Band 8c and above).

Over the summer, a new Chief Assessor will be appointed, followed by appointments to the vacant Speciality and Nation Leads. There will be also be calls for new National Assessors (Band 8c and above) to ensure that we have sufficient assessors to meet the demand from organisations to support their recruitment processes.

Digital healthcare sub-committee - Prof Helen Pote

The DCP digital healthcare sub-committee aims to promote excellence in digital practice for all applied psychologists and psychological practitioners - we have been working for the past couple of years to develop a framework of digital competences for psychological practitioners and map training nationally in digital healthcare.

The work is led by Professor Helen Pote and Dr Alesia Moulton-Perkins, and the committee draws together UK academics, clinical psychologists, psychological practitioners and trainers, services users, digital mental health companies and commissioners all with experience

in digital mental health.

In response to Covid-19 we have produced a series of guides and resources for therapists, supervisors and clients working online. You can find all of the information online - we hope you find it helpful.

We aim to act as a hub to promote excellence in digital practice for all applied psychologists and psychological practitioners so if you have any digital projects that would benefit from the support of the committee please do let us know about your work. Please contact our assistant Gemma Rides.

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

Equality, diversity and inclusion task and finish groupThe DCP Executive acknowledges that there are very longstanding issues of lack of diversity across the profession and barriers to access for many from marginalised backgrounds.

Concerns about whiteness, marginalisation and racism in Clinical Psychology have been highlighted by many people and in a range of contexts, and it is recognised that this needs to be addressed as a systemic and structural issue.

Consultations and discussions within the DCP and with

the wider BPS have resulted in a draft action plan being produced, and it will be the role of the Task and Finish Group to review, amend and develop it further.

There is a substantial amount of work to be done, and we are therefore convening a Task and Finish Group to take the work forward in conjunction with the DCP Executive.

We’re looking for members to join - find out more about how to apply.

Public health and prevention sub-committeeAt present there is little systematic knowledge of the range of preventative activities undertaken by clinical psychologists in the UK, or any formal networks linking practitioners to facilitate mutual support, sharing ideas and good practice.

The DCP’s prevention and public health sub-committee is conducting a short survey to find out “who is doing what, with whom” in relation to public health and prevention. We

would like to make contact with clinical psychologists who are interested in prevention and invite them to share examples of prevention-oriented work from their own practice.

If you are currently involved in preventative work of any kind – even if this is just at the ideas / planning stage – we would be grateful if you would complete this short survey.

Power, threat, meaning framework working groupThe DCP’s PTMF working group has joined the University of Leicester in creating a short survey asking for opinions on the

framework. If you’re interested in helping out, please fill in the brief online questionnaire here.

Pre-qualification GroupThe DCP Pre-qualification Group is holding the first in a series of webinars at 6pm on Wednesday 29 July. It will look at how pre-qualified psychologists can adapt their skills during a pandemic, with guest speaker Dr Annette Schlosser. The

event is free for DCP and Pre-qual members - you can sign up here. There’s also two more webinars coming up in the series, on 12 and 26 August, so save the dates.

Local branch updates

DCP East Midlands - Dr Mike Marriott

The East Midlands branch has now put out a call for members interested in joining the committee to restart the branch and its work; anyone interested would be very welcome to contact Mike to discuss this further, noting that expressions of interest are required before 10 August. We would particularly like to encourage applications from colleagues who identify as BAME, to support us in continuing to develop our regional clinical psychology voice in a manner that befits the culturally diverse population of the East Midlands.

DCP Yorkshire and Humber branch - Dr Annette Schlosser

Collaboration between the universities of Leeds, Hull and Sheffield, local clinicians, trainees and students, with the Yorkshire and Humber DCP resulted in a well attended online applicant event for people from BAME backgrounds on 16 June. Over 200 people took part to hear stories of BAME qualified staff, and to ask questions in trainee led small groups. A week after the event there was an opportunity for reflection, which was attended by a few aspiring clinical psychologists.

DCP EnglandNewsletter – July 2020

The group is now considering next steps for inclusive practice in the region, focussing on writing up the event to share it more widely, continuing the BAME mentoring scheme and planning teaching on anti-racism, whiteness and anti-oppressive practice.

DCP South West branch - Helen Schur

We are an active committee with experienced and new members, who are keen to support and stimulate clinical psychologists at all stages of their careers. Like many we are getting to grips with being in touch via the not so new video technology, and interestingly this has opened up

connections between the committee, and we hope between members also.

Forthcoming events include access to schwartz rounds to support psychologists during the coronavirus pandemic - with thanks to Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust, and a series of webinars on ‘Awakening to psychology and racism in the Southwest: Steps to better understanding for clinical practice’.

We welcome enquiries and suggestions from DCP SW members.

Branch contacts

DCP East MidlandsCo-ordinator: Dr Mike Marriott Contact: mike.marriott@ntu.ac.uk

DCP East of EnglandChair: Dr Frances Blumenfeld Contact: fblume@essex.ac.uk Twitter: @DCPEoE

DCP LondonChair: Dr Lorna Farquharson Contact: l.farquharson@uel.ac.uk Twitter: @DCP_London

DCP North EastChair: Dr Barry Ingham Contact: barry.ingham@ntw.nhs.uk Twitter: @nebranchdcp

DCP North WestCo-ordinator: Jon Barry Coldwell Contact: DCPEngland@bps.org.uk

DCP South CentralChair: Dr Chris Allen Contact: chris.allen@berkshire.nhs.uk

DCP South East CoastChair: Sophie Holmes Contact: sophie.holmes@sussexpartnership.nhs.uk Twitter: @DCPSEC

DCP South WestChair: Dr Helen Schur Contact: helenschur49@gmail.com

Twitter: @DCPSouthWest

DCP West MidlandsChair: Lawrence Moulin Contact: lawrencemoulin@outlook.com Twitter: @wmidsdcp Facebook: DCP West Midlands

DCP Yorkshire and HumberChair: Dr Annette Schlosser Contact: a.schlosser@hull.ac.uk Twitter: @DCPYandH

Get in Touch @UKDCP

DCPEngland@bps.org.uk

Edited by Dr Roman Raczka, Dr Annette Schlosser and Elaine Amoah