Community Psychology Festival, 28-29th November 2014 ...€¦  · Web viewDeveloping Partners, with Jacqui Lovell, Tony Jones, Simon McGhee, Laurissa Papprill, Odette Kasongo, Nilam

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Community Psychology Festival, 28-29th November 2014, Bloomsbury Baptist Church, London.

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ContentsFriday 28th November..........................................................................2

Jim Orford...................................................................................................2

Sue Holland.................................................................................................2

The Connector Study, with Dr Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, University of Sussex.....................................................................................................................3

Forum Theatre, with Dr Nick Hammond....................................................3

The Brick Box & Jacob Joyce.......................................................................4

MAC-UK.......................................................................................................5

Converge & Out of Character Theatre Company, with Elanor Stannage, Christy Barnes,Laurie Farnell, Mark Gowland, & Kev Paylor.....................5

Developing Partners, with Jacqui Lovell, Tony Jones, Simon McGhee, Laurissa Papprill, Odette Kasongo, Nilam Kaur, Giselle Mwamba.............5

Invisible Parents: Supporting young people who have had a child taken from their care through special guardianship or adoption, with Dr Barbara Rishworth, Abbie Unwin, Clarissa Stevens, and Dr Emma Silver. 6

Tamil Community Centre, Race on the Agenda, UEL, Building Bridges for Children, and the UK Sri Lanka Trauma Group: Community Psychology in Action, with Rachel Tribe, Rani Nagulendaram, Anthony Salla, Dilanthi Weerasinghe...............................................................................................7

Saturday 29th November......................................................................8DOST Centre for Young Refugees & Migrants - The 360° Plan Workshop.8

‘Representations of psychotherapy in popular music’, with Dr Miltos Hadjiosif......................................................................................................8

Psychologists Against Austerity, with Laura McGrath, Carl Walker and Sally Zlotowitz.............................................................................................9

‘Community Psychology in Action & Research: Innovative approaches to health promotion and social justice’, with Jacqui Akhurst, Jacqui Lovell, Andrew Hart & Glenn A. Williams...............................................................9

English Collective of Prostitutes - Sex workers organising against criminalisation, stigma and poverty, with Cari Mitchell..........................11

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Shoreditch Trust and the East London Foundation Trust BME Access Project.......................................................................................................11

TRYangle Drama Therapy workshop: Drama therapy with male perpetrators of domestic violence: An exploration of empathy in relation to violence, with Lyla Smith-Abass, Dramatherapist, Counsellor, Actor, Playwright, Services Manager at TRYangle2011 (a domestic abuse agency)......................................................................................................11

S.T.O.R.M. Empowerment. ‘Art heals from within’ workshop.................12

Winston’s Wish, with Gianna Daly, Kate Hill, Suzie Phillips....................12

G.I.F.T.......................................................................................................13

First Steps.................................................................................................13

Friday 28th NovemberJim OrfordThis is a very exciting occasion, confirming the entry of community psychology as part of the wider subject of psychology in Britain But at the same time it is a statement of intent: we intend to do things differently. We are rebels within psychology. Our criticism of much of psychology has several strands to it. We are collectivists rather than individualists. We are attracted to the local rather than the universal. We think expertise lies in lived experience more than professional training. We value fairness, justice and empowerment and are against inequality. We tend to think we need outsight more than insight (to quote David Smail). We aim for social transformation not only amelioration. I, and I think most of us, are for peace and against war.

Sue HollandI aim to outline how I have spent the last 40 years or so being a "Community" Psychologist (which means not having a proper job). My 3 Hs of Healing Helping & Hustling (Psychotherapy, Consultancy, & Political Action) led me to develop Social Action Psychotherapy). My work in Battersea and Shepherds Bush (White City estate) is what my fellow

