Banish Bullying and Foster Psychological Safety for Educators and Trainers (FD18NOV26)

Bullying and harassment remain significant problems in the NHS:

The NHS Staff Survey consistently reports that over 25% of staff experience bullying or harassment each year.

The 2023 GMC Training Survey revealed worrying levels of undermining behaviour affecting doctors in training.

The BMA highlights bullying as a leading cause of moral distress, burnout, sickness absence and workforce attrition.

For leaders, this represents both a duty and an opportunity: strong leadership behaviours, clear accountability processes and psychologically safe environments are powerful predictors of team performance, retention and patient safety.

This workshop offers practical tools, reflective space, and leadership frameworks to help you:

Understand the psychological drivers of bullying

Recognise early warning signs

Intervene confidently

Create systems that protect staff

Model the culture you want to lead

Booking courses

Please ensure that you check your availability before booking a place and add the booking to your diary / calendar. Please ensure that you also book the relevant study leave in advance with your employer.

Please refrain from booking multiple instances of the same course or course type to ensure that places are available to your colleagues. If a course is full, please add yourself to the waiting list and you will receive a notification if a place becomes available.

Joining Instructions

This is a virtual course, the joining instructions for the virtual meeting will be added to the documents section (above) before the course. Please ensure that you are able to access this before the course so that you are ready to join on the day.

Booking cancellation

Participants must make every effort to attend courses they have booked. If your availability changes after booking, please cancel your place through Maxcourse as soon as possible. This will release the place for colleagues on the waiting list.

If you need to cancel within 1 week of the course or the course has started and you are not able to attend, please email england.lsfdcourses.yh@nhs.net to give your apologies.

This course is only available to Educational Supervisors, Education Leads, Training Programme Directors and Senior Faculty within Yorkshire and the Humber.

Mandatory: Dentist, or Doctor, or Public Health Professional

To equip clinical educators and leaders with the insight, skills and frameworks necessary to build and sustain psychologically safe, supportive departments where bullying and harassment are actively prevented, professionally managed and culturally incompatible.

By the end of the programme, participants will:

1. Understand the psychological landscape that shapes behaviour

Explore the deeper layers of the human psyche influencing interactions:

Locus of control

Cognitive behavioural cycles

Conditioning, bias and shadow

Archetypes and role-based power dynamics

Understand why bullying behaviour emerges — and why it persists in hierarchical systems.

2. Build a workplace culture that protects staff

Establish clear departmental expectations around behaviour and respect

Co-create a “team rulebook” that fosters collaboration and clarity

Empower staff to report, challenge and prevent harmful behaviour

Recognise how organisational systems can unintentionally enable bullying — and what to change.

3. Develop confident communication, mediation and leadership skills

Navigate difficult conversations using the CLEAR framework

Intervene earlier and more safely when concerns arise

Understand and apply trauma- and compassion-informed communication

Support individuals sensitively without reinforcing a victim identity.

4. Apply the ACCOUNT Framework for managing incidents

Assess and investigate concerns fairly and proportionately

Understand the psychological patterns that sustain repeat behaviours

Use mediation and restorative justice principles

Implement corrective action and resolution processes

Prevent recurrence through consistent accountability.

After completing the workshop, participants will be able to:

- Describe and apply psychological principles that explain why bullying behaviours arise.

- Recognise early indicators of bullying or undermining within clinical and educational contexts.

- Use evidence-based frameworks (CLEAR & ACCOUNT) to manage difficult conversations and bullying incidents confidently.

- Demonstrate enhanced communication, negotiation and mediation skills appropriate for leadership roles.

- Create a departmental culture where expectations are clear, accountability is consistent, and staff feel safe to speak up.

- Respond constructively to crisis situations, restoring calm and psychological safety.

- Empower staff to engage in positive behaviours, uphold team standards and contribute to a supportive learning environment.