Sussex Social Change Hub
The Sussex Social Change Hub is a collective of academic experts from the Faculty of Social Sciences. We’re dedicated to strengthening relationships with organisations, governments, schools and charities through consultancy, training and tailored services.
Our mission
The Sussex Social Change Hub aims to advance social justice and equity by providing rigorous, ethical academic insights in social sciences.
We want to create a world where academic research continuously informs best practice, allowing organisations to more easily access high-level expertise. Integrity, ethics, kindness and authenticity are at the core of our interventions.
Read about the world-leading research taking place in the schools of Education and Social Work, Law, Politics and Sociology, and Global Studies. You can also join the Sussex Social Change Hub mailing list to receive the latest news.
CPD programme
Every year we design a unique programme of short CPD courses. These short non-accredited workshops are open to all professionals who find them relevant to their practice.
Our workshops are designed to bring our newest research to people working across the fields related to social justice, social care and helping professions and enhance professional practice. All participants will receive a certificate of completion after the workshop.
All our workshops can be booked through our website. Please read our CPD Terms and Conditions 2024 [PDF 58.22KB] for information about the cancellation policy.
If you would like more information about our CPD offer, or need assistance with your booking, please contact us at socialchangehub@sussex.ac.uk.
Courses
The following are the CPD courses coming up this academic year:
- 1 December 2026: Understanding Adolescent Stress: When Stress Helps and When It Harms
DATE: Tuesday 1 December 2026
TIME: 12pm-2pm
PRICE: Third sector professionals: £60 per person or Buy 5 Get 1 Free (6 tickers for £300); private sector professionals: £100 per person
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: This workshop is designed for anyone who supports adolescents and young adults, whether in a professional, educational, healthcare, community, or parenting/caregiving capacity. It will be particularly relevant to teachers, pastoral and safeguarding staff, youth workers, social workers, educational psychologists, NHS and mental health practitioners, family support workers, parents and carers, and those working within voluntary and community organisations. The workshop will also be of interest to students and trainees in psychology, education, social work, nursing, and related disciplines.
Speaker: Dr Liat Levita, Reader in Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience
Adolescence is a period of substantial biological, psychological and social change. While many young people navigate this transition successfully, others experience challenges that can affect their wellbeing and mental health. Stress is often assumed to be an inevitable and negative part of adolescence, yet contemporary research suggests a more complex picture. Adaptive levels of stress are a necessary part of a healthy life and development and can promote learning, growth, and resilience. In contrast, chronic, severe, or overwhelming stress can have significant adverse effects on wellbeing, mental health and development. This interactive workshop will examine what contemporary neuroscience can tell us about how adolescents experience and respond to stress. Participants will explore how the developing brain adapts to challenge differently from children and adults, and why some young people are more vulnerable to the negative effects of stress than others, and how supportive relationships and environments can help foster resilience. Through case examples, discussion, and breakout activities, participants will be encouraged to reflect on common assumptions about adolescent stress and consider how insights from neuroscience can inform the ways in which professionals, parents, and carers support young people.
No prior knowledge of biology/neuroscience is required.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
· Describe how stress affects the developing adolescent brain.
· Distinguish between adaptive and harmful forms of stress.
· Identify factors that increase vulnerability to stress-related difficulties.
· Understand the role of relationships, social environments and belonging in promoting resilience.
· Apply neuroscience-informed principles to their professional and caring practice with young people.
- 15 December 2026: Positive Psychology Approaches to Working with Vulnerable Young People: Insights Gained from Innovative Research
DATE: Tuesday 15 December 2026
TIME: 2pm-5pm
PRICE: £60 per person (single ticket), Buy 5 Get One Free £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Practitioners and those in helping professions working with young people or children
SPEAKER: Dr Clio Berry, Reader in Applied Mental Health Science
Led by a researcher in applied mental health, the workshop will explore the theoretical foundations of positive psychology and how key techniques can be packaged in engaging formats for use with vulnerable young people.
The workshop will be grounded in insights gained from innovative trials and participatory research studies involving vulnerable young people and children conducted in clinical and community settings.
Participants will be presented with key positive psychology techniques that can be integrated into everyday practice, helping practitioners to support young people to identify and build strengths, foster positive relationships, and develop a more hopeful and meaningful vision for their future.
