Joys and challenges of working with Older Adults and their systems using Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) (15 April 2026)
Following recent shifts in training approaches, many trainees are leaving their training without specific expertise in working with Older People, and are reporting feeling ill-equipped in the face of the well-reported ageing demographic. In addition, many established psychologists are seeing their previously working-age clinics becoming more populated by older people whom they feel de-skilled to work with. The clinical skills needed to work with Older People, including the ways in which risk presents, are different from the skills to work with Working-Age adults, and therefore specialist training is required.
This webinar will support you in using a Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) framework for the clinical work you provide to individual Older Adults, while using courageous compassion to advocate in the face of systemic and societal ageism.
What will I learn?
The learning outcomes for this webinar are to:
- have an awareness of society’s dysconscious ageism and how this affects research, referrals into systems and clinical treatment;
- be able to formulate Older Adult cases within the model of Compassion Focused Therapy;
- understand the ways in which CFT interventions can be applied to various Older cohorts;
- consider how the ageing brain may process therapeutic information differently, what adaptations may need to be made to our clinical practice to ensure optimal accessibility, and consider both the tensions and benefits of working with the cultures of age-cohorts which may be different from our own;
- reflect on the systemic differences that may be present when working with Older People, and how the model of CFT responds to working with older couples, and multi-generational adults within families.
What is the course structure?
This is a two-hour webinar from 9:30 - 11:30.
Webinar joining details: The Zoom link will be released in the webinar page within BPS Learn 24 hours before the webinar, and you will also receive an email notification. Please ensure you check your spam/junk folder for an email from noreply@bps.org.uk.
Please note, we use Zoom to host our webinars. If you require any help with Zoom, please refer to these Zoom instructions.
After you have attended the webinar, we will invite you to complete a short survey to get feedback on your experience and to download your certificate of attendance.
Please note that this webinar will not be recorded and will only be available as a live event.
This webinar is available to book until 09:30am on Tuesday 14 April 2026 and is available in English only.
Attendees of this webinar will receive a Certificate of Attendance.
Is this course right for me?
This webinar is appropriate for qualified practitioner psychologists, CAPs, therapists, trainees and assistant psychologists new to Older Adults work. This will include those who may have changed specialism later in their career, or newly acquiring an ‘all-age’ caseload, or to those who are familiar with Older Adult work but new to CFT. The minimum level of experience required would be assistant psychologist.
Who is the presenter?
Dr Rebecca Poz CPsychol AFBPsS
Dr Rebecca Poz is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Neuropsychologist, for West Suffolk Older People’s Mental Health services. She provides training as an invited speaker, and routinely as an Honorary Associate Professor at UEA, an Associate Tutor at Canterbury Christ Church University, and at SWPS University in Poland. She completed the PGCert in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) at Derby University led by Prof Paul Gilbert in 2020. Across the last 30 years she has worked in NHS Mental Health services, third sector community and residential neurorehabilitation, as well as medicolegal practice. She has written on CFT in dementia, FND in Older Adults and the neuropsychological sequelae of mental health conditions. She currently stands on the BPS’s Faculty of Psychology for Older People (FPOP) national committee, and is the Older People advisor to the Division of Neuropsychology. In 2025 she was awarded the British Psychological Society’s Bill Downes mid-career award.
How much does it cost?
Price: £91.67 (+VAT)
Members: £55.00 (+VAT)
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You will have access to the webinar resources for 12 weeks from the date of the webinar.
In addition to the site policies this course is subject to additional terms and conditions
Our accessibility statement gives more details on our approach.
Group discounts
If you or your colleagues are looking to book onto this course as a group you can make savings by booking five or more places.
Invoicing
In order to request a quote for five or more learners, please email cpd@bps.org.uk. If you are looking to book for fewer than 5 learners please proceed directly to requesting an invoice.
To request an invoice for you or your group, please complete this invoice request form. We also provide guidance to support this process. Please note, to raise an invoice you will need to provide a Purchase Order. Once the invoice has been paid we will provide your learners with details of how to access their learning.
Contact
This course has been organised by BPS Professional Practice and Development. You can contact us at cpd@bps.org.uk
You may also be interested in our other courses on BPS Learn, including those related to equality, diversity and inclusion and your personal development.
You can also explore the range of BPS books available via Routledge where BPS members receive 25% discount.