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psychologist know me for as I have written about it. But 20 years ago (coinciding with my 50th birthday and my mother’s death) I decided to try to link urban and rural Community Action by moving west of London into the greenbelt of Buckinghamshire. My plan was to create a "Project" which would involve urban Black & Minority Asian people in rural activities. This is when I had to get a proper job. By this time I had a good track record and CV enough to get myself a Consultant clinical Psychologist job with special responsibility to work with ethnic minorities in the High Wycombe area. One of the resources I was able to set up in this job was to find the funding for and to train Asian women counsellors to work within GP surgeries. These posts were then integrated within the Psychology Department. Most crucially for my longer term goals I was given the opportunity, thanks to the flexibility and encouragement of Corinne Usher my Head of Department, to start a registered charity Minorities Agricultural & Rural-Equestrian Skills. I was able to fully develop this project after my retirement. It is this last 20 years which I have not written about (although I have given a lecture in Cuba about it !) which has taught me most about the difficult struggle to change the class and racial nature of the urban-rural divide in both mental health & social services in this part of the English countryside.

The Connector Study, with Dr Sevasti-Melissa Nolas, University of Sussex.Exploring the intersections of childhood, politics, collective action and social change: a facilitated group discussion

The proposed workshop emerges from work that is part of the ‘Connectors Study – an international study into the emergence of children’s everyday practices of participation social action in circuits of social action’, funded by the European Research Council (ERC-Starting Grant-335514), an international, qualitative longitudinal study into the emergence of everyday practices of participation in childhood. Participation – defined as the social practice of engaging in personal and social change – links private and public life, biography and history, and forms a mechanism for social action. The literature on social movements focuses on adults’ engagement in social action, while sociological and psychological orientations to the topic are predominantly concerned with the engagement of young people, those in

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their teenage years, in social change projects (e.g. youth activism). Few have asked about the emergence of younger children’s (6-10 year olds) orientation towards social action and twenty years after the ratification of the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child (1989), which furnishes a number of participation rights to children and young people, the international community is no closer to identifying what constitutes a ‘good enough’ model for understanding and supporting the emergence of children’s participation in public life. The proposed workshop will give a brief introduction to the Connectors Study, its aims, objectives and methodology to set the scene. I then propose to facilitate a group discussion on childhood, politics, collective action and social change by eliciting participants’ and my own ‘earliest political memories’ as the material for our discussion (we will establish ground rules for the workshop). The aim of the discussion, with reference to community psychology, will be to explore the possibilities and limitations of re-thinking ‘child and adolescent mental health’ through an activist and political lens and whether such a practice might provide us with a way of approaching our work with children and young people today in a way that creatively disrupts the current biopolitics of mental health.

Forum Theatre, with Dr Nick HammondForum Theatre (FT) is an experiential method developed by Augusto Boal to empower communities to create social change around any issue of relevance to them. The FT literature often focuses on work with adults or the use of FT as part of a Theatre-in-Education approach (curriculum-driven). However, this workshop will provide delegates with the opportunity to experience how FT can be used with communities of children and young people using their experiences and histories as a basis (context-driven).

Based on the forthcoming evidence-based book Forum Theatre for Children: Enhancing Social, Emotional and Creative Development, we will consider some of the inherent psychological and theatrical frameworks which underpin FT and consider the empirical research which highlights the impact this method has had on children. This work extends existing literature by exploring how practitioners and academics can work with children using FT to hear and share their stories in order to resolve

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conflicts of interest to them. In addition, this is the first time the depth and breadth of psychology relevant to FT has been investigated and shared in this way.

The workshop will offer a mixed methods approach providing delegates with contextual information and theoretical background which will be interweaved with experiential activities to bring to life elements of the FT process. Please note this workshop is intended to provide a taster session of FT rather than show the complete process.

The Brick Box & Jacob JoyceRosie will start the session by introducing the Brick Box - a Community Interest Company working in the fields of arts and regeneration - and showing a short film about one of their projects. The first part of the interactive workshop would be a short West African, Yoruba story that is told all over the Diaspora. The story is one Jacob has used in various performances with The Brick Box to allow children to become part of a performance and to draw in local landmarks from the community. The second part would focus on sculpture as a way to reflect the struggles of marginalised groups in communities, using photos and models to explain how important it is for people who are not reflected in the dominant art institutions or the media, to participate and be visible in the outcomes of creative practices. The final part would be looking at the benefits of radical narratives. We use the word Radical here in the same way that Black Panther Angela Davis does, to take something back to its roots. This would be photos and discussions documenting Jacob's work that takes black, gay, feminist, housing, African and activism UK histories back to the places where they originated/had large impact but where they have now been whitewashed/hidden. Examples of this being inviting (BHW Black History Walks) and (BARAC Black Activists Rising Against The Cuts) to Lambeth Town Hall for a day of workshops and discussions on gentrification and its effects on local people of colour.

