Professor Rachel Tribe and colleagues present a workshop at BPS Community Psychology Festival

Professor Rachel Tribe along with three colleagues Rani Nagulendaram, Anthony Salla, Dilanthi Weerasinghe presented a workshop at the first ever BPS Community Psychology Festival on 28th November. Details as below;

This workshop used one recent example of community psychology and civic engagement in practice. It described a four way partnership that was developed between the Tamil Community Centre (TCC), Race on the Agenda (ROTA) , School of Psychology, UEL 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, UEL/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 these organisations jointly presented this workshop and participants found out about the project, including the community mapping that was carried out. In addition a short video clip was shown, which was followed by questions being asked about community psychology in practice. Participants heard about the initial evaluation of the partnership and had the opportunity to explore and consider how psychologists and community/civic organisations can utilise their skills and knowledge as partners in an alternative framework of delivery.