BAATN Conference Programme 2024 - New

MAKING SPACE FOR JOY: MOVING THROUGH TRAUMA, GRIEF AND SHAME

Venue Details.....29

(Parking-Please register your vehicle upon each entry)

WELCOME TO CONFERENCE

Don't it seem we go through life going up and down

Seems the things that turn you on turn you around Always hurting each other (If it ain't one thing, it's another) When the world is down on you, love's somewhere around And I want you to know that joy

Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain

Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain

Frankie Beverly & Maze

This is our 18th Annual conference. These conferences are a rare opportunity to come together, share our knowledge, tell our stories, feel connected and gain mutual support and inspiration. Amongst the pain, there will be intervals for joy.

-Eugene Ellis , 2024

SATURDAY 13TH APRIL 2024

PROGRAMME

09:30 – Tea / Coffee / Registration

10:30 – Introduction to the conference and opening remarks – Eugene Ellis, founder and director of BAATN

10:45 – Opening Ritual - Joy and Pain is like sunshine and rain

11:00 – Keynote: Karen Minkin – Alienation, Trauma and Recovery (30 min followed by 15 min reflections)

11:45 – Break (30 mins)

12:15 – Keynote: Dr Kam Dhillon – Moving through our doorways of shame (30 min followed by 15 min reflections)

13:00 – Lunch (1hr 30 min)

14:30 – Workshops (1hr 30 min)

16:00 – Break (30 min)

16:30 – Plenary and Ending Ritual (30 mins)

17:00 – End

09:00 – Registrations

09:30 – Conference Start – Introduction to the conference and opening remarks – Mickey Peake

09:35 – Opening Ritual

09:45 – Keynote: Dr Yansie Rolston – Our Grief: Black Women Speak (30 min followed by 15 min reflections)

10:30 Break (30 mins)

11:00 – Keynote: Salma Darling – Embodied Joy’ knowing joy in the body through dance movement and feeling/sensing/meditation (30 min followed by 15 min reflections)

11:45 – Celebrations and Notice board

12:00 – Lunch (1hr 15 min)

13:15 – Workshops (1hr 30 min)

14:45 – Break (15 mins)

15:00 – Plenary and Ending Ritual (30 mins)

15:30 – End

BAATN Conference 2024

SATURDAY

EUGENE ELLIS

Eugene Ellis is a writer, psychotherapist and public speaker on the impact of racism, difference and intersectionality. He is also the founder and director of The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN)

His book, ‘The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue’, explores how the distress of intergenerational trauma, post-chattel slavery and colonialism lives on not just in our minds but also in our bodies. As well as helping us to develop an understanding of the forces that made the race construct necessary through exploring the history and development of race, the book focuses specifically on the nonverbal communication of race, both as a means of social control and as an essential part of navigating oppressive patterns.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating a life-changing dialogue

Published in March 2021 through Confer Books

Intercultural Therapy: Challenges, Insights and Developments: Finding Our Voice across the Black/White Divide. Edited by Baffour Abadio and Roland Littlewood. Jan 2019

SATURDAY KEYNOTEPRESENTATIONS

ALIENATION, TRAUMA AND RECOVERY

11:00AM SATURDAY 13TH APRIL 2024

KAREN MINIKIN

In this keynote presentation, Karen Minkin will remind us of the fundamental dynamics of alienation. The outcome of this inherent oppression and ostracising leads to feeling cut off from our legacy, isolated within communities, disconnected from the land and from our bodies. Who we are and who we belong to are key in our professional and personal lives. BAATN has inspired and helped us in our journeys towards recovery from past and present traumas. This keynote will point towards how we survive and recover personally from adversity.

Karen is a psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor working in West Somerset, UK. Her father comes from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan and her white English mother is from the West Midlands She has an interest in working at depth integrating diversity, social responsibility and power dynamics with clinical thinking. Read her full bio here...

MOVING THROUGH THE DOORWAYS OF SHAME

12:15PM SATURDAY 13TH APRIL 2024

DR KAM DHILLON

We will look at the nature and entwined causes of shame (colonial-historical, current society, family) and think about the consequences of shame on us. We will think about ways to respond to shame.

