This event is designed to support student members as they transition from training to professional practice, helping to build confidence through shared learning, lived experience, and practical insight.
As well as a keynote presentation, there will be presentations and workshops on a range of themes including personal development, career pathways, practitioner experience and feeling out of your depth. These themes are designed to highlight potential career options as well as explore the current challenges impacting the profession today.
The programme will explore current challenges facing the profession and provide tools and perspectives to help you navigate them with confidence.
You’ll hear taster talks from BACP staff, exhibitors and experienced practitioners who can provide insights into the steps they’ve taken to get where they are today.
Book your place
The Student conference 2027 is a hybrid event. Our hybrid events provide you with the opportunity to attend and engage both in person and online. In person attendance includes networking opportunities and the chance to engage with BACP staff. Online access includes interactive Q&A's, a chatroom to network with peers, and interactive polls.
Programme
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Time |
Vox 1Strand 1: Online and in person |
Vox 2 & 3Strand 2: Online and in person |
Vox 4Strand 3: In person only |
Vox 5Strand 4: In person only |
| 8.45am - 9.45am | Registration and taster talks (in person only) |
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| 9.45am - 9.55am | Event welcome by Jack Jackson and Jessie Emilion | ||||
| 9.55am - 10.55am | Keynote to be confirmed | ||||
| 10.55am - 11.15am | Break | ||||
Out of your depth |
11.15am - 12.00pm | The new Ethical Framework and resources, presented by Patrick Cawley | Safeguarding for your future profession, presented by Jo Holmes |
Workshop to be confirmed |
Workshop to be confirmed |
Career pathways |
12.10pm - 12.55pm | Counselling and Psychotherapy in the NHS, presented by Matthew Smith-Lilley | Workshop to be confirmed | Workshop to be confirmed |
Workshop to be confirmed |
| 12.55pm - 1.55pm | Lunch | ||||
Personal development |
1.55pm - 2.40pm | Neuro-Inclusive Counselling: from system thinking to relational practice, presented by Leah Booker | Workshop to be confirmed | Workshop to be confirmed | Workshop to be confirmed |
| 2.40pm - 3pm | Break | ||||
Practitioner experience |
3pm - 3.45pm |
Making Private Practice work for you in today's changing professional landscape, presented by Sally Brown | Workshop to be confirmed | Workshop to be confirmed | Workshop to be confirmed |
| 4pm - 4.45pm |
Ticking all the boxes: race, neurodivergence and finding your place in a profession that wasn't built for you, presented by Josephine Bey |
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| 4.45pm - 4.55pm | Event Close | ||||
This programme is subject to change
This keynote tells the story of one Black, neurodivergent woman's journey from student to practitioner. Not as a rags-to-riches narrative, but as an honest, textured account of what it actually takes to enter and survive in a profession that remains predominantly white and middle-class.
Through lived experience, the talk will trace the path from anthropology graduate, through redundancy, to the moment of deciding "it's now or never" and everything that came after: late dyslexia and ADHD diagnoses, supervisors who didn't understand, employers who took advantage, the exhaustion of masking, and the quiet question of whether being "well-spoken" makes you more credible or just more palatable.
The session aims to challenge students to think critically about representation, access, and belonging in counselling and psychotherapy and to inspire them to become practitioners who don't just enter the profession, but change it.