Jason Greasley (Head of Coaching and Leadership Transformation at BHSCA) will be speaking at CONNECT HR in May
- A panel discussion on: ‘Building a skills-based workforce: Strategies for retaining, developing, and future-proofing talent’
- 19-21 May, 2025
- Allianz Stadium Twickenham, London
- Secure your spot using the code SPEAKERGUEST-JG
- 
ZSA's (Zero Suicide Alliance) Suicide Awareness Training is a short, free, online course that can be taken by anyone who wants to learn basic suicide awareness and prevention skills.
ZSA believe suicide is preventable and they know that sometimes all it takes to save a life is a conversation.
Who it's for:
The training is aimed at anyone aged 16 and over who wants to know what to do if they’re ever in a situation where someone they know or see may be struggling with thoughts of suicide.
What you'll learn:
The training will take you through suicide risk factors, suicide warning signs, coached scenarios sharing approaches for how you can talk to someone you’re worried about, videos from people sharing real experiences and where to find information about available support. At the end of the course, you’ll get a training certificate to download.
We hope through the training, more people will feel equipped and confident to talk to someone who may be struggling.
How long it takes to complete:
This is a short online course that can be taken at your own pace. You can choose the parts of the course that you interact with. We recommend allowing yourself at least 30 minutes.
The community has one more session available (out of the three originally scheduled) that is available for registration and joining:
HealthTec's Health Wing Launch
Buckinghamshire College Group has officially opened its state-of-the-art Health Wing, a pioneering facility designed to transform health education for students and professionals.
The Health Wing, which includes HealthTec, a dental suite, a hospital ward, an immersive suite and manual handling training space was unveiled during a launch event on Friday 29 November 2024, and formally opened by the College's Principal, Jenny Craig, alongside Juliet Anderson from Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy. The launch event, held at the College's Aylesbury Campus, brought together representatives from Buckinghamshire Council, the NHS, the residential care home sector, the dental sector, Bucks Business First, and Aylesbury Town Council.
During the event, attendees were given tours of the new facilities, which have been built to replicate real-world healthcare environments. Students training in the Health Wing will now have access to an immersive suite where complex scenarios can be simulated, a hospital ward for hands-on patient care practice, and a dental suite equipped with modern tools and technology.
Occupational Therapy Connect and Celebrate Event
(08/11/24)
For the first time ever, this BHSCA in-person event brought together the Occupational Therapy community from across Buckinghamshire (health, social care, VCSE and education). Chaired by Elizabeth Evans, AHP Workforce Programme Fellow (Occupational Therapist), the interactive programme consisted of inspiring speakers:
- Kalimah Ibrahiim, OT Programme Lead, BNU
- Gemma Donnelly, Chief AHP at BOB ICB
- Geraldine Conway, AHP Project Manager at BOB ICB
- MP Laura Kyrke-Smith
Speakers explored Occupational Therapy workforce challenges, SEND and health inequalities, in the context of strategic planning and allocation of resources to manage health, education, housing and care needs. Recognising the value of connectivity and embodying belonging, there was plentiful opportunity for professional networking, shared learning, and celebrating innovation, fostered by the collaborative environment of the Buckinghamshire Community Wellbeing Hub as a venue.
With around 40 attendees, representing all levels and stages of careers, including learners and apprentices, greater awareness and opportunities for joined-up working and collective action to best position, and amplify the value of Occupational Therapy for our communities we serve were highlighted. Reflections, and actions to take forward for CPD were shared, to harness our potential, expand our influence and optimise our workforce to benefit our residents and population outcomes in Bucks were at the forefront.
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive; respondents were energised, valued connecting with this community, and 100% were likely to recommend the event to others, rating it either 4 or 5 stars!
Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy, together with
Adult Social Care at Buckinghamshire Council and Lyndsey and Cordie from Coco-Operative hosted the:
Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Summit
at Missenden Abbey on Wednesday 26th June 2024
The summit focused on:
- Improving our understanding of safeguarding concerns, safeguarding practice, multi-disciplinary working, decision making and outcomes for residents
- Bringing together key partner organisations to shape and plan our Buckinghamshire safeguarding training and to discuss the potential opportunities for improvement.
We'd like to thank all the attendees and everyone involved in the day for making the discussions and the agenda so engaging, and the event such a success. A report is in development which will detail a summary of the event and it's discussions, as well as recommendations for next steps moving forward. This will be circulated to everyone who attended and those who were unable to but have been involved with the event.
A big thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to the immense success of our second annual Conference!
Developing collaborative partnerships with local faith groups to promote positive mental health and wellbeing
Posted on: 3 May 2024
A new report sets out how health and social care professionals, faith leaders and members of faith communities can work together to identify new ways of partnership working to improve community mental health. Project Steering Group Chair, Professor David Sines CBE, and members of the project team explain the project, their findings, and recommendations in the report: Developing collaborative partnerships with local faith groups to promote positive mental health and wellbeing.
The report also includes research from the University of Bedfordshire to better understand barriers some faith communities might have to accessing mental health support, and an evaluation of the co-design and co-development of a new higher education student placement programme in faith communities.

In the Foreword to the report Professor David Sines CBE advised that ‘Faith leaders and their teams have deep knowledge of their own communities and the ways in which mental health needs are perceived, understood, acknowledged, and best responded to. This project confirms how this level of insight and understanding can be further nurtured and aligned with the professional skills and expertise of mental health professionals to provide more meaningful and intelligible systems of support for our service users. This partnership not only enables us to develop a greater sense of purposeful engagement with members of our local communities, but it also enables us to grow, learn and develop a greater sense of cultural competence and capability’.
