Change happens through people.
Whether you’re supporting individuals, leading teams, shaping communities, influencing policy, conducting research, or designing services, success depends on a set of human skills that are too often overlooked: the ability to engage, listen, facilitate, communicate, create, adapt and inspire.
At HBC Fest 2026, we bring together an inspiring programme of practical workshops, reflective spaces, shared experiences and hands-on learning designed to strengthen those core skills.
These are not traditional conference presentations. They are participatory workshops and learning experiences created by changemakers, for changemakers. Led by experienced facilitators, practitioners and members of the Human Behaviour Change for Life network, each session is an opportunity to explore, experiment, practise and learn together.
Whether you work in communities, organisations, education, health, sustainability, research or social change, you’ll find ideas, approaches and tools that can help turn good intentions into meaningful action.
Across the weekend, workshops will explore topics including:
Designing Journeys That Matter
Great change rarely happens in a single conversation. It happens through carefully designed journeys that help people take meaningful steps towards something different.
These concepts will be explored throughout the weekend, including how to design purposeful experiences, from meetings and workshops through to training programmes, campaigns and long-term engagement processes. Together we’ll explore how to create journeys that people genuinely want to be part of, moving beyond information sharing to meaningful involvement and action.
Because no matter how good your resources are, they only matter if people engage with them.
Using Your Voice with Impact
Dr Anna Baatz
Your voice is one of the most powerful tools you have as a changemaker.
This interactive session explores how tone, pace, pitch, presence and confidence can transform the way you communicate. Whether you’re facilitating a workshop, speaking at an event, leading a meeting or navigating a difficult conversation, you’ll discover practical techniques for communicating with clarity, authenticity and impact.
Nature Connectedness and Inspiring the Next Generation
Dr Fiona Holland
How can we help young people reconnect with nature, themselves and their values?
Drawing on learning from Green Generation and other nature-connectedness projects, this session explores practical approaches for engaging teenagers through experiences that foster curiosity, connection and action. Participants will explore how conversations around strengths, values and motivation can support young people to make a positive difference in their own lives and communities.
Motivational Interviewing for Change
John W-Russell
People rarely change because they are told to.
Motivational Interviewing offers a compassionate and evidence-informed approach for supporting people through the process of change. This workshop introduces key MI principles and demonstrates how they can be applied in direct conversations, group settings and even written communications.
Through practical exercises, participants will explore how to navigate resistance, respond to emotions and build conversations that strengthen motivation rather than undermine it.
Active Learning and the Changemakers of Tomorrow
Pete Dean
How do we inspire the next generation to become active participants in shaping the future?
Building on last year’s workshop, Pete will continue exploring the question: What is school for? Through stories, activities and practical examples, participants will consider how education can evolve to better prepare young people for an increasingly complex world.
The workshop will challenge assumptions, explore active learning approaches and share hopeful examples of innovation that nurture curiosity, agency and lifelong learning.
Bringing Research to Life
Dr Jo Hockenhull and Dr Tamzin Furtado
Research has the power to inspire change, but only if people can connect with it.
This highly interactive session explores creative ways to communicate evidence, insights and learning. From transforming technical reports into compelling stories to turning research findings into engaging experiences, participants will discover how to make important information accessible, memorable and meaningful.
Because great research deserves to be heard, understood and acted upon.
Ethics, Flourishing and the Good Life – ‘The Game of Life’
Hamish Morrin
Every changemaker faces ethical choices.
Influencing behaviour, shaping conversations and designing interventions all raise important questions about power, responsibility and what it means to do good.
Inspired by Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia or flourishing, this workshop turns life into a game. Participants will navigate a constantly changing world, make difficult decisions, encounter unexpected challenges and reflect on the values that guide their choices.
There are no right answers. Instead, together we’ll explore what it means to live and work ethically in a complicated world, and how we can create conditions for both ourselves and others to flourish.
A Deeper Dive with Jo, Suz and others
Alongside the core programme, HBC Fest offers a unique opportunity to explore some of the approaches, methods and ideas that sit at the heart of Human Behaviour Change for Life.
These Deeper Dive Sessions are designed to meet participants where they are. Through self-selected groups, those newer to a topic can build confidence in the foundations, while more experienced practitioners can explore advanced applications, real-world challenges and emerging ideas.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, these sessions create space for people to learn at the level that best supports their own journey.
Topics are expected to include:
Facilitating Theory of Change in Real-World Settings
Moving beyond theory and into practice.
Explore creative and participatory approaches for facilitating Theory of Change processes in real-world settings. We’ll share lessons learned from working with diverse groups and complex systems, helping participants build confidence in designing sessions that generate meaningful insight whilst keeping people engaged throughout.
Participatory Approaches for Meaningful Involvement
How do we move beyond consultation and genuinely involve people in shaping decisions?
This session explores practical participatory methods that help communities, stakeholders and organisations contribute their knowledge, experience and creativity. Together we’ll consider what meaningful participation looks like and how to create processes that are inclusive, engaging and impactful.
Habits and Sustainable Change
Many of the challenges we face as changemakers involve helping people do something repeatedly, not just once.
This deeper dive explores the science and practice of habits, looking at how habits form, why they persist and what helps people sustain change over time. Through practical examples and discussion, participants will explore how habit principles can be applied across a wide range of settings.
Emerging Ideas from HBCL Practice
Members of the HBCL team will also be sharing new approaches, reflections and lessons emerging from current projects and practice. These sessions create an opportunity to explore ideas in development, test thinking together and learn from one another’s experiences.
Keynote
Our keynote session will bring together many of the themes at the heart of HBC Fest: human connection, behaviour change, creativity, courage, ethics and hope.
More details coming soon.
More Than a Conference
HBC Fest is built on the belief that changemakers learn best when they learn together.
The weekend combines practical skill development with reflection, conversation, creativity and connection. Whether you’re taking your first steps as a changemaker or bringing years of experience, you’ll find opportunities to challenge your thinking, deepen your practice and connect with a community of people committed to making a positive difference.
You’ll leave with practical tools, fresh ideas, new perspectives and meaningful connections.
Because the challenges we face are complex.
But when people come together with curiosity, courage and the right skills, meaningful change becomes possible.
Change happens through people. And people need skills that matter.
