Y12 Psychology Careers Talks

Category: Careers, Outside of the Classroom, Psychology, Speakers

Y12 Psychology students heard from a range of different psychologists during careers fortnight. The careers talks were a fascinating insight into how psychology is used in the real world and gave the students a good understanding of careers in this field.

The guest speakers were as follows:

Dr Sophie Parker (Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Senior Lecturer), Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) and the University of Manchester is the Director for the Youth Mental Health Research Unit, and based within the Psychosis Research Unit (PRU). The mission of the Youth Mental Health Research Unit is to undertake outstanding and innovative mental health research for young people. With young people at the heart of everything we do, our research will improve access to evidence based treatments and support which makes a difference in the real world.
Whilst the unit has a number of research themes, Dr Parker’s research has focussed on prevention and early intervention where she helped found and manage a service aimed at identifying and treating young people at risk of psychosis. This NHS service was the first in Europe and second in the world only to the prototype service established in Australia. This service has been the clinical research platform for several studies that have had major impact on clinical practice/policy in which she was centrally involved. For example, leading directly to recommended treatments in NICE guidelines for schizophrenia and psychosis in both adults and children and young people (CG155 & CG178). She has progressed the field by developing criteria for young people at risk of bipolar disorder and developing and testing interventions for this group. She has developed and validated a screening instrument to detect young people at high risk of developing psychosis for use in primary care and more recently she has expanded this research to develop novel interventions for young people at risk of psychosis, such as running a clinical trial of metacognitive therapy. She is co-investigator of a multi-site NIHR HTA funded trial in the group at risk of psychosis that focusses on social disability and has been funded by the National Institute for Health Research to trial another innovative therapy, Attention Training, in psychosis.

Dr George Thomas, BFET’s educational psychologist gave an interesting insight into his role and useful advice on how to become an educational psychologist.

Emma Tarpey is an experienced HCPC Registered and BPS Chartered Psychologist. She has worked within the criminal justice field for over fifteen years and has a wealth of experience working with offenders.
she currently works on the BPS accredited MSc Forensic Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University

Suzanne Guest is an Occupational Psychologist who has worked in various areas of rehab. She specialises in working with people with acquired brain injury and supports them back to work, or meaningful activity. Suzanne is an active volunteer with Headway-The Brain Injury Association on a local and national level.
Suzanne has been asked to comment on various psychological issues by BBC Breakfast, That’s TV and various printed publications.

Dr Jenny Hardy currently teaches across a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules. Her main research interests are in offender resettlement and treatment and women in the Criminal Justice System. Jenny’s primary interests are in applied forensic psychology, specifically in the improvement of methods of treating offenders and offender resettlement. Jenny is a member of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Forensic Psychology.