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MAC-UKMAC-UK is a charity with an aim to radically transform services for excluded young people, particularly those involved or affected by gangs. Youth trainers and clinicians from MAC-UK will facilitate an experiential and interactive workshop about the Integrate model. The Integrate model harnesses the strengths of excluded young people through co-production and works alongside young people to transform the wider systems that create social and health inequalities for this group. Clinicians and peer support workers also support young people in a way that is authentically led by them and on their terms through 'street therapy'. Street therapy encompasses a wide range of ideas about what is therapeutic - come and hear about them!

Converge & Out of Character Theatre Company, with Elanor Stannage, Christy Barnes,Laurie Farnell, Mark Gowland, & Kev PaylorMembers of Converge Creative Writing group and Out of Character Theatre Company have been working collaboratively with researcher Elanor Stannage to develop an understanding of the processes of arts in mental health participation.

There will be a 30 min presentation interspersed with performances illustrating the significance of self agency and creative risk-taking in arts in mental health participation. The session will include poetry, song and a short piece of theatre (The A-Z of Mental Illness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivmayn3tNHM )which reflect the findings from the collaborative action research study.

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Developing Partners, with Jacqui Lovell, Tony Jones, Simon McGhee, Laurissa Papprill, Odette Kasongo, Nilam Kaur, Giselle MwambaArt, innovation and being true to our voices, a participatory action research process to evaluate a community organisation from the perspective of its diverse members. Freire suggest that a radical person is “not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled” (Freire, 1972, p39).

Freire’s (1972) process of conscientization was coupled with the Liberation Psychology approach of Martin-Baro (Aaron & Corne,1996) to develop an inclusive, bottom up, evaluation process that didn’t require participants to either read or write.

A body mapping tool was utilised within a participatory video production process to evaluate the impact of a community organisation from the perspective of its diverse members.

Analysis of the data included the use of “I poems” drawing upon Gilligan’s work in this area through the Listening Guide approach (Gilligan et al, 2003). This was expanded to include it, you, we and they poems which effectively allowed all of the voices of the participants to be heard through the analysis process.

The process by which this participatory action research opened up our use of arts based methods, are presented, as innovative and potentially empowering elements in this evaluative process.

Further reading

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin

Aron, A., & Corne, S. (Eds.). (1996). Ignacio Martín-Baró: Writings for a Liberation Psychology. New York: Harvard University Press.

Gilligan, Carol; Spencer, Renee; Weinberg, M. Katherine & Bertsch, Tatiana (2003). On the listening guide: A voice-centered relational method. In Paul Camic, Jean Rhodes & Lucy Yardley (Eds.), Qualitative research in

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psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design (pp.157-172). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Invisible Parents: Supporting young people who have had a child taken from their care through special guardianship or adoption, with Dr Barbara Rishworth, Abbie Unwin, Clarissa Stevens, and Dr Emma Silver Our hope would be to share about the development of a bespoke service for young people, with complex histories, who had a child(ren) removed from their care through special guardianship or adoption. In addition to individual outreach work we have piloted a Tree of Life group and are looking at pursuing the responses (e.g. addressing stigma through creative exhibitions, raising awareness, educating professionals and young people about the experience). We recently obtained service user feedback which highlighted the need for bespoke and accessible services and ones where services users feel in control, especially given their experience of marginalisation within the state intervention. It is still early days in terms of the service and we face many dilemmas regarding how we position ourselves in the system, thinking about the socio political context of our work and addressing disadvantage and deprivation.

We would present the development of this service thus far and then open it up to discussion in terms of how do we (as individuals and services) meet the needs of this often forgotten vulnerable group of young people? How do we give them and their experiences a voice? What is the impact of gendered discourses? Can we develop collaborative services that consider children’s needs as well as their vulnerable parent’s needs? We hope these discussions will raise awareness and thinking about this vulnerable group of young people and hopefully we generate ideas that we can all take forward.

