Making Connections Chester - BACP - British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy

We’re delighted to welcome back our free in-person Making Connections events.

These regular face to face conferences take place throughout the year and give you the chance to network with other members and our divisional executive members.

Programme

Click on the sessions to find out more. If you are viewing this page on a mobile, rotate your screen to view the programme.

10.00am – 10.30am	Registration
10.30am - 10.50am	Welcome from BACP
10.50am - 11.35am	Living with and beyond cancer, presented by Steve Pointon
11.35am - 11.45am	Comfort break
11.45am – 12.30pm	The imperfect therapist: Finding your grist for the mill, presented by Fay Short
12.30pm – 1.30pm	Light lunch
1.30pm – 1.50 pm	Local member two-minute platforms
1.50pm – 2.40pm	Connecting together The room will be divided into different areas of interest, for more focused and structured networking. You’ll be encouraged to move around the room and engage with colleagues, volunteers and BACP staff to network, share ideas and meet new people with similar interests. You’ll be able to add a new area of interest if yours isn’t represented.
2.40pm – 3.10pm	Refreshments
3.10pm – 3.55pm	When faith and stigma intersect: Reflecting on south Asian women’s mental health in therapy, presented by Shima Maka
3.55pm - 4.00pm	Event close

This programme is subject to change.

Living with and beyond cancer

10.50am – 11.35am

This session on Living With and Beyond Cancer is designed to support counsellors in understanding the complex and ongoing needs of individuals affected by cancer across the survivorship trajectory. It aims to deepen awareness of the psychological, emotional, social, and financial challenges that patients and their families may face during and after treatment, including issues such as identity changes, uncertainty, and grief.

The session will advocate for strengthened psychological support, alongside greater recognition of financial stress and bereavement needs, highlighting the counsellor’s role in addressing these interconnected concerns with sensitivity and competence.

It will also focus on equipping counsellors with insights and approaches to better support patients and families living with and beyond cancer, fostering compassionate, holistic, and person-centred care that acknowledges both resilience and vulnerability.

Steve Pointon is a counsellor, speaker, and passionate advocate for those living with and beyond cancer. His work is deeply shaped by his own lived experience of serious illness, which led him to retrain and dedicate his life to supporting others navigating uncertainty, loss, and profound life change.
Grounded in a person-centred approach and informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Steve offers a compassionate, authentic space where individuals can explore not only the impact of illness, but also their capacity for resilience, meaning, and growth. He is particularly committed to raising awareness of the often-overlooked challenges of cancer survivorship, including the emotional, psychological, and identity shifts that can persist long after treatment ends.
Alongside his private practice, Steve works within hospice care, supporting patients and families through some of life’s most challenging moments. He is also the host of the Living with & Beyond Cancer podcast and an active voice in patient advocacy.
Through his counselling, speaking, and advocacy, Steve brings hope, honesty, and humanity to conversations about living fully—beyond diagnosis.

The imperfect therapist: Finding your grist for the mill

11.45am - 12.30pm

Therapists are trained to develop knowledge, skills, and ethical competence, but alongside this can come an unspoken pressure to get therapy ‘right’. We may find ourselves searching for the right question, the right intervention, or the right thing to say, while worrying about silence, uncertainty, discomfort, or making mistakes. But these imperfect moments could be perfect grist for our therapeutic mill. It is often the sessions that do not go perfectly that give us the richest material for reflection, learning, and growth.

Drawing on psychological research, professional insights, and practice-based scenarios, this interactive session explores how therapists can recognise and use their own grist for the mill. Through questions and reflective exercises, participants will consider their relationship with ‘getting it right’ and explore how the pursuit of perfection may shape their presence, confidence, and connection with clients.

The session aims to challenge assumptions about the ‘perfect’ therapist and show how we can embrace imperfection as an opportunity for greater self-awareness, curiosity, and professional growth, using our experiences to support more authentic therapeutic practice while maintaining ethical and professional accountability.

Professor Fay Short is a Chartered Psychologist, qualified integrative therapist, and Professor in the School of Psychology at Bangor University. She is a Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and an Accredited Registrant of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society. As Course Director for the MSc in Counselling, Fay has extensive experience in counsellor education, supervision, and professional development. Her work brings together psychology, counselling, psychotherapy, and education, with particular interests in therapeutic practice, wellbeing, and the psychology of abuse. She has delivered training on the psychology of abuse to specialist police investigators and other professionals and is co-author of Core Approaches in Counselling and Psychotherapy. A Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and National Teaching Fellow, Fay is an experienced keynote speaker and trainer who is passionate about making psychological theory and research accessible, engaging, and relevant to real-world therapeutic practice.

When faith and stigma intersect: Reflecting on south Asian women’s mental health in therapy

3.10pm - 3.55pm

This reflective session explores how faith and stigma intersect in shaping the mental health experiences of South Asian women and how these factors can influence engagement with therapeutic support. It draws on lived experiences as a Muslim practitioner alongside clinical work with culturally diverse clients and reflective practise to consider recurring themes where practitioners may feel less confident and underprepared in cross cultural work.
The session aims to deepen awareness of how mental health difficulties may be understood and expressed through cultural and faith-based frameworks and how these sometimes differ from dominant western psychological models. It also considers the impact of stigma family systems and varying levels of mental health literacy and help seeking an engagement with therapy.
Rather than focusing on specialist or prescriptive approaches the session encourages reflection on practise assumptions training gaps and potential discomfort when working with faith informed narratives or of distress it invites participants to consider how these factors may shape the therapeutic relationship.
The overall aim is to support more thoughtful culturally responsive and ethically grounded practise with South Asian women particularly where faith and cultural meaning making play a central role in experiences of mental health.