Kamaldeep is a psychodynamic therapist and supervisor of therapy with over twenty years of experience having trained in Leicester, Manchester, and Oxford. He holds a PhD exploring acculturation, cultural marginality, and mental health and completed his Masters in Psychodynamic Practice at University of Oxford where he is also a Tutor.

His counselling and supervision practice has involved working with individuals and groups in public and independent sectors, including Oxford University Counselling Service. Kam is accredited and registered with BACP, BPS, and UKCP He is also an Organisational Psychologist, having held lead roles in research and consulting in academic and policy development settings. Kam speaks Punjabi and some Hindi and Urdu. Read his full bio here...

CONFERENCE CENTRE- NIGHTINGALE HOUSE

All of the weekend workshops and presentations will take place in the Nightingale House Conference centre and will be clearly marked.

Please give yourself enough time to move throughout the building to your chosen sessions.

WORKSHOP 1

PAIN AND JOY ON BECOMING AND BEING A THERAPIST

The workshop will provide an opportunity to share narratives focusing on challenges and achievements – on becoming and being a therapist. We would like the participants to explore what inspired them to choose to become a therapist of colour in particular.

FACILITATORS

Naila Dunleavy – Integrative therapist, writer and artist working in private practice.

Poppy Banerjee – Person-Centred/Existential Counsellor

WORKSHOPS

WORKSHOP 2

REFLECTIONS ON KEYNOTE TALK: MOVING THROUGH OUR DOORWAYS OF SHAME

An opportunity to reflect on the themes of Dr Kam Dhillon’s keynote talk.

FACILITATOR

Dr Kam Dhillon – Counsellor, Supervisor and Tutor

WORKSHOP 3

OPEN DISCUSSION WORKSHOP

An opportunity to reflect on the themes of the conference in a supportive, open space

FACILITATORS

Mickey Peake – Counsellor, group facilitator and BAATN Leadership and Advisory Team member

Robert Sookhan – Person-centred psychotherapist and BAATN Leadership and Advisory Team member

WORKSHOP 4

THE JOYS OF GSRD

This workshop space is a gathering for people who personally identify with some aspect of LGBTQIA+ or GSRD (Gender, Sexuality & Relationship diversity).

This queer-facilitated space is a gathering for attendees to process what has emerged from the BAATN conference. Together, cultivating a safer space for LGBTQIA+ peoples to be with their personal and professional experiences and needs.

This space is an opportunity to bring our fuller selves, i.e. the intersections of GSRD, race, heritage, culture and any other/all intersections (e.g. age, disability, class, neurodiversity), that may have limited invitation, space or safety elsewhere. Here the invitation is to breathe into our fullness, all our intersecting parts, identities and experiences to further reflect and process the content and experience of the conference.

Integral to the offering of this space is holistic attention and care. Whatever emerges, let us access and cultivate our resources to freely bring ourselves and be met, with and by fellow queer bodies, minds and hearts.

FACILITATORS

Kirath Ghataora and Dennis L Carney

Please note this cacao ceremony is a taster session, and a small cup of 15 –20g will be served.

A few precautions regarding Cacoa’s compatibility with some health disorders or medications –Contraindications (see separate document)

FACILITATOR

Dee Albert – Transactional Analysis Psychotherapist, Integrative Supervisor and Shamanic Practitioner.

WORKSHOP 6

REFLECTION ON KEYNOTE TALK: ALIENATION, TRAUMA AND RECOVERY

The workshop will provide a space to explore our responses to the Keynote presentation

FACILITATOR

Karen Minikin – Psychotherapist and author of “Alienation: Radical and Relational Perspectives in TA Psychotherapy”.

WORKSHOP 5

CACAO MEDITATION CEREMONY

Join me in this community healing ritual practised by the Mayans and Aztec for centuries. Cacao, also known as the ‘Food of the Gods’, is the ultimate heart-opener. Full of vitamins and minerals, helping our bodies to heal and detoxify while giving the immune system a boost.

