Engaging with Communities – Beyond the Clinic
- Clinical
- Community
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The British Psychological Society, Division of Clinical Psychology Northern Ireland (DCPNI) invite members, colleagues and third-sector partners to join us for a networking and engagement event exploring the role of Community Psychology and the potential for its evolution and development within a NI context.
This event will be held at:
- Crumlin Road Gaol
53-55 Crumlin Rd
Belfast
BT14 6ST
We hope to have conversations around Community Psychology through the lens of social inequalities and their role in perpetuating contexts of social deprivation and exclusion such as poverty and homelessness.
We are keen to generate discussion on the role of socially driven factors leading to experiences of poverty and homelessness, the impact of such on the individual and their families/communities and to become familiar with and learn from examples of innovative community-led/orientated approaches that have been working to address these.
In the morning, we will hear from a number of academic experts in the field including Professor Greta Defeyter, University of Northumbria and Professor Nick Maguire, University of Southampton on their work on Poverty and Homelessness.
We will also hear from a number of our partners in the Community & Voluntary sector on community initiatives and projects they have been running locally and we will also hear from our colleagues in Community Psychology on how we can develop our understanding of community psychology principles and approaches and how these can be integrated into our thinking and practice.
The afternoon will comprise of a number of round table and panel discussions with our attendees and guests exploring the themes covered earlier in the day.
The aim of this networking event is to bring together local groups and local projects with wider research and projects to learn from the work being done both in Northern Ireland and wider afield, to support discussions about the potential role psychology can play in both working in partnership with communities and also supporting psychologically enabling community contexts and environments and practices, which support strength and inclusion based community development.
Our Annual General Meeting will take place at the end of the event followed by a light supper.
Special thanks to the British Psychological Society Northern Ireland Branch committee for their support, enabling us to invite a wider audience to this free event, which is also open to non-members (registration is still required however).
Please note that places are limited for this event and booking is essential. If you book and find yourself unable to attend please contact [email protected] to release your place.
09.00: Coffee/Registration
09:30: Welcome and setting the scene – NI specific challenges (Dr Sarah Meekin, Chair DCP Northern Ireland)
09.45: Convening around these questions – Reflections from the organising committee
10.00: Community Psychology – Principles & Practice (Dr Barbara Rishworth, University of Hertfordshire & Reframe Collective)
11.00: Coffee/Stands
11.30: Poverty & Homelessness NI Context (Simon Community – Connel McKenna, The Hosford Homeless Project –Jenny Hylands)
12.30: Lunch
13.30: Deprivation, Homelessness, and Health (Prof Greta Defeyter, University of Northumbria)
14.30: Panel Q & A
15.00: What next: Table discussions – Psychology & Communities
16.15: Feedback and Close (Dr Sarah Meekin, Chair DCPNI)
16.30: Annual General Meeting (member only session)
Speaker: Dr Barbara Rishworth, University of Hertfordshire & Reframe Collective
Topic: Community Psychology – Principles & Practice
Barbara is currently the academic lead at UH DClinPsy and co-founder of ReFrame Collective. With a background in services for children, young people and their families (from youth offending, learning disabilities, children looked after to generic CAMHS, both early intervention and 'tier 3'). She is passionate about co-production and meaningfully involving service users in both service development and provision.
Amongst other approaches, Barbara draws on community and liberation psychology principles and has been involved in MAC-UK and running a community psychology informed service for young people that had their children removed from their care by social services due to child protection concerns. She is a mum to two neurodivergent little humans that keep her on her toes and forever learning.
The workshop aims to introduce community psychology and liberation psychology theory, think about why these approaches may be relevant in today's psychology world and then look at theory in practice with examples from clinical experience; from re framing commissioning objectives to collective action.
Speaker: Connel McKenna, Simon Community NI
Topic: Poverty & Homelessness – NI Context
Conor will present an overview of the work of the Simon Community, our remit with local homelessness and health context.
This will include information on some aspects of our backstory, our increasing diversity of service provision, and our operational & strategic objectives for the coming years.
He will also present some information on Housing First service provision and the services and support we offer re mental health.
Speaker: Jenny Hylands, East Belfast Mission
Topic: The Hosford Homeless Project
Mental Wellness Approach at Hosford Homeless Project, including our use of Group Therapy and Promotion of Mental Wellbeing in our Hostel and as Residents progress into their own Tenancies.
Jenny Hylands originally trained as a Speech and Language Therapist specialising in Neuroscience. She taught in Health Sciences Ulster University for over 20 years. It was here she developed her interest in Psychology and Functional Communication Disorder.
Jenny now works for The Hosford Homeless Project at East Belfast Mission in their Mental Health Project. She has recently completed a PG Diploma in Mental Health and Wellbeing Coaching. She has also experience in Trauma and Addiction.
Speaker: Professor Greta Defeyter BSc (Hons) CPsychol FRSA FHEA FBPsS PhD - Director of the Healthy Living Lab, Northumbria University
Topic: Deprivation, Homelessness, and Health
This talk will present possibilities of how to use psychological theory and knowledge as a key asset for inter-disciplinary research that involves working with communities and young people to co-design effective interventions and policy.
The talk will adopt a social justice perspective and will illustrate how psychologists can work with academics from other disciplines and people from under-served communities under a Public Involvement and Engagement Forum (PIEF) that is equitable, diverse, and inclusive in terms of participation and valuing all forms of knowledge.
Data from three large-scale studies will be presented. The first study will explore household food insecurity, how it is measured, and highlight the negative effects on people's psychological and physical wellbeing. The second study, funded by the Department for Levelling Up (Housing and Communities) will explore the use of Ripple Effects Mapping to capture both intended and unintended outcomes of a local authority/community organisation intervention. The third study will explore an innovative adaptation of the Holidays Activity and Food Programme, a programme funded by the DfE at a cost of £200M p.a.
This study is innovative as it involves young people (13-16 years of age) co-designing with adult stakeholders, an alternative HAF+ programme to meet the needs of young people. This programme is currently being delivered across London, Birmingham, Gateshead, and Northumberland Councils.
Greta is the Director of the Healthy Living Lab at Northumbria University. Her current research interests are food insecurity, social and educational injustice and holiday hunger. She has received funding from multiple sources and has published over 100 papers on school breakfast clubs, food insecurity, and holiday activities and food. Her research focusses working with communities to address inequity and adopts an asset-based approach in co-designing interventions and policy.
She is now a recognised expert in this area and in 2015, she was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in recognition of her research with 'underserved' populations. More recently, she joined prestigious line up of award winners by winning a Food Heroes Award from Sustain for her research and evaluations on school breakfast clubs and holiday hunger.
In 2017, the Healthy Living Lab won the British Psychology Public Engagement Award (North East) for their translational research on feeding disadvantaged children. In 2020 she was recognised, by the Big Issue, as one of the top 100 change makers for her research and policy impact on food insecurity. She has also conducted research on children's engagement in physical activity (in and out of school), and recently she has led the co-design of the HAF programme; followed by a youth led co-design project that engaged young people in co-designing a specific HAF+ programme to meet the evolving needs of young people.
The HAF programme funds holiday activities and food programmes across England at a cost of £200M p.a. A sample of her publications and films showing her work of engaging young people in co-design can be found at: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/takeontomorrow/it-is-time/holiday-activity-and-food-programmes