Two meetings... to begin again...

It's been a while since I've written a blog, so a very brief and thin update on two meetings.
Neither of them were undertaken on behalf of the British Psychological Society, but in my capacity as a Professor at the University of Liverpool.

First, on Wednesday, I attended a meeting under the auspices of Public Health England (and with Kam Bhui in the chair) of an expert reference group grappling with the delivery of a major mental health awareness programme, originally triggered by the Prime Minister's Downing Street speech on the occasion of her (re)election. 

It's a complex campaign, and I have tried to contribute to a range of elements of the programme. On Wednesday, I was primarily concentrating on discussing the potential difficulties of referring to 'negative' or even 'unhelpful' patterns of thinking, and instead trying to develop the idea of flexibility of thought, and the opportunity to help people think of a range of options in how they think about their problems and goals in life.

And on Thursday, back in Liverpool, I attended (on behalf of the University) our City Council's Health and Wellbeing Board, impressed by the degree of cooperation and collegiality (across political parties) to address the problems the city faces, but also the need to address prevention, especially in the field of mental health and preventable illness... which rather neatly tied together the two events.