You are invited on a musical journey of Cacao, meditation and healing

WORKSHOP 7

DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU BELIEVE YOU

ARE: Restructuring negative self-beliefs created by intergenerational trauma and reclaiming the narrative – using a concept derived from EMDR theory

The workshop will provide a safe and supportive space for exploring the impact of intergenerational trauma on our unconscious selfbeliefs. We will explore replacing negative selfbeliefs with positive ones using the concept of “reprocessing of negative cognition” from the EMDR model. We will also reflect on the “cultural wealth” our families and communities would have drawn on to survive, the ways in which they coped with adversity and embodied resilience.

FACILITATORS

Amal Wartalska – Integrative counsellor and psychotherapist and an EMDR UK- and Europe-accredited practitioner.

Misgana Berhane – Counsellor, Supervisor, Trainer and EMDR therapist

APRIL 2024

EVENING PROGRAMME

19:00 Proceedings start

19:30 Dinner is served

21:15 Entertainment and Comedian –Imran Yusuf, followed by DJ Ty

Midnight -

End of the evening

Imran Yusuf is a skilful raconteur who can seamlessly weave socio-political satire with heartfelt introspection into his charming and endearing trademark style. Languid, punchy, and cheeky, Imran is an utterly lovable comedian. Born in Mombasa, Kenya, of East-African Indian origin, Imran’s journey has taken him performing around the world, and is a regular in London’s West End.

Having accumulated over 7 million hits on YouTube, Imran’s impact on modern British comedy is undeniably significant.

Imran’s TV debut on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and the Edinburgh Comedy Fest was followed by his own pilot, “The Imran Yusuf Show” in 2012. Beyond stand-up, he ventured into acting with appearances in shows like “Fried” , “Ultimate Brain”, and “The Pentaverate” (Netflix).

IMRAN YUSUF COMEDIAN

Passionate about various causes, Imran supports charities like Medical Aid for Palestinians, War on Want, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the NSPCC.

In addition to his BBC Radio 4 pilot, “Imran Yusuf: Relabelled,” Imran is currently working on his next solo show ‘Soft Jihad’ to tour in 2025.

EVENING PROGRAMME

DJ TY

Hey, my name is DJ Ty, and I am a multi-genre DJ. I’ve been DJing parties, weddings, restaurants, and work events for a number of years and, on a couple of occasions, Boxpark Croydon.

SUNDAY CONFERENCE CHAIR

MICKEY PEAKE

Mickey Peake is a counsellor working in London.

Mickey is a member of the BAATN Leadership Advisory Group. She also facilitates the BAATN Women Practitioners Group and the BAATN Student Support Groups. Mickey is a member of the South Asian Diaspora Coordinating Group.

SUNDAY KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS

OUR GRIEF: BLACK WOMEN SPEAK

9:45AM SUNDAY 14TH APRIL 2024

DR YANSIE ROLSTON

Dr Yansie Rolston will deliver a keynote speech featuring the impactful short film "Our Grief: Black Women Speak." This session offers a supportive environment for participants to explore their personal experiences of loss and navigate the emotions associated with it within a healing community

The short film spotlights the experiences of middle-aged Black women as they face grief and loss and how they gave themselves moments of self-care and self-comfort. It explores the complexities of grief, touching on gender, race, age, culture, and family. The women featured in the film share how the process enabled them to feel empowered and to forge connections with others who have experienced similar losses.

Dr Yansie Rolston has a depth of experience and expertise in health equality development, and providing technical expertise to various levels of government, business, civil society and international agencies.

As a skilled trainer and facilitator, she creates, affects and sustains change across Europe, Africa, America and the Caribbean by designing, implementing and evaluating health equality strategies for marginalised communities Please read her full bio here...

11:00AM SUNDAY 14TH APRIL SUNDAY

EMBODIED ‘JOY’ KNOWING JOY IN THE BODY THROUGH DANCE MOVEMENT AND FEELING /SENSING/MEDITATION

SALMA DARLING

With a passion for embodiment, Salma Darling is a dance movement psychotherapist, conscious dance facilitator and mindfulness teacher. Salma holds movement spaces where diversity, raw, tender, wild, and extraordinary are welcomed. She offers wisdom for the path so that life material can be transmuted into living more freely and fully.

During an MA in art and ecology, she developed Wild Divine Dance as a mindful embodied awakening practice incorporating stillness and movement indoors and in the wild. Much of the process was developed on beaches in Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, and Dartmoor, UK.

