Black Grief and Healing

Why We Need to Talk About Health Inequality, Trauma and Loss

“When Black people mourn, it is not only for the passing of loved ones. As a community, Black people will also be mourning the systemic inequalities, racial prejudices and oppressions we experience daily.”

The stories and poems in this anthology illuminate the unique ways loss affects the Black community, and the effects of the widespread lack of understanding of traditional rituals and beliefs. They show us how experiences of collective loss during the pandemic, the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire and ongoing systemic health inequalities are experienced not just as individuals but also as part of a global community. Contributors from a range of backgrounds, professions, and identities discuss the challenges of grieving under the shadow of continuing adversity, including threats of deportation. Sources of strength and healing are also explored, from personal and spiritual responses to community initiatives and activism.

Poignant and inspiring, these are stories we all need to read, and provide us with insights into lives and losses which are all too often misunderstood and sidelined.

Weathering The Storm: Stories Of Love, Life, Loss And Discovery In The Time Of Covid

This is a book about Covid-19 as it happened, with all the fear, horror, losses, grief, chaos, revelations, frustrations and sheer heroism. It is also a book about the future – what we learned and didn’t learn; what we hoped for when the lockdowns eased and we could believe there could be a future. It is a vivid, sometimes distressing, often uplifting and powerfully moving account of a nation’s journey through a nightmare, told in the words of individuals describing their own and others’ experiences and how they and their families and communities coped. We hear stories from many perspectives: the bereaved; the frontline workers; those still battling the long and disabling tail of the virus; the marginalised and vulnerable; the children and young people. These are voices that are rarely heard, talking of small acts of generosity, courage, private suffering and quiet endurance. Alongside, expert commentaries draw the themes together and offer further reading and resources. So many of us swore we would learn from the pandemic. This book will help us do so.

“It was a privilege to write the section of the chapter ‘,We are not in the same boat’ reflecting on the impact of covid across a range of communities and front line staff who were not afforded a duty of care and compassion by the government” – Patrick Vernon OBE

Find out more here: https://www.pccs-books.co.uk/products/weathering-the-storm/

100 Great Black Britons

Find out more here: https://www.manifestopress.org.uk/

The International Handbook of Black Community Mental Health

We are pleased to announce the first international handbook on Black community mental health due to publish on 8^th June 2020.  This handbook focuses on key issues including stereotypes in Mental health, misdiagnoses, and inequalities/discrimination around access, services and provisions. 

Making use of a cultural competence framework throughout, the book covers many of the classic mental health/developmental areas such as schizophrenia, mental health disorders, ASD and ADHD, but it also looks at more controversial areas in mental health, like inequalities, racism and discrimination both in practice and in graduate school training and the supervisory experiences of black students in universities. Unique among traditional academic texts addressing mental health, the book presents rich personal accounts from Black therapists and students. Many Black students who are training to become therapists or academics in mental health report negative experiences with white university staff in terms of a lack of support, encouragement, resulting in poor graduation outcomes.

While institutional racism is a major issue both in society and universities, the editors of this Handbook take personal-level racism, microaggression and everyday racism as better models for understanding and analysing both these students; racialised interaction/communication experiences with white staff at university, as well as the racialised communications and inequalities in misdiagnoses, access to services and provisions in healthcare settings with white managers.

In his Foreword, ‘Father of Black Psychology’ Prof Joseph L. White describes the book as “outstanding”, “very timely” and says it “will go a long way towards raising awareness challenging systems and structures and creating more favourable positive outcomes for people of colour who access mental health services.” The Prologue by author, public speaker and television consultant Prof Alvin Poussaint says, “I applaud the Editors’ work. This insightful book will prove valuable for individuals who seek a better understanding of the challenges people of colour face in mental health.”

Find out more here: https://bit.ly/2VJfP0Z 

Innovation and Change in Non-Profit Organisations

Innovation and Change in Non-Profit Organisations explores how smaller charity organisations and community groups are developing exciting new projects around the world, and how non-profit SMEs can learn from them in order to survive and thrive in a demanding, rapidly-changing world.

The global non-profit sector is vast, with over 1.5 million registered organisations in the US alone. In the UK, the charity sector rivals the motor industry in scale. However, organisations in the social sector – and smaller community groups in particular – face a number of challenges. While technology and social media have enabled previously unimagined levels of communication, rising inequality and funding cuts have made operations much harder to sustain. Against this complex and shifting landscape, Innovation and Change in Non-Profit Organisations brings together a group of highly regarded specialists to stimulate new ideas for innovation, community action and social enterprise. Together, these contributors reflect on their achievements, challenge conventional wisdom, explore best practice, and offer inspirational advice for learning and deploying new skills across a wide range of fields and contexts.

Even though austerity has hit the non-profit sector hard, the case studies in the book show the great value of non-profit services. Charles Fraser, who was CEO of St Mungos for twenty years, describes the difficulties St Mungos faced, how it developed comprehensive services for an unpopular group of clients and the team work approach underpinning this. Community Catalysts supports local self-help groups to bring communities together and take positive actions in very cost effective ways, as outlined by their CEO, Sian Lockwood. The campaigner Patrick Vernon writes about the Windrush campaign, the support from newspapers such as the Guardian and the great success achieved in combating the “hostile environment” imposed at all levels by the Government, while Clore Social Leadership’s CEO Shaks Ghosh describes how they train and support non-profit managers in an increasingly demanding operational milieu.

Find out more here: https://www.pavpub.com/health-and-social-care/innovation-and-change-in-non-profit-organisations

Windrush (1948) and Rivers of Blood (1968) Legacy and Assessment 

This volume looks at Britain since 1948 – the year when the Empire Windrush brought a group of 492 hopeful Caribbean immigrants to the United Kingdom. “Post-war Britain” may still be the most common label attached to studies in contemporary British history, but the contributors to this book believe that “post-Windrush Britain” has an explanatory power which is equally useful. The objective is to study the Windrush generation and Enoch Powell’s now infamous speech not only in their original historical context but also as a key element in the political, social and cultural make-up of today’s Britain. Contributions to the book use a diversity of approaches: from the lucid, forward-looking assessment by Trevor Phillips, which opens the volume; through Patrick Vernon’s account of the legacy of Powell’s speech in Birmingham and how it inspired him to launch a national campaign for Windrush Day; to the plea from novelist and playwright Chris Hannan for a fully inclusive, national conversation to help overturn deeply ingrained prejudice in all parts of our society.

Find out more here: https://www.routledge.com/Windrush-1948-and-Rivers-of-Blood-1968-Legacy-and-Assessment-1st/Harris/p/book/9780367229696