- 13 January 2027: Rewilding Leadership: Rethinking Leadership for an Age of Ecological, Social and Personal Crisis
DATE: Wednesday 13 January 2027
TIME: 11am-2pm
PRICE: £60 per person or Buy 5 Get 1 Free for £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Change-makers working in public services, charities and social enterprises interested in new thinking about leadership.
Metaphors shape how we understand organisations and leadership. As Gareth Morgan famously argued, organisations have been viewed as machines, organisms, cultures, and political systems, each revealing some possibilities while concealing others. This workshop introduces a fresh metaphor: rewilding.
As the world grapples with climate breakdown, burnout, and growing social alienation, rewilding has emerged as a powerful approach to restoring ecological balance. Yet its relevance extends far beyond environmental practice. Drawing on Félix Guattari’s concept of The Three Ecologies, this session explores how ecological degradation, psychological distress, and social fragmentation are deeply interconnected challenges.
Just as we are beginning to recognise that perfectly manicured lawns can function as ecologically impoverished “green deserts”, we might ask whether our organisations have become similarly over-managed, standardised, and disconnected from the diversity needed for genuine flourishing.
Through discussion, reflection, and collaborative group activities, participants will explore what it might mean to rewild leadership itself: moving beyond control, optimisation, and homogeneity towards diversity, emergence, resilience, and regeneration.
Drawing on Dr Gaurish Chawla’s work on rewilding education, recently presented as a special event at the British Sociological Association and previously at the British Psychological Society, this interactive workshop invites leaders to imagine more human, ecological, and sustainable ways of organising and leading.
- 19 January to 23 February 2027: Innovation in Social Care Settings: Moving from Idea to Actuality
DATES: Tuesday 19 January 2027, Tuesday 2 February 2027 and Tuesday 23 February 2027
TIME: 9:30am-11am
PRICE: £90 per ticket, or Buy 5 get one free £450 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Leaders, managers and supervisors working in social care, social work and other helping professions
SPEAKER: Prof Michelle Lefevre, Professor of Social Work
Are you a social care leader who is keen to introduce more beneficial and effective practice approaches for your setting?
Do you need some help in translating social innovation theory into practice realities?
This sequence of three x 1.5 hour online workshops are designed to help leaders in social work, social care and related third sector organisations start to plan the design and delivery of innovative new interventions or system features.
Drawing on key findings and practice tools from a four-year study of innovation, the workshops will cover the following issues:
• clarifying your service gap or inefficiency and why innovation might address it
• selecting the change process most suitable for your aims and resources
• ethical and practical principles to guide each stage of the innovation process
• building a data-informed case for change and getting buy-in
• determining your service’s local conditions and capacity for innovation
• uncovering wider system influences on innovation
• culture, leadership, trust and collaboration
• design, implementation and testing
• planning priority areas of action
Attendees would be expected to attend all three workshops as the learning builds from one session to the next.
Attendees will be provided with preparatory and follow-up reading for each session. This would be beneficial should they wish to progress their innovation ideas, but not mandatory.
Attendees will be offered planning tasks to complete in relation to their innovation ideas, should they wish to do so.
- 9 February 2027: Beyond the Usual Adjustments: Understanding Autistic Cognition for Inclusive Practice
DATE: Tuesday 9 February 2027
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: £60 per person or Buy 5 Get 1 Free for £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Social workers, social care practitioners and other professionals working with autistic adults or young people.
Speaker: Dr Sophie Anns, Associate Professor of Psychology
Autism training often focuses on familiar inclusive practices: using clear communication, providing predictability, making sensory adjustments and allowing additional processing time. These approaches can be valuable, but understanding why they may help can enable practitioners to move beyond a checklist and make more thoughtful, individualised decisions about what an autistic person might need in a particular situation.
Drawing on research into autistic cognition, this three-hour interactive workshop will explore memory, attention and learning and what these can mean in everyday social work and social care practice. We will consider, for example, why recalling and communicating experiences can sometimes be difficult, how attention and switching can affect interactions and transitions, and how different ways of learning may influence engagement with support.
