Dear amazing volunteers,
I hope you all had a nice festive period. I wanted to introduce myself (to those of you who I haven’t met), but also say hello again to those of you who I have met.
My name is Sally, and I am APP's Training Coordinator. I have been with APP for 4 years now and my main role is to help with training health professionals in postpartum psychosis, across the UK.
One of APP's aims is to raise awareness of postpartum psychosis amongst all health professionals who come in to contact with women and families in the perinatal period. This involves inputting into other organisations' perinatal mental health training, but also running our own in-depth training days.
In 2022 we reached over 2,000 health professionals with a lived experience talk, which is amazing.
In 2023, we aim to reach even more health professionals. Below outlines the different types of training we are going to deliver this year, so you can see what opportunities there might be to get involved.
Online APP Hosted Workforce Training
This year we will be running four APP online training days. Health professionals can book on to these individually. The first 2 are confirmed for 15th February and 27th March. For more information (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/app-workforce-training-for-health-professionals-tickets-496307337607).
We will also be running two additional specialist training days. These will include a day about partners, families, and friends’ experiences of those affected by postpartum psychosis. And, a day about diverse communities and experiences of postpartum psychosis. All days include lived experience talks, but also facts, figures, and current research about postpartum psychosis.
NHS Commissioned Workforce Training
We will also run very similar days alongside our online days, that are delivered onsite to various NHS Trusts across the UK. We have confirmed training days for Lancashire and Staffordshire areas, but dates are yet to be confirmed. So please watch this space for more info.
I facilitate all these days along with lived experience speakers and other experts such as Ian Jones (Professor of Psychiatry, National Centre for Mental Health, Cardiff University). If this is something you would like to get involved with or find out more about, please do email myself on training@app-network.org. I am here to talk through how it all works beforehand, support you on the day and afterwards.
Other perinatal mental health training
We will also be continuing our partnerships with the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), where we input into their parent and infant mental health training and run sessions on postpartum psychosis. They ask for a lived experience talk for approximately 45 minutes, which includes 15 minutes of questions. If you would like any more information on how to get involved with these sessions, then please do email me on training@app-network.org.
Your connections
If you spoke to any health professionals in 2022, please let me know when, who, and how many people you reached with your lived experience story (by emailing training@app-network.org). It really helps us to report on all the health professionals who have heard a lived experience talk about postpartum psychosis.
If you make any connections with health professionals in 2023, or are involved in any training yourself, then please do contact us and let us know. We can help with any PowerPoint slides, or facts and figures about postpartum psychosis that you might need, or just be there to talk things through with you.
There are other ways to get involved with the training project if you don’t want to speak in front of people. For example, inputting into some of the training resources or providing quotes for different training sessions. So please do keep an eye on emails or Facebook posts from me on the Regional Reps page.
Thank you for everything you do and for continuing to raise awareness.
All the best for 2023 and I look forward to hearing from you,
Sally