Supporting schools, strengthening families, enabling change
Our Anti-Racist Practice
We are committed to being an anti-racist organisation. Unless we are, we are limited in our capacity to enable change.
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The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and the inspiring Black Lives Matter movement acted as a catalyst for us to face up to the reality of racism within the UK, our organisation, our bodies and ourselves.
We have recognised that whilst we intended to deliver an inclusive service, we had neglected to tackle the burning injustice of racism which is embedded in our society, schools and institutions. We are ashamed and we are determined to change.
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Being an anti-racist organisation means:
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Actively tackling conscious and unconscious racism within our organisation, our Family Groups and our communities
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Ensuring that practice and policy are designed to counter imbalances of power and privilege that uphold racist power structures
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Acknowledging and addressing racist incidents
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Ensuring that our therapists have the skills, awareness and confidence to work with families and schools in an anti-racist way
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Embedding this in our day to day work through ongoing reflection and practice
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In July 2020 we established an Anti-Racist Practice Group. We have produced a timeline that will be regularly updated to demonstrate how we, as an organisation, continue to work on this urgent issue.
Our Anti-Racist Practice Journey
March 2025
Back at the beginning, Robert and Foluke emphasised the long journey ahead. And they were right. While so much has changed, the embodied discomfort in talking about difference is still apparent for all of us as therapists.
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To help, Hendrix Hammond is leading a session on our March training day,
A new company Strategy
Our draft 3-year Strategy went to the Board of Trustees in October.
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Introducing the strategy, our CEO highlighted the values-led, systemic orientation that drives our work. "We intend to be clearer that part of our work is to empower those less favourably positioned in our society. We have recognised that, in Family Group, we are already disrupting hierarchies of power that maintain a status quo in which many of our families experience unfairness.
Our work is about acknowledging where responsibility lies. Through Family Group we are enabling people to step up, own what needs to change and move forward. Change usually involves some hard choices. But we are acknowledging too that people can only be responsible for things they actually have choices about. The invitation to responsibility is to all of us, individuals, organisations, and government"
We were fortunate to meet Dr Amy Smail (Cambridge Centre for Learning & Teaching, Cambridge University) early in the summer, for guidance on a qualitative evaluation methodology that would enable insight into the experience of families in Family Group. How would our work on anti-racism show up? Would our belief that Family Group builds community, solidarity and agencies in global majority communities be voiced in responses from children, parents/guardians and school leaders? Amy recommended The Most Significant Change model, and better still, offered to work with us and lead the evaluation.
A social justice evaluation methodology
Hendrix Hammond
Since Dr Heather Geddes retired from our Clinical Governance Group, we've been looking for a new member. We're delighted to announce that Hendrix Hammond has now joined us a a Trustee and Clinical Governance Group member (https://hendrixhammond.com/).
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'My passion lies in guiding and supporting those who recognise the inherent difficulty in fostering an ethical workplace culture. By working together, we navigate the complexities and intricacies that can arise on this journey, ensuring alignment with the values that matter most.'
The Radical Therapist is another fantastic resource https://chrishoffmft.podbean.com/
Useful podcasts
Engage with Vikki Reynolds! She is such a resourcing theorist and practitioner. A great way in is her paper "Resisting burnout with justice doing" https://vikkireynolds.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/reynolds2011resistingburnoutwithjustice-doingdulwich.pdf
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Please meet her here! https://vikkireynolds.ca/resisting-burnout/
Vikki Reynolds
Spring 2024
Our Clinical Governance Group met with lead therapists to discuss ongoing training needs signalled by the therapy team. Our Board member Carol Halliwell, Systemic Family Therapist, offered to workshop ideas based on Kimberle Crenshaw's intersectionality work, and on the social GRAAACES, leading to a team training session in April.
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In preparation, Carol shared what we've come to know as 'The Privilege Paper', more accurately titled "An invitation to narrative practitioners to address privilege and dominance" Salome Raheim et al https://dulwichcentre.com.au/a-continuing-invitation-to-narrative-practitioners-to-address-privilege-and-dominance/
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See Kimberle Crenshaw's TED talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality?language=en
October 2023
Carol Halliwell and Ben Shannahan's paper "Listening as activism: re-thinking resilience and justice doing as a response to trauma' in The Journal of Family Therapy (vol 46, Issue 1) 'https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-6427.12441 pulled our anti-racist practice group again towards the work at The Dulwich Centre, the Just Therapy team and the work of Vikki Reynolds.
Our gaze widened from a specific focus on race to the many issues arising from power differentials that favour particular groups. Our anti-racist practice broadened into anti-oppressive practice.
Our anti racist practice timeline goes live.
April 2023
February 2023
Robert Downes returned to build on the 2022 'Working in the Wake' training he and Foluke Taylor started with us. Please be in touch to access resources.
