Trent Study Day 2026 - Thinking Differently: Neurodiversity in Forensic Mental Health

The Trent Study Day returns to the Institute of Mental Health on Friday 4 December, with this year's edition titled Thinking Differently: Neurodiversity in Forensic Mental Health. It's a well-established annual conference run by the Institute — one of the UK's leading mental health institutes — in partnership with the Forensic Services Care Group at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. It brings together experts, researchers and practitioners for a multi-professional day of keynote presentations, research poster exhibitions and networking around a topic at the cutting edge of forensic mental health.

This year, the focus is on how neurodiversity is understood and supported within forensic settings. It's a natural fit for the day's format: the keynotes set the scene, the poster exhibition puts recent research on display, and the networking lets you talk through it with people working in the field. If you're coming from a clinical or research background, it's a good chance to see how these ideas are playing out in practice.

The day also has a competitive side. Researchers are invited to submit poster abstracts by 13 November, and there's a prize for the best poster, voted on by the people attending. If you've been working on something in this area, that's your deadline to get it in.

It's worth keeping in mind where this sits in the bigger picture. The Trent Study Day has a habit of tackling specific, pressing themes in forensic care: trauma in secure care in 2025, the use of technology in 2024, physical health in secure mental health settings in 2023, working with prison mental health services in 2022, and substance use in 2019. This year's focus on neurodiversity follows that same pattern. The day runs from 09:00 to 16:30 at the Institute of Mental Health on Triumph Road, Nottingham NG7 2TU, and tickets are £130.