Hello there
As you can see from our webpage we run a clinical training programme for Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs). These are front-line staff that can be found in NHS primary care services throughout the UK. If you’ve ever received support with a common mental health problem (like low mood or worry) then you might have worked with a PWP.
We teach all sorts of different types of skills to people we train – but we can only do that from our own perspective as health professionals. To make sure our trainees are as good as they can be, we need help from people like you to offer advice, guidance, and insight. Your involvement would be a real bonus.
Would you be interested in getting involved?
By getting involved, you could help us find and recruit the trainees with the best people skills and understanding and this would also give you a great insight into the NHS recruitment process. Alongside this there will also be opportunities to develop your confidence through involvement at our teaching days, chatting with the trainees and giving them real-world ideas about the effect their work has on people. The programme also hosts regular meetings throughout the year and you would get the opportunity to shape the way the programme is taught, run, and assessed.
What are the options?
There are there three main areas you could get involved in, and it is up to you which interests you most and you’d like to be involved in.
1. Selecting Trainees
Each year, the team runs a selection day where we assess potential trainees to see whether they would be suitable for the course. As you would expect, we assess their academic abilities but also their people skills and it is here that your help could be invaluable. We do this by inviting potential trainees to take part in a group discussion which is observed by the Programme Lead and a member of the public who has received help in the past.
2. Teaching
We would value your input on teaching days to support trainees to develop their people skills. The kind of things that this might include could be observing trainee role plays and offering your comments on what you thought of their performance. This gives the trainees an opportunity to think about the service they provide from the perspective of people who have received services.
Naturally you would only be asked to do what you feel comfortable with. So it would be up to you how much or how little you would like to be involved with, we would always aim to be flexible and work with you to accommodate your needs.
3. Meetings
Twice a year the Programme runs meetings for people involved with the course, like employers and supervisors. It’s a great chance for the team to gain feedback from people involved in regards to teaching, assessments and placements. We would really value your feedback as someone with lived experience of services. Your contributions will be taken into account to improve the quality of the training we provide.
Payments
Payments are made at a level appropriate to your circumstances and as a minimum would always cover any expenses for your involvement with the programme, such as transport.
Getting in touch
If you’d like any further information please email us at bsmhft.pgcertlipi@nhs.net and we will send you a ‘Request to Contribute’ form to complete and return to us. On receipt of your completed for we plan to arrange meetings with people in July and if you would still like to be involved then you will be invited to an induction session in August.