Participants will take part in practical activities to explore some of these processes themselves and will try structured and visual techniques for supporting recall of complex or difficult events. We will also use scenarios and discussion to identify where everyday professional practices may inadvertently create additional cognitive demands and consider how these could be adapted.
The aim is to give participants not simply a set of autism-friendly strategies, but a better understanding of the psychology behind inclusive practice, enabling them to apply these principles flexibly in their own work.
- 9 March 2027: Supporting families through a child’s first five years: key features of inclusive and effective early years and parenting services
DATE: Tuesday 9 March 2027
TIME: 10am-11:30am
PRICE: £30 per ticket, or Buy 5 get one free for £150 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Practitioners, managers, commissioners, policymakers, researchers, and others with an interest in improving outcomes for young children and their families.
SPEAKERS: Prof Michelle Lefevre, Professor of Social Work, Dr Jeri L. Damman, Associate Professor of Social Work and Social Care and Dr Ali Lacey, Research Fellow in Education
The first five years of a child's life are critical for development, wellbeing and long-term outcomes. Yet families' experiences of parenting support and early years services vary considerably, particularly where parents are facing multiple and interacting challenges such as poverty, poor mental health, domestic abuse, social isolation, or the effects of trauma.
The webinar will draw on emerging findings from ‘Flourish: Family Help in the Early Years’, a programme of research and practice development, funded by the NIHR through the ARC Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Moving beyond a focus on individual programmes, the team will explore the common elements of effective, inclusive and accessible support for families with diverse needs. The webinar will consider the underlying features of support and intervention that help parents engage with services, sustain participation, and achieve positive outcomes for themselves and their young children.
The webinar will consider how different approaches to family support are intended to work, including parenting programmes, relationship-based practice, trauma-informed approaches, strengths-based support, and community-based provision. The team will discuss the importance of context, relationships, trust, and responsiveness to family circumstances, and explore what parents themselves identify as helpful when seeking support.
Participants will gain insights into current evidence on supporting families during the early years, alongside practical considerations for service design, commissioning and delivery. The session will highlight opportunities to create more inclusive systems of support that recognise the complexity of family lives and promote equitable access to help during a child's crucial first five years.
- 15 March 2027: From Bystander to Upstander: Practical Strategies for Challenging Everyday Harm
DATE: Monday 15 March 2027
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: 3rd sector professionals (social workers, teachers, etc): £60 per person (single ticket), Buy 5 Get One Free £300 (6 tickets), Private sector professionals: £120 per person
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals across businesses, education, social work, charities, public services and other organisations who want to build more inclusive and supportive workplaces and communities. It may be particularly relevant to those working in HR, EDI, learning and development, and people management.
SPEAKER: Dr Özden Melis Uluğ, Associate Professor in Psychology
What do we do when we witness a harmful comment, microaggression, discriminatory behaviour, or another uncomfortable interaction? Many of us want to intervene but hesitate because we are unsure what to say, worry about making the situation worse, or assume that someone else will step in.
This interactive workshop explores the psychology of bystander behaviour and provides participants with practical tools for moving from being a bystander to becoming an active upstander. Drawing on research from social psychology, participants will examine why people sometimes fail to intervene, identify the personal and situational barriers that can make intervention difficult, and consider how these barriers can be overcome.
Through short presentations, group discussions, reflection exercises, and realistic case studies, participants will learn and practise the 5 Ds of bystander intervention: (1) Distract, (2) Delegate, (3) Direct, (4) Document, and (5) Delay. Rather than assuming that intervention requires confrontation, the workshop demonstrates a range of strategies that can be adapted to different situations, levels of risk, and professional contexts.
In this interactive session, participants will:
• understand the psychological processes that influence whether people intervene when witnessing harmful behaviour
• identify common barriers to intervention and consider strategies for overcoming them
• recognise the difference between being a passive bystander and an active upstander
• learn the 5 Ds of bystander intervention and when different strategies may be appropriate
• apply these strategies to realistic scenarios involving microaggressions, discrimination, exclusion, and other forms of everyday harm
• reflect on how they can intervene safely and effectively within their own professional context.
Participants will leave the workshop with a practical toolkit of intervention strategies and greater confidence in recognising and responding to harmful behaviour when they encounter it.
