From the Chief Executive, May 2020

Firstly this month, I want to send my best wishes to everyone at what is an extremely unsettling time for all of us.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented new challenges to everyone, and at the BPS we’ve been working to find out what it means for us and doing all that we can to support our members to respond to the crisis.

Sadly, we’ve had to cancel all our face to face events until at least the end of May, as well as BPS Conference 2020, and we will not be holding physical events until we are sure that it is safe to do so.

But the good news is that we do have some virtual events and CPD courses running. Being able to stay connected with each other is more important now than ever and if we can’t meet face to face to network and collaborate, we can still do this online. That’s why I’m pleased to let you know that we’ve just launched Member Connect, our first all-member online community.  

We’ve been planning our community for several months now so while we didn’t intend for Member Connect to be used to connect psychologists during a global pandemic, there couldn’t be a more important time for you to have a platform to keep in touch and discuss psychology’s response to Covid-19. We’ll also be keeping you right up to date with everything that’s happening on our transformation journey – sharing our plans for the future and giving you the opportunity to help shape our plans.

I am so proud of how quickly the whole organisation has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic, from the members who have produced vital resources for their peers to the BPS staff who have quickly adapted to remote working.

We were also able to form a coordinating group in double quick time. Our President David Murphy is chairing this, and it will be coordinating the society’s response to the pandemic.

Psychologists have so much to offer in this situation, both in helping to react to the initial crisis and as we set off on the long road back to normality. The BPS will be here at every step to support you in this vital work.

Please take care and continue to look after each other. If you think that there’s anything that the BPS could be doing in the current situation, get in touch and let me know.

- Sarb Bajwa is Chief Executive of the British Psychological Society. [email protected]