The DBT team from Cygnet Hospital Stevenage attended and presented at the annual Society for Dialectic Behavioural Therapy (SfDBT) Conference on the 11th December 2014 at the South Bank University. The day gave the team the opportunity to immerse themselves in the latest practise and ideas within the DBT world and proved invaluable in validating the team’s current practice and ideas.
In the afternoon two members of the Cygnet Hospital Stevenage team presented to the conference. The emphasis of the presentation was on the adaptions the team have made to the traditional DBT programme at the hospital, including:
- The implementation of a DBT homework club to encourage service uses to practise and refine skills taught in skills sessions, as well as offering practical support with assigned homework tasks.
- The training of ward staff to become ward based DBT skills coaches to enable them to offer real time skills coaching and support for service users in the DBT programme in times of crisis .
The presentation was very well received and sparked a flurry of questions and debate. The day was a great success and the team are looking forward to present the outcomes of the programme at the DBT conference in 2015.
Earlier this year, Cygnet Hospital Stevenage introduced full DBT programmes across its four secure wards as part of a re-launch of the hospital’s psychological therapy offering. .