This project was commissioned by NHS England (previously HEE) and the concept endorsed by local faith leaders and members of faith communities in 2022. Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy is most privileged to have been involved in the design and leadership of this project which has been steered by representatives from faith communities and faith leaders, professionals in NHS, social care and voluntary organisations in Buckinghamshire, all contributing a wealth of experience and knowledge.
The recommendations outlined in the report will be used to shape the delivery of future engagement and awareness raising, education and training, and research initiatives. These will be actively supported by the Academy’s Volunteer Faculty in partnership with colleagues from the project steering group.
Our sincerest thanks to the faith leaders, community members and volunteers for their contributions to this project, for their insight, honesty, patience, and positivity about what can be achieved in partnership, and for their willingness to try something new. To our colleagues in our mental health services, frontline practitioners, commissioners, trainers, and managers for sharing their experiences and candid reflections, for their motivation to make positive change, and for their genuine passion to provide the best possible care. We are also exceptionally fortunate for the large number of colleagues who contributed as both leaders in their faith communities and as retired or current healthcare professionals, providing valuable insight to the perspectives of faith communities and service providers.
Health Inequalities Communities of Practice
Do you work or volunteer with people who experience health inequalities?
Health inequalities are unfair, avoidable differences in health across the population, and between separate groups within society. Inequalities include how long people are likely to live, health conditions they may experience and care that is available to them.
What is a Community of Practice and how can it help address health inequalities?
A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common concern (e.g. health inequality), a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfil both individual and group goals.
BHSCA's Partners at the Bucks Skills Show 2024
Over 6000 overall attendees from over 30 local schools engaged with 127 different employers spanning nine sectors. Students from Year 9 and above and 300 teachers from schools across Buckinghamshire, and over 600 adult careers seekers and parents as part of the evening session.
Read more about the Bucks Skills Show on Bucks Skills Hub's Website, Download the official press release and See a few promotional images here
Check out our partners below to see them in action as part of the Health and Social Care sector!
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The Bucks Skills Show will be back for 2025... stay tuned!
Meanwhile, the Bucks Skills Hub are preparing for their Confident Futures Skills Show on 11th June 2024.
Check out what's going on with the Buckinghamshire Community Wellbeing Hubs on their page here or below - including some of the activities currently running at the Hubs and how to get in touch!
Personalised Care is all about involving people in discussions and decisions about their care – improving outcomes and leading to greater satisfaction for patients and professionals.
A Personalised Care approach enables more meaningful and effective conversations, delivering better results and helping to reduce demand for services.
The Personalised Care Team have a broad range of
free online courses from the Personalised Care Institute (PCI), as well as blog posts and case studies, that are available to all health and care professionals in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB)
A Spotlight on:
Dr Rebecca Bowers’ blog on the importance of working in partnership with patients.
The BOB Personalised Care Training team have a free, interactive training session to build discussion skills around vaccine hesitancy: Let’s Talk About Vaccines. The training explores the issues, myths and barriers around vaccine hesitancy, providing attendees with the techniques and approaches to help people make informed choices.
The BOB Head of Ill Health Prevention, Alicia Siraj, has written an inspiring blog on the importance of this training, including attendees’ feedback (available on the BOB website here).
Please use the below links to download an informative flyer with more information, and to email and book a place or find out anything else.
Further training dates for 2024 are on the BOB webpage
The BOB ICS Education and Training Summit
Oxford Brookes University
Thursday 15th June 2023
An opportunity for key BOB stakeholders to come together and discuss the education and training of the BOB health and social care workforce.
Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy's
Inaugural Conference 2023
Missenden Abbey, Tuesday 13th June 2023
We want to thank our partners, our faculty leads and stakeholders, as well as all other individuals and organisations who helped to make this event the success that it was.
The 2024 Conference is in development now and is open for registration. Contact us for more information.
Research & Knowledge Exchange's 'Evaluation Webinar'
Recorded on 16/03/2022
Working on a service evaluation or thinking of starting one?
Look no further, this webinar is just for you!
Please enjoy the recording below of the outstanding speakers including Professor Gurch Randhawa, Dr Yannis Pappas, and Professor Angel Chater, and chaired by Dr Louise Grant from University of Bedfordshire, for the first BHSCA Evaluation Webinar!
My Wellbeing Series
The 'My Wellbeing Series' was designed by our Research & Knowledge Exchange faculty heads at the time; Yannis Pappas and Julia Williams.
See all three chapters on our Research and Knowledge Exchange Faculty page
On the 7th December 2021, we joined Dr Louise Grant and Professor Gail Kinman for the launch of their SCHORD diagnostic tool and workbook.
These tools are to be used by the social care leaders of Buckinghamshire for supporting the workforce's wellbeing and the promotion of organisational resilience.
The event was hosted online with the diagnostic tool set to be released in January 2022.
View a recording of the presentation right here! (see right).
BHSCA 10 Lecture Series:
Research & Innovations Supporting the
Health & Social Care Workforce
The Research & Innovations Supporting the Health & Social Care Workforce Lecture Series comprised of 10 lectures which was produced by the University of Bedfordshire & Buckinghamshire New University. Follow the link below to view each lecture!
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