- 16 March 2027: Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension in the Primary School: From Research to Practice
DATE: Tuesday 16 March 2027
TIME: 2pm-5pm
PRICE: £60 per person or Buy 5 Get 1 Free (6 tickets for £300)
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Primary school teachers, heads, literacy leads, school improvement advisors and teacher educators.
Speaker: Professor Jane Oakhill
This workshop will focus on developing awareness of the important components of reading comprehension and how to teach them: deep vocabulary knowledge, inference making, comprehension monitoring, and text structure understanding.
The workshop will start with a short introduction to each of the components, with illustrations of background research that supports their relevance to reading comprehension.
This introduction will be followed by activities to provide participants with first-hand insights into the strategies for reading comprehension, by engaging them in thinking about their own comprehension processes. The focus will be on how these components interact and how they need to be taught and modelled in the context of reading comprehension in the classroom. This will be followed by discussion and feedback, and participants will then work to create more activities to inspire and support their own teaching practices.
The workshop will be led and facilitated by Professor Jane Oakhill (University of Sussex, UK), who is a leading researcher in her field, and has extensive experience both with research into, and teaching of, reading comprehension. She has published widely in this area, and her book (co-authored with Kate Cain and Carsten Elbro) "Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension" has been translated into several languages.
- 23 March 2027: Re-Imagining Resistance with and for Young People
DATE: Tuesday 23 March
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: £60 per ticket, or Buy 5 get One Free for £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals working with young people across all sectors
SPEAKER: Prof Kristine Langhoff, Professor of Social Work
Resistance is a powerful and loaded word, open to interpretation and re-invention across time. It can be liberatory or destructive- sometimes both. However, when the term is used to describe young people (particularly outside of the context of political upheaval or a fight against injustice), it often signals frustration- by adults who do not want young people to resist the things they’ve told young people to say, be, or do. Here, resistance is a problem to be overcome and in the face of significant or serious harm, the pressure to convince young people to stop resisting builds.
What if young people’s resistance could be re-imagined entirely, as a force of vitality, health, and hope?
For the last five years, a multi-disciplinary research team used a range of arts-based methods (photography, film, movement, poetry, and textiles) to study resistance, as both a theoretical concept and a meaningful, tangible lived and felt experience among young people affected by sexual and interpersonal violence.
Led by Prof. Kristi Langhoff, they engaged an initial cohort of 20 young people and then worked with an additional 18 young people and 50 youth work and creative arts practitioners to turn their collective project into a practical resource for use with young people experiencing multiple forms of harm.
This workshop will share what the team has learned and provide space to consider how re-imagining resistance can help bring new language, avenues for participation, and collective advocacy to work with young people experiencing (or at risk of) harm.
- 6 April 2027: New approaches for thinking about children’s mental health
DATE: Tuesday 6 April 2027
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: £60 per person (single ticket), Buy 5 Get One Free £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals working with children and young people
SPEAKER: Dr Rachel Burr, Associate Professor in Education
Children and teenagers do not need to be experiencing a mental health crisis. In this workshop we will explore where our societal ideas about mental health have come from and examine contemporary cultural influences shaping children and teenagers’ experiences.
Informed by Rachel Burr’s extensive study, this workshop presents a case for practitioners to work in group settings, both to support those already presenting with mental health issues and to offer preventative care to those who might otherwise do so.
By the end of the session, it will be possible for members of the workshop to independently replicate and apply the approaches to their practice. The workshop will draw upon case examples from the study to illuminate the transformative nature of the group work process.
- 12 April 2027: Raising Confident Children: A Workshop for Parents
DATE: Monday 12 April 2027
TIME: 2pm-4pm
PRICE: £40 per person
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Parents of children aged 2-12, professionals working with families and children.
SPEAKER: Sam Cartwright-Hatton, Professor of Clinical Child Psychology
This practical, evidence-based workshop for parents draws on the core principles of the Fearless Families course, which has been found to be effective at reducing child anxiety in randomized controlled trials involving almost 2000 families. The workshop helps parents understand how anxiety in themselves or in their child can unintentionally shape family patterns. It offers simple, practical strategies for building children's confidence, resilience, and independence.
