The Psychological Professions Network, South East England (PPN SE) is working on a number of projects with regional and national impact. The project ideas originate from regional stakeholder engagement events. The projects were launched at our inaugural conference in October 2018 and showcased at the 2019 annual conference.
To find out more about our project work, please contact us at
Here is an overview and update of our ongoing project work:
- Developing a Foundation Programme to increase access into Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Training
Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) provide essential mental health and wellbeing support to our communities through Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. The NHS Long Term Plan (see Implementing the NHS Long Term Plan, 2018) requires an expanded workforce to ensure the demand for treatment is met. To help address this, the Psychological Professions Network South East (PPN SE) has received funding to trial an access course (foundation programme) to enable individuals to apply to the Level 6 PWP Training, either through the PWP Apprenticeship or typical University route. The project therefore has the potential to increase the diversity of the PWP workforce by recruiting trainees representative of the communities we serve. Read more here.
- Widening Access into the Six Health Education England Psychological Professions
We are aware that the Psychological Professions generally have a longstanding challenge in recruitment in terms of diversity of entrants. Some of these challenges may be similar across professions and whilst we acknowledge that there are differences across the different professional groups, there could be learning from success in some disciplines. We are identifying the challenges, barriers and facilitators to widening participation and based on this learning, a widening participation scheme will be developed for entry into the psychological professions. Read more here.
- Psychological Professions Into Action
‘Psychological Professions Into Action’ aims to bring together the 12 psychological professions across England into a more cohesive and connected community that can have the biggest possible positive impact for the public. Through national online conversations and physical events, this project seeks to engage and connect psychological professions nationwide to create a refreshed understanding of each other’s roles, their collective value, and to begin to establish new ways of working as a more cohesive group, towards shared goals. This project is commissioned by the Psychological Professions Network, South East England on behalf of Health Education England, and facilitated by the crowdsourcing research company Clever Together.
Three national workshops were held and now closed. We read and analysed every single idea that was shared in the latest online workshop. One of the outputs of this project was our Vision and commitments (access here), which was launched during the first even National PPN Conference, Psychological Professions Week (access the recordings here).
- A Career Map for the Psychological Professions
Each of the psychological professions has a different training route, and there was no single resource to access career information about the different professions. This can be confusing for those who wish to find out more about the career choices on offer.
In order to address this gap, we have created an interactive career map that uniquely provides an electronic resource to inform career choices for those wishing to join the psychological professions workforce, or those wanting to find out more about the psychological professions. The career map can be found on our website here. We are now in the process of creating career map videos, which will feature insights and reflections from all 12 Psychological Professionals.
- Developing Leadership in the Psychological Professions
The Psychological Professions occupy a vast array of leadership and management roles in NHS commissioned services, and have a unique skills set to contribute a specialist psychological perspective. However, psychological professionals don’t always recognise their own leadership and management competencies, nor how they relate to a broader NHS leadership agenda. There is also a relative lack of visibility of senior psychological professional roles, as well as a poor track record of recruiting a diverse workforce that represents the communities served.
We have produced a report that outlines these and other issues further, with a set of recommendations on how to address these. Click here to access the report.
- Promoting Psychological Practice in Physical Healthcare
The Psychological Professions have important contributions to make in physical healthcare, in order to support more integrated physical, psychological and social healthcare provision, and more psychologically informed systems. There are challenges to achieving this more fully, and we have produced report that outlines these issues further, with a set of recommendations on how to address these. Click here to access the report.
- Forming Evidence into Practice Partnerships
We conducted a survey across the region to find out how psychological professionals define evidence-based practice, and the challenges and opportunities in applying, accessing and informing the evidence base. We also interviewed experts by experience on the same topics. As a result of the data we gathered, we are creating an outputs that will further promote evidence based practice, and the importance of the dynamic interplay between research, clinical expertise, and patient preference.
- Exploring the Contribution of Psychological Professions to Promoting Wellbeing in Communities
Psychological Professions have a lot to offer to contribute to wellbeing in communities, even though traditionally they have offered psychological support to individual, couples and groups during times of ill-health. We have published a report that identifies psychological approaches to help develop wellbeing in communities, transferrable skills in the psychological professions, and examples of innovative practice. Click here to access the report.
- Promoting the Multi-faceted Work of the Psychological Professions
'We do more than you think' was the title of the poster presentation at our 2019 Annual Conference. This is because the perception of the work we do is often coterminous with direct psychological support for individuals, couples or groups. However, there are all the other more 'indirect' aspects which this project is promoting. These include supervision, consultation and training of staff and teams in psychological formulations, psychological skills or psychologically informed practice, as well as service development and research.
You will be seeing more outputs in 2021 that will promote the multi-faceted work that we do.
