Alumni Community
We are committed to ensuring our alumni have the training, support and opportunities to thrive in their careers.
Open to our past trainees and the senior social workers who supported them, our Alumni Community has nearly 700 members.
What we do
Alumni Community members are part of an invaluable support network and gain access to a range of training, events, involvement and networking opportunities.
Continuing professional development
We run fully-funded continuing professional development trainings every month. These cover topical practice themes including for example, our “Becoming an anti-racist social worker” series following the Black Lives Matter movement, and recent exploration of neurodiversity in social work hosted in collaboration with the British Association of Social Workers.
Leadership programme
We offer an advanced leadership programme, drawing on updated thinking and research to put social work practice in context. The series builds on Think Ahead’s leadership framework competencies for compassionate, inclusive, ethical and systemic practice.
Affinity groups
We have recently launched affinity groups, bringing members together to explore key areas of identity and shared experiences. These include the Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Collective, the LGBTQI+ Collective, and the Neurodiversity Collective.
Community engagement
We’ve built an engaged community through social media and online events that have brought alumni across the country together, including online cooking classes and reflective spaces. The alumni community also organise regional in-person social events.
Mentoring
Peer support is an integral part of the Alumni Community. Our formal peer mentoring scheme matches alumni with final year trainees to support them as they navigate the completion of their academic studies with the responsibilities of their first year as a social worker. This added level of support is invaluable to the trainees and has proven to be a rich and rewarding experience for our alumni.
Professional opportunities
We offer both paid and voluntary opportunities for our alumni. Many contribute to our training programme acting as assessors during the selection process and trainers at the Summer Institute, our intensive teaching period kick-starting the programme. Many also contribute to our charity’s wider work, participating in focus groups, offering insights for policy work and sharing their stories to help raise awareness of key issues in the sector.
Passionate professionals
Our alumni are passionate professionals striving to make a positive change in their workplace, for the people they’re supporting and the wider mental health sector.
Many of them contribute to our charity’s work, and we are pleased to have an alumni representative, Levi Chambers-Cook, on our Board of Trustees.
Alumni members also have the opportunity to join the Alumni Reference Group, helping to set the strategic direction of our Alumni Community.
Trustee and Alumni Community Member, Levi Chambers-Cook says,
“The Alumni Community encourages me to reflect on my practice and exposes me to a range of perspectives from colleagues up and down the country.
“It is a supportive community that nurtures you through shared experiences.
“It also challenges you to think and approach practice and the wider workplace from a position focused on social justice.”
Read stories from our alumni and trainees
News and events
We run a number of Alumni Community trainings and events throughout the year. Current highlights include:
Neurodiversity Series
We’re delighted to be co-hosting this series with the British Association of Social Workers. Over the course of five sessions, we will be exploring:
- How to develop social work practice with neurodivergent people
- The skills neurodivergent social workers bring to the workplace
- Neurodiversity and intersectionality: bias and unconscious bias.
Advanced Leadership Series
This four part series brings together speakers from across the sector to share special insights into strengths-based leadership approaches, including:
- Perfectionism and emotional resilience at work
- Transgender awareness: gender Identity, human rights and law
- Service transformation from a disability perspective
- Hope, strengths and collaborative risk: ethical practice in teams.
Find out more
For further information, or if you’re a past-trainee of ours wishing to join the community, newsletter mailing list or private Instagram group, please contact:
Amrit Kaur
Alumni Community Manager,