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Tamil Community Centre, Race on the Agenda, UEL, Building Bridges for Children, and the UK Sri Lanka Trauma Group: Community Psychology in Action, with Rachel Tribe, Rani Nagulendaram, Anthony Salla, Dilanthi WeerasingheThis workshop will use one recent example of community psychology in practice. It will describe a three way partnership that was developed between the Tamil Community Centre (TCC), Race on the Agenda (ROTA) and a mental health charity (UKSLTG).

On a yearly basis TCC comes into contact with over 4000 people from across London and the UK and some from as far afield as Norway, Canada and Sri Lanka. Many of the people TCC support present with a range of profound and complex life problems with many having experienced horrific encounters in Sri Lanka and on their journey to the UK.

Following a community mapping and utilising the immense knowledge held by TCC about the people they serve, UKSLTG, ROTA and TCC came together to discuss how TCC can better support their service-users at a community level. Following further needs analysis a 10 week training programme, comprised of interactive sessions, was devised and recently completed with a group of Tamil volunteers in West London.

Representatives from the three organisations will jointly present this workshop and participants will find out about the project, community mapping, see a short video clip and get a chance to gather information and ask questions about community psychology in practice. Participants will hear about the initial evaluation of the partnership and have the opportunity to explore and consider how psychologists and community organisations can utilise their skills and knowledge as partners in an alternative framework of delivery

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Saturday 29th NovemberDOST Centre for Young Refugees & Migrants - The 360° Plan WorkshopThe Dost 360° Plan: An assessment, planning and evaluation tool developed by Dost staff and young people. Helena Kaliniecka, the Service Manager of the Dost Centre for Young Refugees and Migrants and a Clinical Psychologist, will be delivering a workshop on:

The context of the Dost Centre, and how we draw on community psychology principles in our work with children and young people from the following backgrounds: refugee, asylum seeking, trafficked, undocumented, or migrants newly arrived to the UK.

How the Dost 360° Plan was developed in collaboration with the young people who attend their services.

How it can be used to assess, structure and evaluate work across a broad range of areas and concerns in people’s lives.

Dost uses a team approach:

1. To provide a diverse programme of youth activities, life skills and educational support, with access to accreditation, volunteering opportunities, residentials and specific projects.

2. To provide holistic casework, with a focus on therapeutic support, utilising our relationship with Newham Child & Family Consultation Service (CFCS) where appropriate.

3. To offer advocacy and support in accessing rights and entitlements to education, social services support, housing, health care and other services.

4. To provide support through asylum process, including access to legal representation, age disputes, immigration tribunal and appeal hearings.

5. To share knowledge through presentations, training and consultancy.6. To participate in relevant policy and practitioner forums.

For more information, please go to our Website: www.dostcentre.org

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‘Representations of psychotherapy in popular music’, with Dr Miltos HadjiosifPsychologists are in possession of a wealth of academic and clinical descriptions of psychotherapy; nonetheless almost no research attention has been focused on the ways in which the practice and profession are talked about and represented in popular culture. This workshop will present original research that investigated the vocabularies (discourses) that construct psychological and psychotherapeutic concepts in the lyrics of pop songs.

We will examine how these discourses contribute to the establishment of psychological, psychiatric and psychotherapeutic theory and practice as ‘expert knowledge’. The workshop will then look at some of the implications of the ways in which psychotherapy has been represented in popular culture. We will consider whether increased psycho-education is needed regarding the notions of the therapeutic relationship and psychotherapeutic process, as these are obscured in the banal, jovial-mocking, and critical constructions of psychotherapy that pop music offers. The session will end with some personal examples and reflections from the participants.

Psychologists Against Austerity, with Laura McGrath, Carl Walker and Sally ZlotowitzWe are a group of Community Psychologists who are in the early stages of setting up a campaigning group to promote direct involvement of Psychologists and Psychology in political issues. We aim to use psychological knowledge to help shape and inform public debate and policy, and to mobilise professional psychologists to join the current debate on the future of public services. We have been motivated by the ongoing poisonous impact of the unnecessary austerity policies on both mental health service users, and society in general, as well as a frustration with the political silence of Psychology as a profession. In this participatory workshop, we want to explore the potential role of community psychology in reaching out into the political sphere through campaigning activities. We welcome all ideas, feedback, and discussion on this issue. Please come and join us!