In this whistle-stop tour of the Fearless Families course, you will learn the nuts and bolts of what causes anxiety in children, how to gently encourage independence and bravery, how to manage difficult behaviour in ways that builds resilience, how to get more 'good stress' into your children's lives, and what to do if you yourself struggle with anxiety.
Designed to be warm, non-judgemental, and highly practical, the session translates psychological science into everyday parenting tools that families can apply immediately. The approach is suitable both for parents concerned about anxiety (in themselves or their child) and for those simply wanting to support emotional wellbeing and confidence in their children.
- 13 April to July 2027: People, Pets, and Practice: Exploring Human-Animal Inclusive Practice
DATE: Tuesday 13 April, Tuesday 11 May, Tuesday 15 June and Tuesday 13 July 2027
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: £240 per person; Buy 5 Get One Free £1200 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals working in the human services, e.g. child protection and family services, adult social care, disability, mental health, domestic abuse, health and clinical care, and criminal justice
SPEAKER: Rebecca Stephens, Associate Professor of Social Work
This webinar series is designed to equip professionals working in the human services (e.g. child protection and family services, adult social care, disability, mental health, domestic abuse, health and clinical care, and criminal justice), with the skills to recognise the interconnections between human and animal welfare, incorporate these insights into their routine practice, and strengthen collaboration within the veterinary and animal welfare sector.
We will explore:
Seminar 1, Tuesday 13 April 2027 10am-1pm:
The relationship between human and animal welfare across the life course, drawing on historical, intersectional, sociocultural, and theoretical perspectives on the role of companion animals.
Seminar 2, Tuesday 11 May 2027 10am-1pm:
The typology of pet loss, grief and caregiver burden and its impact on humans and best practices in assessing and supporting the impact of animal-related grief.
Seminar 3, Tuesday 15 June 2027 10am-1pm:
The link between the abuse of animals and people, sociocultural perspectives on animal abuse and its impact on children, young people and adults and best practices in safety planning.
Seminar 4, Tuesday 13 July 2027 10am-1pm:
Animal welfare frameworks and legislation to support ethical decision-making and professional responsibility, promoting interdisciplinary working across human services, veterinary, and animal welfare.
Case studies will support learning, and you will be provided with useful links to articles, resources, and relevant local and national organisations.
- 20 April 2027: Adolescents and Neuroscience: What you need to know about the adolescent brain
DATE: Tuesday 20 April 2027
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: £60 per person (single ticket), Buy 5 Get One Free £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Social Workers and helping professionals working with young people
Speakers: Dr Liat Levita, Reader in Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience, and Prof Kristine Langhoff, Professor of Social Work
This 3-hour workshop will offer participants the opportunity to learn about the most recent developments in neuroscience related to the developing adolescent brain and how this knowledge can equip professionals to work more effectively with young people facing a range of risks and harm.
The session will be structured as a question and answer forum, where Kristine and Liat will bring together key contemporary issues in adolescent safeguarding, trauma-informed practice, and neuroscience. Professionals will have the opportunity to interact, ask questions, and apply learning whilst reflecting on their own practice throughout the session.
- 26 April 2027: Making Evaluation Matter: Designing, Delivering and Using Evidence for Better Social Care Practice and Services
DATE: Monday 26 April 2027
TIME: 2pm-5pm
PRICE: £60 per person, or Buy Five Get One Free £300 (6 tickets)
DELIVERY: Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals working in leadership roles in the public sector
SPEAKERS: Lisa Holmes, Professor in Applied Social Science, and Robyn Long, Head of APP Research and Evaluation
How do we move beyond monitoring activity to understanding what difference services make for children, families and communities?
This interactive workshop will provide social care leaders, managers and practitioners with practical tools and approaches to design, commission and use evaluation effectively.
Drawing on extensive experience of evaluating a range of policy initiatives and service innovations, participants will explore how to develop meaningful evaluation questions, select appropriate methods, use data intelligently, and ensure findings inform decision-making and service improvement.
The workshop will combine practical examples, real-world case studies and hands-on exercises to support participants to strengthen evaluation capacity within their own organisations.
