Examples depicted a kaleidoscope of endeavours including:
• Research,
• Practice development
• Specific mental health projects
• Safety Quality Experience (SQE)
• Other general service improvement initiatives.
These were made manifest by way of oral and/or poster
presentations and/or display boards.
The title of the conference was 'Developing Mental Health
Practice: Everyday Use of Psychotherapeutic Skills'.
This was intended to embody the critical role that the delivery of evidence-based psychological
interventions play in the provision of effective mental health care.
Keynote speakers for the conference included an opening address by Rodney Morton, the Deputy
Chief Nursing Officer for Northern Ireland, who at a previous South Eastern Health and Social Care
Trust and Ulster University (UU) Mental Health Nursing Conference in September 2018, launched
his vision that psychological therapies, will in the near future, be integrated with mental health nurse
education and training and therein after mental health clinical practice.
This is a central theme to the forthcoming Regional Strategy for Mental Health Nursing, that will
provide direction and underpin a commitment to developing further training opportunities and
investment in psychotherapeutic skills across all areas of mental health practice.
Relative to this vision, South Eastern HSC Trust Mental Health Services are also hoping to derive
psychological therapy knowledge and skills transfer for our staff colleagues.
Amongst a host of others, the conference attracted
other keynote speakers of notoriety including
internationally recognised Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy (CBT) guru, Professor Paul Salkovskis from
Oxford University, and homegrown Northern Ireland
psychiatrist and guru of Eye Movement Desensitisation
and Reprocessing (EMDR), Paul Miller, Emeritus
Professor from UU and Mirabilis Health.
The conference also included a poster competition
which was part of the conference agenda.
The conference was facilitated by Vic Robinson,
Jointly Appointed Research Lecturer Practitioner,
Ulster University and South Eastern HSC Trust.
Nursing Workforce and Education Team
63