Becoming a solo mama during the pandemic to now 3-yearold cute and feral twins is her greatest work and teacher.

Salma has studied meditation practices since 1989, with extended periods in monasteries and retreat centres in India, Europe and the USA, primarily in the Buddhist Theravada ‘vipassana’ or Insight tradition. She has spent over 2.5 years cumulative silent Theravadan Buddhist retreats; the longest silent retreat was 6 months

She has been an international mindfulness trainer for American Express, Unilever, University College London, Journey Meditation New York, Heartcamp San Francisco, London Mindful, the NHS and Meru Health, Helsinki/USA Please read her full bio here

WORKSHOP 1

REFLECTIONS ON KEYNOTE TALK : OUR GRIEF: BLACK WOMEN SPEAK

FACILITATOR

Dr Yansie Rolston – Trainer, facilitator, researcher and trustee at Future Men, and the Fathers Development Foundation

WORKSHOP 2

AFRICAN DIASPORA CONCERNS WORKSHOP

Theme: Increasing our Capacity to Reflect on our Ethnic Identity, Transform our Lives and Influence Others.

Objective: To get really clear about how important it is to be proactive in our thinking about who we are and what we can reflect upon about our lives to make that happen.

Purpose: Understanding our communities from many perspectives, and ourselves better within them – in order to have the greatest possible chance to influence them well and positively.

This workshop space is a gathering for people who identify with an African Heritage.

FACILITATORS

Rotimi Akinsete and Judy Nkechukwu

WORKSHOP 3

OPEN DISCUSSION WORKSHOP

An opportunity to reflect on the themes of the conference in a supportive, open space.

FACILITATORS

Ian Thompson – Counsellor and former BACP’s Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Advisor.

Poppy Banerjee– Person-Centred/Existential Counsellor

WORKSHOP 4 TAKING UP SPACE

Taking Up Space is an arts-based workshop. We will be sharing our journeys to becoming brown art therapists. Participants will be invited to take up space for their voices, thoughts, feelings and identities through the creative process. The workshop is open to all.

FACILITATORS

Palak Mehta – Art psychotherapist, mental health counsellor and clinical supervisor.

Naila Dunleavy – Integrative therapist, writer and artist.

IT’S ALL ABOUT JOY

“People of colour have a duty to bear witness to the full breadth, richness, and beauty of being their full and authentic selves. The Black & Brown experience does not begin and end with anguish, grief, violence, and pain.”

Come along and join a group of like-minded BAATN members and participate in a range of fun, highly interactive group games and activities. This workshop involves lots of movement, and everyone will be encouraged to have fun and be their full, authentic selves.

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is selfpreservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

— Audre Lorde

FACILITATOR

Dennis L Carney – Therapist, facilitator, trainer and member of the BAATN Leadership and Advisory Team.

WORKSHOP 6

WHAT COMES FIRST

We will begin the workshop by exploring the concept of the primary self in Jungian theory and the idea of the proto-self as described by Damasio in neuroscience and cybernetic theory. Afterwards, we will open up a discussion around Ubuntu to explore a collectivist perspective on intersectionality and being.

Next, we will move on to the more physical and experiential aspects of the workshop, where we will focus on touch and object exploration. Participants will have the opportunity to embody an object in the space that they would like to celebrate. If not as a whole group, then they can ritualise a way to do this for themselves in the space or later.

The primary self is essentially the totality of one ’ s self, while the proto-self identifies with the world around it before processing interpretation. Our goal is to create a safe and inclusive space, not to unmask, but to recognise where the boundaries of masks may reside on different faces and to hopefully give agency to individuals who may have been forced into roles they did not choose.

FACILITATOR

Taylor Mitchell-Dramatherapist and artist

WORKSHOP 7

EMBODIED JOY – KNOWING JOY IN THE BODY THROUGH MINDFUL MOVEMENT AND MINDFULNESS MEDITATION

Join us for an experiential session where you will be guided through mindful, gentle movement, some freeform dance movement, mindfulness meditation and discussion on knowing joy in the body. Suited and adaptable to all bodies and energy levels.

This session will support acknowledging, processing and settling the input and interactions of the weekend.

