Eef Hogervorst kicked things off with her keynote address ‘Dementia diagnoses in LMIC: the role of sociodemographic and health inequalities’ in the main auditorium.
Attendees had plenty of sessions to choose from, with the BPS’s Divisions of Clinical Psychology, Educational and Child Psychology, and Occupational Psychology all running events as part of the programme for the day.
The second session of the day in Auditorium One was the panel discussion ‘From Public Enemy to public health’, led by Orly Klein from the University of Brighton and focusing on the local project Room to Rant.
The service provides a for men ‘to be safe and express themselves’ in the Brighton area to open up through the mediums of rap music and spoken word, with sessions also providing access to a therapist.
The panel, including two of the MCs who help to facilitate the service, were clear about its power to help transform lives among young men in Brighton with mental health concerns, saying that there are ‘people out there walking around who would not be without this project’.
Tiago Pereira of the Portuguese Psychological Association rounded off the morning’s sessions with his keynote address on the role of psychology in ‘putting a full stop to poverty’, one of the central themes of the conference and a focus of two recent BPS campaigns.
Delegates were treated to the sounds of a Division of Occupational Psychology-organised choir session in the foyer at lunchtime, with psychologists from all over the world and with all levels of vocal experience testing out their singing voices.
Attention was back on Auditorium One in the afternoon with two further keynote sessions, the first of which saw Roxane C Silver discuss coping with collective traumas, her research on the topic ranging ‘from mass violence to Covid-19’, and considering the role played by the media and dissemination in responses to major incidents such as the Boston bombing.
Rounding off the day was BPS President Nicky Hayes looking towards our ‘hybrid future’ and the implications of this from a social psychological perspective. Taking questions on the future of work and how to manage a team working in a hybrid manner, she argued that psychologists have the skills and the knowledge to help organisations and people transition to the ‘new normal’.
