Teaching at Advanced Spine Course for Pediatric Physiotherapists

On May 8, 2026, I’ll be joining physiotherapists in the UK at the Association of Paediatric Chartered Physiotherapists’ (APCP) Paediatric and Adolescent Spine Course. My role on the day is to teach them about the research on adolescent nonspecific persistent back pain and provide them some practical ways to better use the biopsychosocial model in practice.

The title of my session: Addressing Psychosocial and Communication Challenges in Clinical Encounters with Adolecents with Nonspecific Persistent Back Pain and their Parents.

Many of the physiotherapists who attend will be treating patients with acute back pain, as well as the persistent back pain in which I speclialize.

However, person-centered communication techniques are relevant in both cases.

In acute cases, it’s crucial to rule out red flags, such as difficulty walking or weakness in the legs, problems controlling urination or bowel movement, fever/chills, unexpected weight loss, and numbness in the buttocks, groin, or inner thighs.

Those red flags are rare, thankfully. But once they are ruled out, clinicians might not know how to proceed if they are not familiar with the biopsychosocial model and the great impact clinicians’ own communication with the patient can have.

So on this training day, I’ll be not only presenting an overview of the current research on treatment options for adolescent nonspecific persistent back pain, I’ll also be teaching the attendees about how to harness the power of the “social” aspects of the biopsychosocial model in practical, useful ways during their appointments with young patients and their parents.

As my study with clinicians showed, managing the triadic relationship between young patients, parents, and themselves is a frequent challenge because clinicians often don’t get much (if any) training on how to do it. My co-presenter at this event, Jane Robinson (who is a Principal Physiotherapist in Pediatric Pain Management in the UK’s National Health Service), and I will be touching on some ways to manage the triad in this training.

But stay tuned for the Annual Conference of the UK Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in October, where Jane, I, and the excellent clinician-researcher Dr. Rhiannon Joslin, hope to present a workshop on methods for enhancing triadic communication in pediatric pain treatment. (I cite some of Dr. Joslin’s work in my overview of qualitative research with people who have chronic pain.)

The course on May 8 is fully booked. If you would like to request a training at your hospital, clinic, or practice, either online or in person, please get in touch.