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Stef Goffredo, lead clinical psychologist for acute and older adult patients at NLFT, won the Best Presentation Award at this year’s National Association for Psychiatric Intensive Care (NAPICU) Conference, which took place last week.

Stef’s presentation, “Enhancing reflective practice on two PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) wards: a two-year quality improvement project,” was awarded by a landslide. This is the second time Stef has received this honour.

Stef has been working for almost four years in Coral ward (male psychiatric intensive care unit in Highgate Mental Health Centre) and she has developed a number of quality improvement projects in the hospital division.

Steff explains that staff working in acute inpatient mental health settings are exposed to high-stress environments that can reduce therapeutic engagement and contribute to compassion fatigue, burnout and increased sickness rates. Reflective Practice is increasingly recognised as a tool to support staff wellbeing and improve patient care in these settings.

Enhancing reflective practive on PICU wards

Steff used a two year mixed-method Quality Improvement (QI) project aimed primarily at increasing staff engagement across two PICU wards (Coral and Ruby wards). The specific objectives of the project included increasing engagement with reflective practice and attendance over time, promoting therapeutic reflection. The project also aimed to evaluate a pilot one-to-one wellbeing session for staff and investigated wider indicators of staff and patient’s experience, exploring associations between reflective practice attendance and three other measures: staff capacity, staff sickness and patient and carer feedback.

Between 2023 and 2024 Coral ward saw a statistically significant increase in reflective practice (from 44% to 74%), whilst Ruby ward remained stable with consistently high reflective practice (69%). For example, discussions around therapeutic engagement and staff wellbeing increased in both wards. Ruby ward saw a statistically significant increase in positive patient feedback in 2024 (from 54% in 2023 to 69% in 2024). The majority of staff found the one-to-one pilot session highly useful, and staff sickness reduced by 43% in the month post wellbeing session on both wards.

Since the beginning of 2025 Stef has been piloting joint reflective practice session across both wards to increase scheduled reflective practice, to foster shared learning and cross-ward cohesion.   

Steph said: “It felt important to share with colleagues our journey in Coral and Ruby ward, and what happens when we look after ourselves and our wellbeing”.