This webinar is online on Zoom
Book your place
To book a place please email events@imroc.org with ‘Culture of Care’ in the subject line.
This webinar will explore how adult acute inpatient wards can develop a ‘Culture of Care’ that supports recovery, psychological safety and inclusive practice for both staff and service users. Drawing on learning from Imroc’s involvement in the Culture of Care programme, we will share insights from work with inpatient teams across the UK, highlighting the importance of relationships, lived experience leadership and small, practical changes that can have a meaningful impact on ward environments. Participants will hear real examples of challenges encountered and improvements made, and will be invited to reflect on what changes might be possible within their own services.
Date and Time
Thursday 30th April 1-2.30pm BST (UK time)
Event Description
In this webinar we will introduce the Culture of Care programme, which, between July 2024 and April 2026, worked alongside 180 inpatient teams to strengthen staff care and development. The session will explore common challenges the teams found across wards, including unmet basic needs, experiences of racism and cultural tensions, lack of psychological safety for staff, and structural and environmental barriers, such as siloed roles and inconsistent understanding of peer support.
Through case examples from participating wards, we will showcase how teams have developed practical initiatives; from simple check-ins and traffic-light communication systems, to introducing sensory spaces and everyday support for staff and service users. These examples highlight how small, locally led changes can generate meaningful improvements for staff and service user wellbeing, communication, and the overall therapeutic environment and relationships.
The session will also reflect on what wards need in order to sustain change, including leadership engagement, protected time for reflection, and greater integration of peer support roles.
Who is the webinar for?
This webinar is designed for professionals and leaders working in adult acute mental health inpatient services who are interested in strengthening recovery-oriented cultures within their teams.
Anyone is welcome to attend, but it may be particularly relevant for:
Ward managers and inpatient clinical leaders
Nurses, psychiatrists and multidisciplinary team members
Peer support workers and lived experience practitioners
Service improvement and quality leads
NHS managers responsible for inpatient services
Organisational development and workforce leads
Benefits of Attending
Participants can expect to:
Gain an overview of the Staff Care and Development strand of the Culture of Care programme and its findings.
Learn about common cultural and systemic challenges experienced across inpatient wards.
Hear real examples of small changes that have improved ward culture and relationships.
Explore how recovery-focused, trauma-informed and neuro-inclusive approaches can be applied in inpatient settings.
Reflect on practical steps that teams can take immediately to strengthen cultures of care.
Explore how organisations can sustain improvements through leadership, peer support and reflective practice.
By the end of the webinar, participants will have ideas and inspiration for how small relational and cultural shifts can contribute to safer, more compassionate and recovery-oriented inpatient environments.
Speakers
Simon Barnitt
Simon has been a registered nurse for nearly 30 years, working across a wide range of clinical and leadership roles that have given him a deep understanding of the complexities of system-wide working, and the challenges faced by those in receipt of, and those providing, care. Since joining Sheffield Health Partnerships University Trust in 2021, he has served as both a Head of Nursing and the Trust’s Chief Nursing Information Officer, helping shape digital transformation through a nursing and clinical lens.
The majority of Simon’s career has centred on acute mental health care, either working directly within inpatient services or supporting them through service improvement, quality initiatives, and workforce development. His commitment to improving the experience of people who use services, as well as those who deliver them, has led him to focus increasingly on organisational development and quality improvement approaches to drive sustainable cultural change.
Simon has a long-standing passion for co-production, peer support, and recovery-focused practice. He has had the privilege of contributing to Imroc’s inpatient ward development work, including Briefing Paper 24 and currently serves as Imroc’s Acute Care Programme Lead. Over the past two years, Simon has also played a key role in the Culture of Care programme, supporting the Staff Care and Development strand, working closely with an exceptional group of lived experience practitioners whose insight and leadership continue to shape compassionate, relationship-centred improvements across systems.
