‘Amazing’ Welsh Branch conference 2024

Read this article in Welsh.

What an amazing day we had with brilliant keynote speakers. Nearly 200 delegates attended the event in Cardiff on 28 September. This was a joint venture with our prequalification group and our divisions in Wales, as well as our branch members; such a special integration of our interests and all talking about a subject we love, psychology in all its glory. 

Keynote speakers

Keynotes came from Professor Eleni Andreouli (The Open University) who did a brilliant opening keynote about her research: 'Citizens in the making: citizenship education in England and Wales'. This started the day firing the neurons for all, especially our educational psychologists in the crowd, the trainee educational psychologists and the students who are studying Masters in educational psychology. It introduced the importance of evidence-based practice and how social psychologists can inform the world of work in schools. Well done Eleni.

Professor Bob Snowden (Cardiff University) gave an overview of how he used research and evidence-based practice to develop a risk assessment tool for suicide – 'An evaluation of the Risk of Suicide Protocol (RoSP) from theory into practice' which is being rolled out with the five NHS boards in Wales. This gave students a good look into the evidence-based practice and importance of research. A shout out to Bob for another fascinating talk, you could see the cogs a turning there. 

We also had our Dr Trudi Macagnino (The Open University) doing an amazing job with her keynote talk on 'Therapy in a time of climate and ecological emergency: Affect, defences and implications for practice'. We had many assistant psychologists working in therapeutic settings, students who wanted to go into this side of psychology, as well as our clinical and counselling psychologists, with consultants from the NHS attending. They were fascinated about this new area. Well done, Trudi.

AI debate and career spot

There was also a very lively and interactive debate on AI – we had a student member, Tom Scourfield from Swansea, giving their perspective, along with Dr David Playfoot (Swansea University) and Dr Bev Pickard-Jones (Bangor University) giving a very lively and engaging discussion. This could have lasted all afternoon if we could let them. The practitioners were really interested in this. Perhaps next time.

There was a career spot with our practitioners and amazing committee members, some were chairs of divisions (forensic, educational psychology, clinical, health, academic research and teaching, and occupational psychology) talking about their day jobs and how they got into it and what it was like. Students asked many questions at the end of the session (over bacon rolls and coffee followed by afternoon tea and cakes) and throughout the day. 

'Jam packed' prequal group talk

The prequal group had a fascinating talk from three experienced clinical psychologists: Lawrence Moulin, Liz Gregory and our very own president, Roman Rackza. It was a jammed packed session followed by networking for the prequal group. 

The students and trainees giving their oral presentations did a good job and were so interesting, well done and look forward to seeing you next year. 

Then posters, what a varied and excellent showcase for the research being carried out. Looking forward to more next year. 

Thank you

The practitioners and prequal group did their amazing presentations and talks, awesome bunch. Running out of superlatives.  

A big shout out to our amazing student ambassadors and student helpers, they really made the day run well, Sophie, Maddie, Tom, Kit, Kayleigh, Neve, Nicole and Ben. Good job. 

And a special thank you to the committee, it was a real team effort, Abi, Heidi, Jen, Elle, Nic, Bev, Amie, Jem, Manel, and we mustn't forget Anne for making the day a real success. 

A fabulous event and looking forward to doing it all again. 

Save the date for next year – Saturday 18 October 2025