Making Connections Newcastle 10.11.26 - 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	The good enough therapist - managing self doubt and deepening your professional identity, presented by Sally Brown
11.35am - 11.45am	Comfort break
11.45am – 12.30pm	From Couch to Case Study: Turning Practice into Evidence, presented by Kirsty Hutchinson
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	Transracial Adoption, presented by Tam Cane
3.55pm - 4.00pm	Event close

This programme is subject to change.

The good enough therapist - managing self-doubt and deepening your professional identity

10.50am – 11.35am

The session aim is to offer practical insights and a chance to relfect on self-doubt in therapists – what it means (and doesn’t mean), and how to manage it. It will also explore the challenges of finding and deepening identity as a therapist in the changing therapy landscape.

Drawing on two years of doctoral research into therapists’ professional self-doubt and humility, alongside my experience as a therapist and writer, I will explore the sometimes surprising relationship between confidence and competence. I will consider how self-doubt can support reflective, ethical and effective practice, when it becomes undermining, and how to recognise when it signals a genuine need for further learning or support.

Rather than constantly seeking to add new skills or reinvent ourselves, I will suggest practical ways to strengthen our professional identity by deepening existing expertise, developing our own therapeutic voice, making space for reflection and building meaningful connections with fellow practitioners.

Sally Brown MBACP is a counsellor, therapeutic coach, writer and editor who has worked in private practice since 2013. She is a former editor and now consultant editor of BACP's Therapy Today, and she is also the editor and researcher of the ‘Dilemmas’ section, which explores ethical issues.

Sally works integratively, drawing on her core training in psychodynamic therapy, alongside more recent training in CBT, ACT and compassion-focused approaches. Her therapeutic philosophy is also influenced by her ongoing studies in Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the teachings of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche through the Tergar meditation community.

Her forthcoming book about setting up, sustaining and thriving in private practice is due for publication by PCCS Books in March 2027.

She also writes Notes on Therapy, a free newsletter for therapists available on Substack, exploring the professional and personal experience of being a therapist. Her particular interests include professional identity, reflective practice and how therapists can sustain their confidence, effectiveness and enjoyment of their work.

Although now based in Bedfordshire, Sally has strong roots in the North-East. Born and brought up near Newcastle, she retains close family ties to the region and is a regular visitor to Newcastle and the Northumberland coast, where much of her extended family lives.

From Couch to Case Study: Turning Practice into Evidence

11.45am - 12.30pm

Counselling and psychotherapy increasingly operate within marketised structures, where funding, commissioning and service value are judged against measurable outcomes. This session presents how practice-based research can be used as a strategic tool that strengthens the profession's evidence base, informs policy, and protects the value of therapeutic work within organisations and systems.

Drawing on experience of combining clinical practice and research, this session shares what I learned along the way: how a research question can emerge from something noticed in day-to-day practice, what it means to be a practice-based researcher and tips on getting started. I will also share insights from a research study I undertook in placing support services as a strategic priority within institutions.

The session is aimed at practitioners across all settings who want to strengthen their professional voice and influence, and who are curious about how their own clinical experience and instincts could be translated into a credible evidence base.

Kirsty Hutchinson is Manager of Welfare and Counselling Services at Newcastle University. She holds BACP Accreditation, Senior Fellowship of Advance HE, and Chartered Membership of the CMI, alongside an MSc in Strategic Leadership.

Kirsty has vast career experience in student mental health, counselling, and wellbeing services across education, and has a proven track record in leading system-level change, building psychologically safe teams and collaborative cultures.

Kirsty has won recent sector awards for innovation, specifically in relation to the Impact Measurement Scale, a non clinical tool designed to capture data and insights into student wellbeing presentations, and supports a whole institution approach.

Kirsty is a proud Geordie and advocate of widening participation and social mobility.

Transracial Adoption

3.10am - 3.55pm

This session draws on findings from adoption research. It uses racial-relational attunement and intentionality as guiding frameworks for recognising and supporting meaningful racial, cultural and relational connections with transracially adopted individuals. The aims are to: (i) encourage counsellors and psychotherapists to reflect on their own positioning and assumptions; (ii) provide opportunities for practitioners to engage with research and reflect on how relational and culturally responsive approaches might be developed within their therapeutic spaces; and (iii) consider how they might respond sensitively to the complex and, at times, contradictory experiences of love, belonging and connection expressed by transracially adopted individuals.

Dr Tam Cane is a Psychosexual Therapist and an Associate Professor of Social Work in the Department of Social Work and Social Care at the University of Sussex, UK. Dr Cane is a leading scholar working at the intersection of race, identity and adoption. She is the first to examine HIV in the context of the UK adoption system, making recommendations for more inclusive approaches for individuals living with HIV.

Central to her work is the development of the AFDiT framework, which she founded and co-designed with people with lived experience and practitioners. AFDiT is a comprehensive tool to:(i) strengthen practice approaches to transracial adoption; (ii)support adoptive parents in building cultural awareness and intentionality in transracial parenting; and (iii) improve long term identity outcomes for transracially adopted children. AFDiT is widely implemented across child welfare and adoption services in the UK. She also developed the BRAC2eD model, designed to reduce bias in the recruitment and assessment of prospective adopters from racialised and minoritised ethnic backgrounds.

Dr Cane’s research has also led to pioneering initiatives supporting adoptees to maintain meaningful relationships with their birth families and other key relationships following adoption. She has collaborated with Barnardo’s and Coventry University, alongside Professor Sariya Cheruvallil Contractor to co conceptualise Safer Spaces for Black children in care.

Dr Cane is registered with COSRT and Social Work England. She is a member of a number of adoption research and practice committees.