Adam Ottley-Porter

Adam is one of the Lecturers on the Advanced Practice in Psychological Wellbeing programme. This course involves training clinicians (Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners or PWP's) to deliver low intensity therapy for anxiety and depression within the national NHS Talking Therapies pathway. This includes teaching, creating and updating the materials for delivering his lectures, marking and assessing a variety of assignments and working as a personal tutor who liaises with the placement services the students/trainees are working in. He also leads on Module 1 which looks at how PWP's assess and engage their patients and Module 4, where trainee PWP's evidence their practice over their training. As part of his teaching role Adam completed the PGCert in Higher Education in 2024, earning a Distinction and Fellowship to the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). As part of his PGCert he was shortlisted for the Lewis Elton Award for Educational Innovation, receiving a Highly Commended Certificate.

Adam also works as a PWP within an NHS Talking Therapies service. This involves supporting people with mild to moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is a mixture of 1-1, group and computerised support. Within this role he is also a supervisor, preceptor and line manager and completed further training to work with long term physical health conditions. 

His working background prior to his PWP role has been primarily working with individuals who have moderate or severe Learning Disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Adam continues to liaise regularly with colleagues in these services as part of his PWP role to ensure people that have a Learning Disability and are are able to access mainstream mental health services are provided the opportunity to do so. This remains a key area of interest and influences Adam's passion for improving accessibility to all who may have some form of neurodiversity. 

Adam's other area of interest is around perinatal mental health/care. This relates both to mothers and mothers to be having worked with many perinatal mothers struggling with depression and anxiety, but also extends to partner wellbeing and improving/normalising conversations around baby loss. This has led to his current, and future, blog posts and videos around normalising baby loss being published by Tommy's (National Pregnancy and Baby Loss Charity) and circulated on social media. He has also published an article on the topic in the BPS magazine 'The Psychologist' and been approached to contribute to research exploring partners in perinatal mental health. 

Since October 2024 Adam has been appointed External Examiner for Buckinghamshire New University who award the Graduate Certificate for the Oxford Health NHS Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Training programme.