- 27 April 2027: Getting More Done in Less Time: how to enhance productivity and wellbeing at work
DATE: Tuesady 27 April 2027
TIME: 10am-12pm
PRICE: £50 per person (single ticket), Buy 5 Get One Free £250 (6 tickets)
Online via Teams
TARGETED AT: Desk-based workers, HR professionals, Team managers, C-suite leaders and business owners, Non-profit leaders, Local authority managers
SPEAKER: Dr Charlotte Rae, Associate Professor of Psychology and founder of Sussex 4 Day Week
This interactive workshop will share the latest psychology and neuroscience research on productivity and wellbeing at work. Then, using insights from studies of the 4 day working week, we will share practical strategies to help you get tasks done in less time. These can be used whether you have a 4 day week, or just want to manage your workload more effectively and with less stress. Through a series of reflective activities, you will identify take-away actions to support both productivity and wellbeing, relevant for you and for your wider team.
In this 2-hour interactive session, you will learn:
· How work stress affects the mind, the brain, and the body
· Why this impacts negatively on performance at work
· Psychological strategies for managing heavy workloads, to get tasks done in less time, and with more ease
· Practical take-away actions to try in your own working life and in your own teams, customised to your own sector and cognitive style
We will not cover AI techniques. This session is focused on understanding how the human mind operates at work, and behavioural approaches to managing workload and wellbeing.
- 25 May 2027: LGBTQ+ Inclusive Fertility Care: Evidence and Practice
DATE: Tuesday 25 May 2027
TIME: 10am-12pm
PRICE: £150 per person
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Fertility professionals
SPEAKER: Dr Sophie Zadeh, Reader in Family Psychology
This two-hour workshop will explore what inclusive fertility care looks like for LGBTQ+ patients and how services can put it into practice. Drawing on more than 15 years of psychological research by the speaker, alongside the wider social scientific evidence base, the session will consider how fertility services can support LGBTQ+ patients throughout treatment, from their first contact with a clinic through to becoming parents.
The workshop will explore the experiences of different LGBTQ+ patient groups, considering both common challenges and individual needs. Particular attention will be given to routes to parenthood involving donor conception and surrogacy, as well as the questions and uncertainties that can arise around family formation, parenthood and children’s identities.
Participants will gain evidence-based insights and practical ideas for creating more inclusive fertility services, including considerations for clinic environments, staff training, communication, and service delivery.
Bespoke consultations for individual organisations are also available on request.
- 8 June 2027: Sitting with uncertainty: Navigating power and ethical complexity in helping professions
DATE: Tuesday 8 June 2027
TIME: 10am-1pm
PRICE: £60 per person or Buy 5 Get One Free (6 tickets) for £300
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals working in social work, social care and other helping professions
SPEAKER: Dr May Nasrawy, Assistant Professor in Social Work
We all encounter moments in practice that stay with us, where the way forward feels uncertain and different perspectives and responsibilities pull us towards different understandings. These moments sit at the heart of everyday social work, inviting us to think more deeply about how power, ethics and responsibility shape our practice.
This three-hour interactive workshop creates a space to slow down, sit with this uncertainty and think and reflect together on some of the ethical tensions and power dynamics embedded in everyday practice. It invite us to pause, question and remain open to complexity as we explore and unpack what shapes how we understand situations and how we choose to respond.
Through practice dilemmas, power mapping, shared reflection and group discussions, participants will be invited to notice how their own values, professional position, organisational contexts and wider structural inequalities shape how situations are understood. Together, we will explore whose voices are heard, whose knowledge is privileged or overlooked, how power is experienced within relationships, and what our own discomfort and uncertainty might be asking us to notice. Rather than moving quickly towards resolution, the workshop invites us to remain curious, question what we may take for granted, and consider what it means to practise ethically, relationally and critically in the spaces where certainty is not always possible.
- 14 June 2027: Kindness in the Workplace: Practical Insights from the science of kindness and wellbeing
DATE: Monday 14th
TIME: 5:30pm-7:30pm
PRICE: £75 per person
Online via MS Teams
This interactive, evidence-based workshop introduces participants to psychological research on kindness, wellbeing and positive relationships at work, and explores how these insights can be applied in everyday professional life. Drawing on research into happiness, psychological wellbeing, emotions and relationships, participants will explore what supports positive workplace relationships, why our connections with others matter for our health and wellbeing, and what can encourage or inhibit kindness at work. Through practical activities, reflection and discussion, participants will draw on their own workplace experiences and explore evidence-based approaches designed to increase kindness and wellbeing. We will consider how these approaches work and how they can be adapted to different teams, organisations and professional settings. Participants will leave with practical insights and strategies they can apply immediately to strengthen relationships, support wellbeing and contribute to positive organisational change.
