The 2025 recipient of the award is Tripta Sidhu, a Senior Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner with Birmingham Healthy Minds, who is an older adult champion in the service. Having seen barriers to accessing services among older adults (including a lack of confidence in accessing online services, poor health such as hearing loss and mobility issues, and financial issues limiting travel options), Tripta developed a partnership with Age UK to bring about a community-based approach to encouraging this group to access services available to them.
This approach meant that services became integrated in existing social groups, rather than the traditional approach of expecting members of the community to seek help via traditional referral routes.
Since April 2024, qualified Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) have been attending these coffee mornings once a month, offering psychoeducation sessions on topics such as improving sleep, managing anxiety, and enhancing overall wellbeing. This initiative has received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
Participants have reported feeling less isolated, more informed, and more in control of their wellbeing. They have noted improvements in sleep, reduced anxiety, and a sense of anticipation for these sessions. Similarly, PWPs in the service have found the experience invaluable, gaining deeper insights into the specific needs and preferences of older adults outside a traditional clinical setting. This has enhanced their ability to engage meaningfully and adapt their therapeutic approaches accordingly.
As we approach the conclusion of this phase of the program, its success has prompted discussions about expanding the initiative to other areas of Birmingham. We are excited about the opportunity to further develop and extend this impactful work, ensuring that more older adults can access the psychological support they need in familiar, accessible community settings.
With a commitment to continue this community-based initiative, there is now ongoing work to deliver a similar project with Age Concern, in an attempt to continue reaching out to the older adults’ community in Birmingham.
We also announced a Highly Commended submission to the award this year, with Alasdair Churchard carrying out work with homeless communities, as well as with people from minoritised ethnicities.
Alasdair’s work with homeless groups has centred around challenging and influencing narratives about homelessness being a result of poor public policy, rather than poor personal choices. He led the development of the Autism & Homelessness Toolkit, a best practice guide for homelessness professionals. This was co-produced with autistic people with lived experience of homelessness and other stakeholders, and has been downloaded more than 10,000 times.
Alasdair’s work in this area has been published widely, including by Big Issue and Inside Housing, and he has presented numerous webinars on the topic.
He is continuing work in culturally-adapted CBT, including work with CBT practitioners from minority ethnic backgrounds. This has led to speaking on an episode of Let’s Talk About CBT: Practice Matters podcast, as well as publishing ‘What is it like to be a CBT therapist from a racialised minority?’, published in the September 2023 issue of CBT Today magazine.
The Autism & Homelessness Toolkit is available at homeless.org.uk