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‘Community Psychology in Action & Research: Innovative approaches to health promotion and social justice’, with Jacqui Akhurst, Jacqui Lovell, Andrew Hart & Glenn A. Williams Drawing from experiences of community-based practice across different parts of Northern England and the Midlands, this innovative symposium, comprising three seven-minute Pecha Kucha presentations and discussion, will consider ways in which Community Psychology principles have influenced actions and research. The presentations will provide experiential accounts of participation and engagement in Community Psychology; highlighting the values and challenges of such engagement. Questions such as equality of participation, tensions inherent in these ways of working and the community impacts and sustainability of activities will all be considered. The symposium will illustrate work in a variety of settings and the diverse ways that Community psychologists might make a contribution.

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Sensitising undergraduate students and service users about power, privilege, and marginalisation: A critical community psychology perspective. Presented by Glenn A. Williams, Nottingham Trent University

Community Psychology, and Critical Community Psychology in particular, is relatively unknown as a feature of most undergraduate and postgraduate Psychology provision, although there are some exceptions. It will be argued, with the use of case examples, that this lack of knowledge (i.e. experiential, tacit or taught) among Psychology graduates will have a knock-on effect on how such graduates position themselves when they work with a variety of services and service users to promote health and to pursue social justice. Often, well-meaning graduates may have the capacity to do more harm than good by perpetuating privilege and by not listening to the voices of those who are disempowered and marginalised. Likewise, service users may be painfully aware of how power is held and misused and yet they may also feel constrained and unable to change the status quo. Further case examples will highlight ways in which empathy, conscientization and advocacy may go some way to address inequalities that are perpetuated daily. Critical Community Psychology may offer a constructive approach to give voice to the voice-less and to deconstruct a status quo that is often invisible most of the time to all whom are surrounded by it.

What role does community-based learning play in the psychology curriculum? Presented by Andrew Hart, University of Bradford

An increasing number of UK undergraduate degrees include work placements as part of students' programmes, to promote employability. Many psychology students choose their studies because they have a desire to help others. Some of the values and challenges of 'community-based learning' (CBL) that arise, when students choose to work with local charities and third sector organisations, will be examined. It is argued that despite the tensions inherent in promoting and supporting students' community practice, CBL placements offer examples of ways in which community psychology can be included in the undergraduate curriculum.

‘Financial capability’ as a response to personal debt: a critique from a Community Psychology-informed process in the North East of

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England. Presented by Jacqui Akhurst and Jacqui Lovell, York St John University

In many countries, the recent exponential and sustained increase in personal debt has led to considerable distress and suffering as a result of experiences of over-indebtedness. Personal debt needs to be contextualised within recent political and economic practices that appear to have encouraged international financial institutions to create personal debt. Yet, an individualised discourse of ‘financial capability’ has been propagated, ascribing personal debt to irresponsible individual consumption. This presentation is based on the co-modification of a tool developed for a community-based project, using dialogical approaches, with diverse people who have experienced social and economic exclusion and mental distress in the North East of England. The results of the process lead to a critique of the ideas embedded in the construct, raising awareness of the systemic character of the debt industry and the need for collective responses.

English Collective of Prostitutes - Sex workers organising against criminalisation, stigma and poverty, with Cari MitchellWe estimate that 70% of sex workers are mothers, mostly single mothers. What would happen if that one indisputable fact framed proposals for changes in policy on prostitution? The English Collective of Prostitutes is a self-help group of women who work or have worked in different areas of the sex industry – on the street and indoors. We campaign for the decriminalisation of prostitution for safety’s sake and for financial alternatives. Cari Mitchell has been in the ECP for 20 years and is a mother, a grandmother and a former nurse.

Shoreditch Trust and the East London Foundation Trust BME Access ProjectShoreditch Trust and the East London Foundation Trust BME Access Project invites conference participants to join a Walk and Talk Group and to find out how Walk and Talk has been developed in Hackney. Walk and Talk aims to bring communities together, emphasising strengthening

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similarities, looking for shared values and sharing knowledge of the area, cultural histories and experiences.