December 2022
Our Anti Racist Practice Group (ARPG) met and discussed the importance of including anti-racist work in our monthly team meetings. We agreed to provide a stimulus at every meeting and then lead an exercise around that content.
November 2022
Discussions on how to keep up to date with anti racist training. Internal and external tasks set for our monthly team meeting.
May 2022
ARPG meet and then provided feedback in the team meeting. In the meeting, we discussed setting up a dedicated page on the website about our anti racist work.
In the team meeting we discussed our Statement of Intent and reviewed what we have done so far and what we planned to do next.
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SFW set up our 'Provisioning Ground' WhatsApp page, a shared space to resource ourselves and support each other to develop the WILL and the SKILL for the journey ahead.
April 2022
Robert Downes and Foluke Taylor lead a training day to help us understand how the experience of racism inhabits our bodies and how that impacts practice in the Family Group work and within our organisation.
March 2022
Robert Downes and Foluke Taylor send out rich preparation material to help the team orientate themselves to and prepare for the training date in March
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Please contact us directly if you wish to access this material.
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Resmaa Menakem's interview with Tara Brach, Healing Raclialised Trauma, is a recommended starting point.
Self care alert: Plan time to watch and, afterwards integrate this video. Incorporate pauses. Let it land in your body.
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February 2022
January 2022
At the Team Meeting we introduced and discussed the planned antiracist practice training day with Robert Downes and Foluke Taylor, scheduled for March 3rd at The Rayne Foundation, courtesy of one of our funders.
Due to illness, Mark from SIA was unavailable to lead the the training. Publication of Eugene Ellis's book 'The Race Conversation' led ARPG to pursue training from a therapeutic organisation. ARPG sought to engage Eugene through BAATN and other therapists who offered specialist training in this field.
September 2021
June 2021
ARPG met to discuss the September training as well as the findings from the race fluency team meeting exercise.
George Floyd's killer receives a 22.5 year sentence for murder.
At the team meeting we did an initial race fluency exercise, designed to prepare the team and the trainers for September date. Using our Family Group 'hot' and 'tricky' structure we asked therapists to consider together.
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1. Hot
What am I feeling with confident in this area? What existing skills/competencies do I have already to help me?
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2. Tricky
What I find tricky/worrying? What makes me nervous about talking about anti-racism or issues relating to race? What do I need help with?
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3. To help the trainers plan the training, please give us an example of the kind of situation that might arise during Family Group regarding race or racism.
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4. What do I want to get out of the training? What would be most helpful?
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The following useful links were also circulated.
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1) Presentations from The Roots of Empathy conference
2) Café session from Roots of Empathy conference where three black fathers talked about their experience of raising children.
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May 2021
April 2021
Therapists and Board Members continue to share links to resources:
Exploring the clinical impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade
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‘Let’s talk about race’, presented by Naga Munchetty
Spotify podcast about attempts to de-segregate schools in the US, 'Nice White Parents'
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March 2021
ARPG began researching and meeting potential people who could deliver an anti-racist workshop to our team. Board member Sarah Fletcher linked us to Claire Harvey and Mark Gervais at the Schools' Inclusion Alliance.
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We identified language as the nub of our current concerns. Our therapists feel discomfort, a blunting of their expertise. They feel possibility of being mis-perceived so do not go confidently towards racism. Helpfully, Claire used ‘race fluency’ to describe what we desire. She noted rather self-deprecatingly that even though she and Mark are described as ‘inclusion gurus’ – they still ‘get it wrong’. 'Part of the confidence required is to know what to do when you get it wrong'. Discussions led to a training offer from SIA, with Mark to lead a morning for us in September on 'Race Fluency'.
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February 2021
Team meeting activity looking at 'what we do well' and 'what we could do better'.
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Proposal presented by CEO to Board of Transgenerational Change Ltd, our parent company, to enshrine anti-racist practice through the whole organisation.
Board was supportive and a more focused plan was agreed, prioritising work specifically focused on helping our therapists communicate more effectively with actual and potential FG families.
March 2021
January 2021
At the team meeting we mapped out what our Anti-Racist journey would look like. We considered the problem, what we are learning and where we are going.
December 2020
Anonymised recruitment was introduced to mitigate any unconscious bias when hiring new staff. Identifying information redacted from applications before sharing for shortlisting.
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November 2020
Our CEO shared useful resources from The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network with the team.
June 2020
At the monthly team meeting we discussed how we could ensure we were an anti-racist organisation. The idea of setting up an Anti-Racist Practice Group (ARPG) was discussed and four therapists stepped up to lead the project.
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The following resources were shared:
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1) UKCP blog - The therapy community must commit to anti-racist practice
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2) Embrace Race blog - 20 picture books to support conversations on race
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3) Dr Joy Harden-Bradford podcast - Therapy for Black Girls
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4) Film clip from 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets - starring Sir Ben Kingsley
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May 2020
George Floyd was murdered.
Our Journey
