Event - workshop on language support in health services

Dr Kate Thompson and Professor Rachel Tribe (Chair of Careif) ran a workshop on language support in health services at the Division of Counselling Psychology annual conference in Manchester in July 2026. The theme for this conference — organised by the British Psychological Society — was ‘Navigating the Diverse Scope of Psychology: Leadership & Practice’. 

In their workshop ‘Language Support in Health Services - A Key Leadership Role for Counselling Psychologists’, they  explored this area for the UK context, drawing from their newly published book: Working with Interpreters in Mental Health, 2nd Edition.

A key leadership role for counselling psychologists

Their view is that this is a key leadership role for clinicians: to ensure health service equity by preventing language discrimination and championing good language support for all patient populations while working actively to support and up skill colleagues in the complex demand of working effectively with interpreters.

The two authors who ran this workshop have been working in this area for many years and are the authors of the British Psychological Society guidelines on working with interpreters for psychologists (the most recent iteration of which was published earlier this month). 

Their workshop built on areas of good practice, but additionally raised the question of allyship against language discrimination and the way in which psychologists can provide leadership and support. A range of case studies were discussed as part of the workshop. The workshop also covered key considerations for mental health clinicians working across language and culture.

They noted that a lack of language skills has been reported by the World Health Organisation to be a major barrier for migrants and other non-English speakers in accessing mental health services. The potential impact of this is huge, as it is estimated that 304 million people have migrated across national borders (United Nations 2024) which is 3.7% of the world’s population, and many will need to access services in an unfamiliar language. Working effectively with interpreters should be a skill in the repertoire of every clinician to ensure equal access to mental health services.   

Positive feedback from participants

All of the participants were asked to complete pre- and post-training workshop questionnaires. The areas covered in the questionnaires covered expectations for the workshop, current practice in their health trust or third sector organisation, their current confidence and knowledge in this area, what impact the workshop might have had and what they found most useful. 

The feedback included the desire for more time for the workshop, all reported that their expectations had been met and they had learnt new things, got new resources made new contacts and learnt about practice in other health trusts.     

The scores for confidence and knowledge had gone up for all the participants and some reported that this would lead them to advocate for better practice in this area within their health trusts. A large number of people reported liking the interactive and open group discussions,  the need for a longer session was suggested by the majority of participants.