TRYangle Drama Therapy workshop: Drama therapy with male perpetrators of domestic violence: An exploration of empathy in relation to violence, with Lyla Smith-Abass, Dramatherapist, Counsellor, Actor, Playwright, Services Manager at TRYangle2011 (a domestic abuse agency). This workshop will experientially explore the effectiveness of dramatherapy as a healing modality with male perpetrators of domestic violence attending TRYangle (a domestic violence service supporting women and children living with a perpetrator of violence and abuse). TRYangle’s work indicates that a considerable number of men attending their programme have experienced an abusive or violent childhood which has impacted on their attachment patterns in intimate relationships. A diverse and often traumatised population, male perpetrators appear to share at the core of their experience a lack of empathy towards their partner's feelings. Is empathy linked to violence? TRYangle believes so and uses dramatherapy integrated with selected psychological tools and theories to support an understanding of the perpetrator’s childhood trauma and their development of empathy towards their partner. TRYangle's view on empathy and domestic violence is proving successful in behavioural changes in this specific population, the development of empathy being at the core of the process of change.

S.T.O.R.M. Empowerment. ‘Art heals from within’ workshopSTORM’s contribution will consist of a 5 minutes presentation by Marie Hanson and Diana Sawaya (our Art Therapy Tutor) on Art Therapy – A process of Self-exploration. We will also conduct a workshop on the day -Art heals from within. Our art classes are designed to support those struggling with stress, depression, grief, domestic abuse, addiction and low self-esteem. Art Creation helps if you feel distanced from your feelings, shy or withdrawn or if you have difficulty coping in social situations. ART

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HEALS YOU; it lowers stress levels, encourages positive feelings and increases confidence.

PostersWinston’s Wish, with Gianna Daly, Kate Hill, Suzie PhillipsThe experience of childhood bereavement is a profound and at times traumatic experience, which, if unresolved can result in multiple difficulties across a wide range of areas in social, educational and psychological functioning. The Child Bereavement Charity, Winston’s Wish aims to support children to make sense of the death, to rebuild their lives and to develop resilience for their future. This approach is firmly grounded in psychological based grief theories including Attachment Theory (Bowlby, 1980), Growing Around Grief (Tonkin, 2006), and Continuing Bonds (Klass, Silverman & Nickman, 1996). Research has demonstrated that childhood bereavement can cause long term risks to health and wellbeing and if left untreated can increase a young person’s vulnerability to youth offending, substance misuse, increased mental health problems, poor academic achievement and lowered self-esteem (Ribbens McCarthy & Jessop, 2005, Penny & Stubbs, 2013). Winston’s Wish SWITCH programme is a community outreach service that targets children (8-14 years) that are at an increased risk of antisocial and self-destructive behaviour following bereavement. SWITCH, as the first national based project in the UK, takes an innovative and creative approach, to reduce the risk of young people

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developing complicated grief. It utilises a family focused model, incorporating Winston’s Wish interventions, supporting a child to recognise, understand and manage feelings and behaviours in relation to their grief in order to fulfil their potential. We will consider the results of the first eighteen months of the SWITCH programme, demonstrating the impact that the project has had on young people’s lives and present a need for future services.

G.I.F.TG.I.F.T Partnership is a partnership between Cernis and Associate Development Solutions (ADS) – a core team of five professionals with a long combined history of working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), locally, regionally and nationally. We are well known as leaders of service transformation and hold a passionate belief in the importance of positive change and renewal in CAMHS. The participation of children and young people is integral to how we work.

First StepsWe will present two posters describing projects involving Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service working with the Orthodox Jewish community to support them in offering

(a) Culturally relevant parenting groups

(b) A telephone helpline for mothers with postnatal depression

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Please note: As the British Psychological Society is a Registered Charity there are certain constraints on the Society and it cannot campaign on issues that are seen as party political. The views and opinions expressed in this Book of Abstracts, and in the sessions during the Community Psychology Festival 2014, are those of the

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individuals involved, and should not be seen as endorsed by the British Psychological Society.