Posted 14.03.2025
BFT session for Core Psychiatry Training
On Thursday 27th February 2025, the Meriden Programme delivered a teaching session to Medics on the West Midlands (Birmingham) Year 3 core training (CT3) programme for 2024/2025. The course is for core training doctors training in psychiatry and aims to assist them in achieving success at the examinations for Membership of The Royal College of Psychiatrists. Their full curriculum can be found here.
This was a wonderful opportunity to promote Behavioural Family Therapy (BFT) to medical staff relatively early in their career and to highlight the common issues faced by families experiencing the world of mental health. The intention was twofold; to raise a general awareness of BFT as an evidence-based intervention and its benefits for relatives and carers, and to also generate interest in applying for further training (The Meriden Programme has had an increasing number of medical staff and Psychiatrists engaging in the 5-day training over recent years).
There were 24 staff present from a range of mental health Trusts across the West Midlands area.
The session consisted of an introductory PowerPoint presentation covering the following topics:
- The Meriden Family Programme
- The experience of families
- Current context / drivers for family interventions
- Behavioural Family therapy – evidence
- Behavioural Family therapy – what does it look like?
This was followed by opportunity for discussion and a short animated film covering family experiences of BFT, kindly produced and shared by the Early Intervention in Psychosis Team at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
The session appeared a great success, with lots of questions raised and interest generated. This was reflected in the formal feedback with the session rating 4.8/5 for content, 4.9/5 for relevance and 4.8/5 for format. Comments also included:
“Excellent session for insight into family therapy”,
“Holistic, relevant and insightful talk, presented in a concise manner with option for further interaction outside of the formal session. Thank you very much!”,
“Really helpful overview of BFT. Made me more interested to do the 5 day BFT course” and
“Answered all questions that were raised. I enjoyed it and the session made me think about doing the 5 day course”.
For further information about the session or for other training opportunities, please feel free to contact either [email protected] or the Meriden Family Programme team at [email protected].