Gentle, yoga type movements will warm us up, help us land deeper in our bodies and shift energy. With suggestions to inspire movement, your body will lead you in freeform dance, where movements might be small and subtle or big and vigorous. You will be guided in seated or lying mindfulness meditation, inviting access to joy in our physical bodies, concluding with a discussion and questions related to your experiences of the workshop and talk.

FACILITATOR

Salma Darling – a conscious dance facilitator, dance movement psychotherapist, dharma and mindfulness teacher

BAATN Conference 2024 page 24

IN THE BOOK CORNER

THE BOOKSHOP

Shalimar Books will again be running a bookstall at this year ’ s conference, and we look forward to welcoming you to our stall. We will have a wide range of books on display, including Therapy in Colour, Supporting Trans People of Colour, Working with Diversity, and Overcoming Everyday Racism. We will also be displaying a selection of titles on Palestine.

Shalimar Books Ltd

38 Kennington Lane London SE11 4LS

T. +44 (0) 20 77352101

www.indianbooksuk.com

IN THE BOOK CORNER

ON THE BOOKSHELF

REVOLUTIONARY ACTS -LOVE AND BROTHERHOOD BLACK GAY BRITAIN

BY JERMAIN OKUNDAYE

Book contribution from Dennis

Carney

In this landmark work, Jason Okundaye meets an elder generation of Black gay men and finds a spirited community full of courage, charisma and good humour, hungry to tell its past – of nightlife, resistance, political fights, loss, gossip, sex, romance and vulgarity. Through their conversations he seeks to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain, narratives frequently cleaved as distinct and unrelated.

Available at all good stockists

Publisher: Faber & Faber

ISBN: 9780571372218

GOND ART EXHIBITION: TRIBAL ART FROM CENTRAL INDIA. THE WORKS OF SANTU SINGH TEKAM

Bhumijan or the Artists of the Earth – is a collective name given to the folk and tribal art of India. Most of these artists are farmers with either small holdings or landless labourers on day wages, who often paint and draw when they can’t work on the land. These are the indigenous people of India struggling to survive.

Santu, whose works are shown here, has been painting since he was a child. His maternal uncle is a wellknown Gond artist (Gond people are of the Gond tribe, the oldest tribe in India), and he has learnt much of his craft from him and also inspired by the women artists in his village who make floor designs and paint the walls of their homes. He has now developed his own techniques and skills. His ‘Signature’ is the ‘half moon ’ as worn on Lord Shiva’s head and a ‘dot’, representing a raindrop.

ART CORNER

Santu paints on canvas and paper with acrylic and is keen to establish himself as an artist. He has started to be invited to show his work at Craft exhibitions and fairs around India. He is very interested in passing on his skills and talent and has been invited to schools to teach children. His dream is to earn his living through his art,

Commissioning and purchasing works of art from these artists make a huge difference to them, and in the process, fresh and dynamic styles of art are allowed to blossom.

TRAVEL AND ACCOMODATION

PARKING

PLEASE NOTE OUR CAR PARK IS MANAGED BY PARKING EYE. PLEASE REMEMBER TO REGISTER YOUR VEHICLE AT RECEPTION OR WITHIN NIGHTINGALE HOUSE UPON EACH ARRIVAL. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN A PARKING CHARGE FROM PARKING EYE.

LEISURE CENTRE

LOCAL TAXIS

WEEKEND OPENING TIMES

7:30 AM.- 18:00 PM (POOL CLOSES AT 5:40 PM).

ALL DELEGATES OF THE CONFERENCE HAVE USE OF THE ON-SITE NUFFIELD HEALTH LEISURE FACILITIES –

16M SWIMMING POOL, SAUNA, STEAM ROOM, SPA, SQUASH COURT AND FULLY EQUIPPED GYM.

LEISURE CENTRE RECEPTION:

01908 358383

SKYLINE 01908 222111

THERE IS A TAXI BUTTON LOCATED IN RECEPTION.

BAATN Conference 2024

VENUE MAP

KENTS HILL PARK TRAINING AND CONFERENCE CENTRE

Heron House –

Accommodation &

2010

Nightingale House –

Training Rooms & Car Park

Lapwing House –

Accommodation & Car Park Car Park

Main Reception&

Swallow House – Restaurant

Nuffield Health & Wellbeing Centre & Car Park