I’m pleased to have had the chance to join the scientific and organising committee for the NPNR Conference, and to have taken part in a series of face-to-face and electronic discussions to plan this autumn’s event.

Nowadays the NPNR Conference is a collaboration between Mental Health Nurse Academics UK and the RCN. Early information about the 21st running of the event can be found here. For ease, here is an extract with an outline of this year’s themes and more:

21st International Network for Psychiatric Nursing Research conference
“Building new relationships in mental health nursing: opportunities and challenges”
17 September 2015 – 18 September 2015 – Manchester Conference Centre, Sackville Street, Manchester M1 3BB

As the NPNR conference convenes for the 21st time developments in research, education and delivery of mental health nursing care continue apace. New knowledge opens the way for new forms of relationships with people who use services, their families and with colleagues within and outside our discipline. The way mental health nurses are educated and how they develop and research their practice is also changing, bringing with it new opportunities and many challenges.

This year’s conference will engage with the emerging evidence and changes in the landscape of care as we seek to craft new understandings of what it means to be a mental health nurse. As we become attuned to the vagaries of policy and the volume of new knowledge for our profession we must also rise to the challenge of ‘seeing’ in new ways. Our intention is to provide a space where colleagues can debate and critically engage with flux in the profession.

The NPNR is the place for mental health nurses and those we work with to present and learn new knowledge. We encourage you to submit your research and practice development initiatives and participate in discussion so that you leave the conference informed, enlightened and with new energy to engage with the challenges ahead. Alongside our expert speakers, great practice development and research papers the conference promotes a friendly and welcoming atmosphere that has been the hallmark of NPNR for 20 years. This year in addition to our exciting themes we include new developments for 2015.

Conference Highlights for 2015

• Two day conference for academics and practitioners working across mental health nursing
• Renowned keynote speakers
• Call for abstracts including options to present posters, concurrent, symposia and workshops
• Networking, collaborating and discussing the latest in mental health nursing research
• Conference reception and networking dinner
• Announcing the recipients of both the Eileen Skellern Lecture and the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Lifetime Achievement Award 2016
• Special discounts for conference presenters; RCN members; students; carers and service users
• Enhance your continuing professional development
• Poster Trail
• Fringe events
• RCN exhibition

Call for Papers will be open from the beginning of March 2015

Concurrent themes:

• New Conversations, New Platforms, New Evidence
• Collaborations and Partnership in Research
• New Voices, New Researchers
• Innovation and Development in Practice and Education
• Changing Systems, Changing Relationships

Abstracts addressing the conference themes are invited for the following types of presentations:

1. concurrent sessions
2. poster presentations
3. symposia
4. workshops
5. fringe events

Key timings:

Thursday 17 September 2015
8.30am – 10am: Registration and Fringe Events
10.00am – 6pm: Conference

Friday 18 September 2015
9.00am – 9.45am: Registration
9.45am – 4.15pm: Conference

The hashtag for the conference will be #NPNR2015:

And, for those who also use LinkedIn, there is this group.

I’ll aim to post further updates on all this over the coming weeks and months.

• Mental health
• Nursing
• Research