Amelia, Gary and Niall represented England at the International IPS Learning Community Annual Meeting 2024

We met and engaged with many and varied people, including representatives from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands and, of course, various US States.

There was very positive feedback on the IPSGrow website, workforce resources, e-learning, and social media. With particular positive response to England’s focus on race equity and embedding the race equity action plans into fidelity reviews.

The conference had some tremendous evidence-based content that we plan to review and look for ways to trial with services—for example, strategies for engaging young people involved in the criminal justice system.

An exciting moment was at the awards dinner when Paul Anders (IPS Programme Manager for the expansion of IPS in drug and alcohol treatment teams) won a leadership award for his contribution to building the evidence base of IPS and helping with the quality scale of IPS into a new cohort. Paul has accepted the award on the assumption that he has achieved all with the help of his fantastic team.

England is highly regarded internationally for its continued focus on ensuring IPS’s quality scale in SMI and working across different systems/cohorts. These conferences allow us to build new links, learn new things and support other countries with our own learning.