TEAM OF THERAPEUTICALLY TRAINED PRACTITIONERS
We have brought together a clinical team of associates that includes leading Black and Asian fully accredited psychotherapists to support community dialoguing and deep listening particularly around racial issues.

Our work builds on our experience of creating and facilitating community and inter-agency spaces for local authorities, health and VCS partners in response to systemic inequalities such as unequal access to services, or in response to racial incidents.

Our team includes [NAMES TO COME]. Our therapists bring extensive experience of working with multiracial groups in a wide range of modalities including humanistic, psychodynamic, systemic and integrative as well as most having a core grounding in Gestalt. We work closely with BAATN (Black and Asian Therapy Network) and access their network when needed to recruit additional clinical and supervisory support.

FOCUS ON SYSTEMIC RACISM
The pain experienced by communities due to racism can be understood as arising from a series of separations or splits

The pain of black and brown people has historically not been heard by white people who make up the majority of those in positions of power. And people of colour may not have had opportunity to witness white people grappling honestly and with integrity with their pain around racial inequalities. The imbalance of power, occasioned by separation, lack of awareness and will for change, plays into the ‘systematised’ nature of racism, when the majority of contexts do not support a bearing witness to the pain, (anger, grief, sadness, guilt and shame) of the racialised ‘other’. We endeavour to create a series of multi-racial spaces that invite an awareness of difference, including power differences, such that the impact of living with systemic racism on different communities can be vocalised and heard, and thus a relational process towards integration of the separations, and unwinding of internalised oppression, is begun.

GESTALT
Change happens when we are profoundly related to as fellow human beings, acknowledging our differences.

Gestalt brings a ‘whole systems’ orientation to community/public policy settings – whilst adding to these a relational approach. Gestalt’s focus on wholeness/integration prioritises the “use of (our) self” in therapeutic and systems work  – i.e. we understand that ‘self’ (e.g. my experience as a white/black person) plays a role in creating ‘other’ (your experience as a black/white person). Rather than taking an ‘analytic’ stance, in which a therapist acts as an ‘expert’ and thus distances the ‘other’, Gestalt Therapists are trained to meet the other horizontally with openness, humility and curiosity as to the experience/impact of difference.

LEADERSHIP BY LOCAL COMMUNITIES
We routinely allocate a part of our budget to value community members who contribute to the co-production/design phase of any group intervention.

A further key principle we apply is to involve and fund local voluntary and community stakeholders and partners in recognition of the value, time and expertise they provide.  Additionally, our team brings experience of community-led multi-agency approaches to neighbourhood change and Health Creation from the Connected Communities (C2) methodology. Hazel Stuteley originator of the C2 model is a long-standing collaborator and partner.

METHODS OF GROUPWORK

• Small multiracial group work: a group with up to 12 members, racially mixed, containing community members and members from different agencies.

• “Safe Spaces” for people of colour/white people (as needed and requested). The purpose of these could be to provide support for PoC to voice their experiences initially away from the white “other”, or to support white people to do their work without burdening PoC.

• Large group configurations (15+) – these could be stand-alone meetings open to the whole community, or they could be periodic combinations of a number of smaller intersectional groups, e.g. women.

 We employ clinically standard processes around recruiting to therapeutic groups, ensuring that participants are supported adequately during a programme of work e.g. with traumas that may be awakened via group participation.

• We offer to meet all applicants 121 prior to their joining a group to understand their expectations & fears for the group, to review their aspirations and understand what support they might need.

• Although not therapy per-se, groups can bring up personal as well as collective traumas and leave participants with feelings of vulnerability. We can provide an on-call psychotherapeutic support to respond promptly to requests for support, and to offer ad hoc sessions to all participants if desired. 

• We will have a confidentiality, safeguarding and GDPR process in place consistent with the minimum standards expected by all local authorities.

A STANDARD GROUP WILL

• incorporate “check in” and “check out” processes

• Allow time for structured conversations around key themes related to racism

• Allow time for themes and issues to emerge

• Support focus on 3 domains of i) personal process, ii) interpersonal process – i.e. that between group members, and iii) whole group process.

• Allow for experimental ways of bringing issues to life – creativity, psychodrama, constellation approaches, etc.