Professor Robin Banerjee is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global and Civic Engagement at the University of Sussex. His research focuses on social and emotional development, wellbeing and kindness. He founded the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness and led The Kindness Test, a partnership with the BBC that became the world’s largest public science project on kindness. Follow our work through the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness website and LinkedIn page for more information about the work kindness.
- 21 June 2027: The Science of Strengths and Virtues: Recognising and Optimising the Use of Your Strengths
DATE: Monday 21 June 2027
TIME: 4pm-6pm
PRICE: £40 per person
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Professionals whose work involves supporting, developing or leading others, including coaches, educators, psychologists, wellbeing practitioners, managers and team leaders, HR and organisational-development professionals, consultants, and those working in community settings. The workshop is also suitable for anyone interested in understanding their own character strengths and learning how to use them more effectively in everyday life.
SPEAKER: Dr Rona Hart, Associate Professor in Applied Positive Psychology, School of Psychology
The workshop draws on research from Positive Psychology and the Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues, one of the most widely used frameworks for understanding and optimising the use of positive characteristics. The VIA framework identifies 24 character strengths, organised around six broader virtues, and offers an evidence-based approach to understanding how the use of these strengths contributes to wellbeing, effective functioning, relationships and other life domains.
The first part of the workshop introduces the 24 VIA framework. Participants are then guided through the process of strength spotting: learning to recognise and articulate strengths in themselves and others, and to consider how these strengths can be used in practice.
Moving beyond strengths identification, the second part of the workshop explores how strengths are expressed and applied across different situations. Participants will consider how strengths can be underused or overused, and how their use can be optimised and adapted to different contexts.
The final part of the workshop considers how the VIA framework can inform professional practice, when working with clients, colleagues, teams and students in areas such as coaching, education, psychological therapy, management and organisational development.
Through structured exercises, discussion and reflection, participants will:
· Develop an understanding of the VIA framework;
· Identify and reflect on their own characteristic strengths and their use;
· Learn how to optimise and contextualise their use their own strengths.
· Consider practical applications of strengths-based approaches in personal and professional settings.
No previous knowledge of Positive Psychology or the VIA framework is required.
Participants will receive a comprehensive set of ready-to-use materials to support delivery of the workshop, including PowerPoint slides, an eBook introducing the VIA Strengths and Virtues framework, and a set of digital strengths cards.
- 21 June 2027: Asking the Right Questions: Leading the Whole School and College Approach to Mental Health as a Governing Board
DATE: Monday 21 June 2027
TIME: 4pm-6pm
PRICE: £60 per person
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: School and college governors, trustees and multi-academy trust board members, particularly those with a link role for wellbeing and mental health. Clerks and governance professionals are also welcome.
SPEAKER: Dr Kathryn Lester, Associate Professor in Psychology, Professor Robin Banerjee, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global and Civic Engagement, Becca Randell, Associate Director for Translational Research, Health Innovation Network
Every school and college in England is encouraged to take a whole school and college approach (WSCA) to mental health and wellbeing. Governing boards shape whether that happens in practice, because they set priorities and hold leaders to account. Yet we know from our research that there is wide variation in how well WSCA is understood and in how confident governors and trustees feel in overseeing it.
This interactive, evidence-based two-hour online workshop builds on our research on the whole school and college approach to mental health and our Governors' WSCA Guide, developed with governors and endorsed by NAGAS and Boards for Education. It covers what a whole school and college approach involves, where governance ends and delivery begins, and how boards can ask the right questions, set realistic priorities and track whether their whole school and college approach is working. You don't need to be a mental health expert to take part.
The workshop starts with what a whole school and college approach involves and why it matters for the things boards already care about, such as attendance, attainment and staff retention. It then turns to the governor role: making sure wellbeing is on the agenda, setting strategic direction and supporting school and college leaders to show what they're doing and whether it's working.
