Working With Soul
1 December 2023

Programme

Working With Soul: Mind the Gap- exploring the intersectionality of aspects of EDI, religion and spirituality

This working with event seeks to explore the intersections between religion and spirituality and equality, diversity, and inclusion and considers the implications for therapeutic practice.

This conference will be suitable for practitioners seeking to:

Develop their knowledge and awareness working within diversity and difference
Increase their competence working with clients presenting with religious or spiritual issues.
Increase their awareness around the intersections of aspects of EDI and religion, and spirituality.
Reflect on their own assumptions, whether conscious or unconscious, relating to EDI issues, religion, and spirituality.
Develop more inclusive anti-oppressive therapeutic practice for clients from religious or spiritual backgrounds.

The event will include 3 presentations followed by Q&A, with a final panel discussion at the end.

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Programme

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9.30am - 9.40am	Welcome & Introductions
9.40am - 9.55am	Communities of Practice platform overview, presented by Rebecca Stew
9.55am - 11.03am	Working within diversity - an anti-oppressive approach in how to bring faith and spirituality more into our therapeutic and supervision practice, presented by Myira Khan
11.03am –11.10am	Break
11.10am –12.16pm	EDI, Religion and Spirituality: exploring how trainee and newly qualified counsellors and psychotherapists, who identify as religious or spiritual, experience undertaking therapeutic training in the UK, presented by Jane Hunt
12.16pm –12.25pm	Break
12.25pm –1.30pm	Working within Spirituality within the workplace, presented by Sukhi Sian
1.30pm - 1.55pm	Panel discussion
1.55pm	Event close

This programme is subject to change.

Presentation information

Communities of Practice platform overview

9.40am – 9.55am

This presentation aims to share the benefits of the Communities of Practice platform and share information on the active communities.

Working within diversity - an anti-oppressive approach in how to bring faith and spirituality more into our therapeutic and supervision practice

9.55am – 11.03am

This presentation aims to introduce and explore the Working Within Diversity anti-oppressive model, to bring the identity characteristics of faith, beliefs and spirituality more into our therapeutic and supervision practice and to work with the whole identity of clients and supervisees in a relational approach.

Downloading of the presentation slides will be made available on the day here.

Myira Khan is a multi-award-winning Accredited Counsellor, Supervisor, Coach, Counselling Tutor and Founder of the Muslim Counsellor and Psychotherapist Network (MCAPN), and Author of Working Within Diversity.

Myira has over 13 years of clinical experience, alongside delivering workshops, trainings and events, including on Working Within Diversity and anti-oppressive practice.

Working Within Diversity, both the book and accompanying workshop series, is a culmination of her clinical experience alongside an extensive teaching and training experience delivering workshops on identity, culture, faith, spirituality and diversity, to create a robust foundation and framework for anti-oppressive practice in therapy, supervision, coaching and all practitioner-led practices.

A visibly Muslim ethnically-minoritized practitioner, Myira represents a diversity within the therapeutic and coaching professions, promoting counselling and coaching to ethnically-minoritized, Muslim and under-represented marginalised communities and clients.

EDI, Religion and Spirituality: exploring how trainee and newly qualified counsellors and psychotherapists, who identify as religious or spiritual, experience undertaking therapeutic training in the UK

11.10am - 12.16pm

Religion and spirituality are protected characteristics under the 2010 Equality Act and yet research indicates therapists rarely discuss religious/spiritual issues in training (Abbey & Gubi 2022); report little input on religion/spirituality during training (Hunt 2018); and feel ill-equipped to work with religious/spiritual issues (Woodhouse & Hogan 2020).

This talk will outline findings from a survey research project that explored how trainee and newly qualified counsellors/ psychotherapists, who identify as religious or spiritual, experience undertaking therapeutic training in the UK. The survey examined participants’ experience in five domains: how important religion/spirituality was in choosing to become a therapist; how frequently they spoke about their religion/spirituality with peers, tutors, supervisors and therapists; any conflict they experienced between their religion/spirituality and therapeutic training; the training they received around religion/spirituality; and how competent they felt to work with religious/spiritual issues in therapy.

This talk will consider the ramifications of these research findings for therapists, supervisors and trainers and explore what we might do in practice to support trainees who adhere to religious or spiritual traditions. In doing so, seek to develop more inclusive training, supervision and therapeutic practice environments.

Working with Spirtuality within the workplace

12.20pm – 1.25pm

The aim of this session is to create a reflective space for delegates to explore spirituality within the workplace. This will involve exploring practitioners personal and professional challenges around working with and bringing spirituality into the room and work environment. Space will be created to think about how our own spiritual or existential narratives impact or inform our therapeutic practice, with the aim of empowering practitioners to feel more confident and competent in engaging safely and ethically with clients’ ‘spiritual’ material. The session aims to encourage practitioners to safely take a step out of the ‘spiritual closet’ and explore the ethical considerations around working more holistically; mind, body and spirit and how to navigate the challenges that therapy organisations can present when raising the topic of spirituality. We will also be discussing a new race awareness toolkit commissioned by the Coalition for Inclusion and Anti-Oppressive Practice (of which Place2B are a part) and how this could be applied to in a spiritual context as well referring to BACP’s Position Statement on Spirituality and Belief.

Downloading of the presentation slides will be made available on the day here.

Sukhi Sian is a 43 year old British Asian woman. Sukhi trained as a psychodynamic counsellor and since qualifying around 20 years ago, and has predominantly worked in women’s or children and young people’s organisations, naturally falling into leadership roles, specifically in areas of sexual violence and children’s mental health. In recent years as part of their own journey, Sukhi trained in some holistic, energy based therapies and numerology and have since been developing a spiritually integrated holistic approach to therapeutic practice and clinical supervision, creating space for the Mind, Body and Spirit.

Working alongside the BACP Spirituality Division Sukhi became a network meeting facilitator, an executive member and now a co-deputy chair also contributing to the divisional journal ‘Thresholds’, giving me the confidence to bring spirituality into the workplace. Sukhi currently works at Place2Be as Deputy Regional Clinical Lead for Midlands and Wales.