Islington Mind is offering a crisis cafe to support those at risk of a mental health crisis during the Christmas period. If you or a loved one is at risk, please get in touch with them by calling or emailing the details below:

Call: 0207263397

Email: crisiscafe@islingtonmind.org.uk

Christmas can be very lonely for some and no one should have to suffer at this time of year.

Nafsiyat was honoured to receive a visit from Kaya Comer-Schwartz, Leader of Islington Council and a cherished Patron of our organisation. As well as being a native of Islington, Kaya holds a special connection to Nafsiyat, as her mother, Monica Schwartz, formerly served as our Chief Executive.

Our Senior Counsellor, Sega Habtom, is featuring in next month's BACP magazine 'Therapy Today'.

In the article, Sega explores her journey from arriving in the UK from Eritrea as a refugee to now supporting refugees with both individual and group work.

'My Name Is Why' is a deeply personal and emotional book that takes the reader on a journey through the author's childhood and young adulthood. The book begins with Sissay's birth and early years before he was adopted by a white British couple and then consequently placed in the foster care system.

The cost of living crisis is disproportionally affecting minoritised communities.

I am a black mother to 2 black children, and I have worked in schools my entire career, so I have both lived and professional experience of the ways in which black and brown children can be invisible and hyper-visible within the education system. This happens both on a systemic and an individual level; lack of representation in the school system further compounds this issue. 46% of schools in the UK have no minority ethnic teachers, including in ethnically diverse locations. (UCL, London. 2020), 93% of school governors are white, while just 1% are black, a further 1% are of mixed ethnicity, and 3% are Asian. (National Governors Association).

This article details the efforts of a small coalition of professionals of all colours who founded the psychotherapy service called Nafsiyat in the 1980s in order to counteract a particular set of psychotherapeutic assumptions: notably, that non-Europeans would not benefit from dynamic talking therapy. The article delves into the way the service endeavours to overcome a number of barriers, including scant resources, fear, stigma; at the same time, it seeks to acknowledge Nafsiyat's attempts to incorporate the enduring wealth of culturally affirming practices into its intercultural therapeutic model.

A week ago, four people died after a refugee boat capsized in the English Channel.

Despite freezing temperatures, more than 500 asylum seekers have made the perilous journey in small boats since Sunday alone, with the people traffickers who organise the crossings taking advantage of low winds and calm seas (Al Jazeera).

This comes at a time when Netflix released 'The Swimmers', the story of Yusra and Sarah Mardini, the sisters who fled their wartorn home in Syria to find a safe future in Germany.

Recently one of our psychotherapists, Ali Donat, went on a podcast called Mental Health Monday to talk about what Nafsiyat does and the history of intercultural therapy. This is a really interesting episode and will be relevant even if you are already familiar with intercultural therapy. Please check the links below to enjoy the podcast.

We want to give special thanks to The Charity of Sir Richard Whittington for providing us with three years’ worth of funding for our Migrant Women’s Group, run by psychotherapist Sega Habtom.

In honour of Black History Month, Keeping Well NCL and Nafsiyat presented a webinar on the 25th of October on ‘Racism, Stigma and Fear: Barriers to accessing mental health’.

In this podcast, listen to Rabeya Khatun, a bilingual psychotherapist who works at Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy centre, explore the impact COVID-19 continues to have on people from black and minority ethnic groups.