Participants will look at the questions boards can ask across the eight areas of WSCA, and how to turn what they find into two or three realistic priorities for the year ahead. We'll also look at how the free WSCA Measurement Toolkit can give boards a clearer picture of progress over time.
Through presentation, discussion and reflection, participants will:
- understand what a whole school and college approach involves and how it links to current Department for Education and Ofsted expectations
- be clearer about the difference between governance and delivery in mental health and wellbeing
- feel more confident asking questions that test whether the approach is working
- consider what evidence their board should expect from leaders, and how often
- leave with ideas for setting a small number of mental health and wellbeing priorities with their board
Participants will receive the Governors' WSCA Guide, the one-page WSCA infographic for sharing with their board, and a copy of the workshop slides.
- 29 June 2027: Is It Working? Measuring and Improving Your Whole School and College Approach to Mental Health
DATE: Tuesday 29 June 2027
TIME: 4pm-6pm
PRICE: £60 per person
Online via MS Teams
TARGETED AT: Senior school and college leaders, senior mental health leads, pastoral and wellbeing leads, Mental Health Support Team (MHST) practitioners and managers, and trust or local authority staff responsible for developing or overseeing the whole school and college approach.
SPEAKER: Dr Kathryn Lester, Associate Professor in Psychology, Professor Robin Banerjee, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global and Civic Engagement, Becca Randell, Associate Director for Translational Research, Health Innovation Network
Schools, colleges and MHSTs routinely use standardised measures for work with individual pupils and students, but very few systematically check whether their whole school or college approach is being put into practice, or whether it's making a difference. Without that, it's hard to know where to focus effort, and hard to show governors, staff and families that good intentions are turning into something real.
This workshop focuses on why measurement matters, what good practice looks like, and how to use the WSCA Measurement Toolkit to track progress and target improvement. The toolkit was co-produced with pupils, students and staff, is free to use, and is embedded in the NHS England and Department for Education MHST Operating Guidance. It is currently being used by schools and colleges across every phase and region of England, around three quarters of them supported by an MHST.
The workshop opens with the case for measurement, including the difference between implementation (what you're doing and how well it's embedded) and outcomes (what's changing for pupils, students and staff), and why you need both. Participants will then look at the toolkit's two self-assessment tools, the Implementation Self-Assessment Tool (ISAT) and the Outcomes Self-Assessment Tool (OSAT), including how to bring in the views of pupils, students, staff and families and how to judge the strength of evidence behind a rating. The final part turns to using the results: tracking change across time, deciding where to focus next, reporting to governors, and how MHSTs can use the tools with the settings they support. Throughout, we'll draw on our research into how settings across England are implementing and measuring WSCA.
Through presentation, worked examples and discussion, participants will:
- understand the case for measuring both the implementation and outcomes of WSCA
- become familiar with the ISAT and OSAT and how they're completed
- consider what counts as good evidence in their own setting and how to gather it
- explore how results can inform planning and conversations with governors, staff and families
- identify practical next steps for embedding measurement in their setting or service
No previous experience of the toolkit is needed. Settings already using the toolkit will find the session useful for getting more out of their data.
Participants will receive a copy of the workshop slides and guidance on registering for free access to the WSCA Measurement Toolkit.
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Making Teaching of Reading Inclusive – a Sussex Social Change Hub case study
Jo Tregenza, a Reader in Primary Education and President Elect of the UKLA, developed an inclusive approach to the teaching of reading for students with physical and learning disabilities at our partner institution, Treloar. The team approached Jo to help consider how the school’s vision could be further developed through the teaching of reading. The ensuing project aimed to collaborate with staff, enhancing their understanding of research and pedagogy related to reading. The focus was on key concepts such as decoding, comprehension, and reading for pleasure, viewed through the lens of current research.
The goal was to utilize this understanding to work with staff in developing a pedagogical approach that could enhance the cross-curricular and integrated program of speaking and listening, reading, and writing. The framework developed with Jo has helped students demonstrate higher levels of enjoyment of literacy. Jo’s work significantly contributed to the school’s nomination for the NASS Innovation Awards 2023 for Developing an Innovative English Curriculum.
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