Helen Cyrus
Helen Cyrus is a qualified Life Coach and NLP practitioner with 21 years’ experience, having trained with The Coaching Academy, Quest for Xcellence, and Tempest Leadership & Management (Level 5). A former registered nurse at City and QMC in Nottingham, Helen went on to work in Public Health and later taught in FE before dedicating her career to coaching. She delivers one-to-one coaching, group programmes, seminars, and bespoke courses for organisations. For more than 12 years she has developed and facilitated Coaching for Recovery and Wellbeing with Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, work published by Emerald Publishing in 2021. Helen worked as a consultant in Imroc on their Supervision courses and has recently worked on the Culture Of Care 18 month project involved in the Team Focus groups and individual coaching with ward teams on their staff care and development.
Adam Farrow Marshall
Have worked for Imroc for 3+ years as a Lead Trainer within the Peer Support (Mental Health) Programme and was pleased to join the Culture of Care project for Cohorts 2 & 3.
Previously my life and career had brought me down the M6 from Liverpool to London and back again, and latterly to Cape Town and now to Plymouth – way out West.
As a Northerner in the South(ern) Hemisphere I had the chance to think in someways for the 1st time about how events and experience had got me to be who I am and where I was.
Workwise I’d always been with people – as a youth worker, as a community worker, as an outreach worker and in a variety of settings a ‘key worker’ – these were the things that led me to training, facilitating, counselling and group work and the wondering about what people carry in order that they not only cope but flourish. Also, then the realising that if I make sure I get out of the way – people are both mighty and wonderful and my job becomes that of witness.
Working for Imroc is ideal for me – being here has felt like home, school, Polytechnic and a Circus all rolled together. It’s held me, it’s taught me, it’s radical, it’s joyful.
I’m proud to have had the chance to work with my peers, colleagues & partners to have a glimpse of the potential that the Culture of Care project has sought to embody – to hear, to inquire, to see, to collaborate and in the end hopefully to build.
Tichea Brade
Tichea Brade is a consultant, trainer, and advocate specialising in peer support, welfare rights. Drawing on her experience as a Mental Health Peer Support Worker and Autism Peer Support Worker and Trainer, she designs and delivers impactful programmes that centre lived experience and drive meaningful culture change across teams and services. As a specialist coach on Imroc’s two-year Culture of Care project, Tichea partnered with ward managers and multidisciplinary teams, delivering team and one-to-one coaching to strengthen team dynamics, shift culture, and improve inpatient care.
An ADHD practitioner and trained coach, Tichea brings both professional expertise and lived experience of neurodiversity, enabling her to bridge the gap between systems and the people within them. Her work spans training, coaching, and welfare rights advocacy, supporting individuals and organisations to navigate complexity and create lasting change. Tichea works with leaders and teams to build inclusive, psychologically safe environments where innovation, equity, and high-quality care can thrive, and welcomes opportunities to collaborate with organisations committed to meaningful, system-wide change.
Facilitator
Emma Watson
Emma Watson is the programme lead at Imroc for Research, Evaluation, Publications and Development, and, until recently, was the Peer Support Lead at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. As Peer Support Lead, she has led the strategic introduction of peer support workers into a range of clinical services, establishing training and supervision processes to support this development. Prior to this, Emma worked in a number of peer roles, including peer support worker, peer supervisor, peer trainer and peer researcher. Emma was among the first peer workers to be employed in Nottingham NHS Trust in 2010; an experience which transformed her own recovery, as well as her understanding of the power of lived experience.
As a programme lead at Imroc, Emma aspires to centre lived experience perspectives in research and publications, and offer accessible, creative ways for knowledge to be developed and shared. She is leading on the development of an MSc in Lived Experience Leadership as well as overseeing Imroc’s research and evaluation projects. Emma's commitment to advancing peer support is further demonstrated through her extensive research publications. She has authored numerous articles, as well as co-authoring the book "Peer Support in Mental Health," which provides an in-depth exploration of peer support concepts and practices. Her PhD explored peer support in the context of an NHS service, especially how this context changes or constrains peer support, and how individual peer workers resist this process