NCPS Regional Conference 2026

Last week I attended a regional conference of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay. It offered a rare chance to meet people from the all-important authorising industry body, and connect in-person with other counsellor and psychotherapist colleagues. Some conference attendees and NCPS staff had travelled significant distances across the UK to be there. Luckily for me, it wasn’t far from home, and it was a pleasant day for walk. Avoiding the congestion of Cardiff Bay car parks, I opted to park across the bay and take a leisurely amble along the barrage.

Cardiff Bay skyline featuring the Pierhead Building, the Senedd, and NCPS Regional Conference venue, the Norwegian Church (white building). Taken by me from my car parking spot in Penarth.

This is a favourite part of a regular cycling route, offering wide open vistas inland to the city on one direction, and out across the Bristol channel in the other. Human Nature And Risk Along the Cardiff Bay barrage and outside the Norwegian Church there are tributes to Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912), a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to Antarctica: the Discovery expedition (1901–1904), and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition (1910–1913). The latter sailed from Cardiff due to the city's financial backing and industrial resources, with the Welsh public and local businesses credited for raising almost half of the expedition's funds. While I often pedal past them without much consideration, at a slower pace I stopped to consider the tributes and the statue of Scott outside the Norwegian Church. At the foot of the statue were words from his final journal entry, when he knew that he and his colleagues would die. They seemed to invite the reader to ponder human nature, discovery, adventure, risk, success and failure; and how they define us all at some level.

Statue of Captain Scott outside the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay ahead of the NCPS Regional Conference.

NCPS Conference There were two main talks at this NCPS conference. The first from Katy Thomas concerned perinatal mental health. Katy shared her own moving personal story, and how it inspired her to create the Mothers Matter group in support of women with similar experiences. Selima Bahadur from Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales (EYST Wales) presented a talk entitled ‘Do you see my trauma?’ It focused on the lived experience of people from minority ethnic communities, the racist remarks people routinely face, and issues around reporting and service inclusivity. The talk prompted a lively question and answer session that involved how we, as counsellors and psychotherapists, can work effectively with such perpetrators of racism. Remarks highlighted the importance of our curiosity about perpetrators and the opinions they hold, where the opinions come from, and how long they have been held, potentially whom they have been acquired or borrowed from. All of these points are vital when working at depth to try and examine difference and threat alongside perceived inferiority, or indeed superiority. Unconscious bias is also a factor, and the social graces model was introduced to me by another attendee after the event.

A motion-blurred image of a stained glass window, captured from inside the Norwegian Church during the NCPS Regional Conference.

The Social Graces is described as a reflexive framework developed in systemic therapy and widely used in social work. It asks people to explore different aspects of their personal and social identity, and analyse how they influence power, privilege, and marginalisation. Think Project, ‘Don’t Hate - Educate’ was mentioned. A little light networking gave a brief glimpse of the working lives of others in the region, while talks from team members of NCPS in the afternoon provided detail on their work as the smaller sibling body to the older, wealthier, and better known BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy). A new regional representative for Wales has been proactive and impactful in a short time. There’s a common narrative thread in the industry about breaking down stigma around having counselling and psychotherapy. More activity of any kind around this will always be useful for everyone involved.

A Canadian Goose with its offspring in Cardiff Bay.

This regional NCPS conference offered a welcome change to my weekly routine and a genuinely pleasing chance to connect with new people and ideas. Thank you to the NCPS and all its team members.