Psychopolitics in the 21st Century

 

The conference takes place at Liverpool Hope University on Wednesday 10th June 2015.  

Speakers include Professors Peter Beresford and Ann Davis, and activists from Psychologists Against Austerity, reVision and the SWAN Mental Health Charter group amongst others. 

The event is supported by: Social Work Action Network (SWAN), Asylum: the Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry, Journal of Critical and Radical Social Work, and reVision 

 For information on speakers, themes and booking details go to the conference webpageswww.hope.ac.uk/psychopoliticsc21 or email: sedgwickconf2015@hope.ac.uk

Call to Action:Shut Down Dungavel

 

DUNGAVEL IMMIGRATION REMOVAL CENTRE

Called by the STUC and the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees:

The new Tory government in Westminster spells bad news for refugees and other immigrants.  On the other hand the SNP has been the most positive and welcoming of all the major political parties.  This demonstration calling for the closure of Dungavel and all the other detention centres gives us the chance to strengthen the SNP’s resolve and let the Westminster government know they have a fight on their hands.  We will not let the next five years degenerate into a festival of xenophobia.  Scapegoating immigrants hurts us as well.  Note Ian Duncan Smith’s idea for plastic cards and no cash for those on benefits, first tried out on asylum seekers.  

Join the demonstration.  Both SWAN and the STUC are running buses.

With SWAN please contact iainferguson6@btinternet.com. 

With STUC please contact @helenmcguigan or do it here http://www.stuc.org.uk/dungavel #ShutDungavel

Reflections upon the 2015 SWAN conference

 In such a climate, the SWAN conference 2015 provided the expert knowledge and the space and time to reflect on what indeed social work is (so much more than ticking boxes and filling forms), what the underlying driver of this profession is (fighting discrimination), and what direction we want to take it (back to the roots of social work, of working with the marginalised and underprivileged, while facing head on the challenges posed by governments and powerful lobbies). 

As a non-white social worker of Indian origin, what was particularly heartening for me was to see such an impressively well attended conference with people right across cultures and ethnicities, agreeing whole heartedly that race and racism is an agenda that needs to be put back into front line social work and education. Seeing the passion of people from across the globe and this being celebrated and applauded by my white and non-white social work peer was truly a special experience for me. 

I have come back from the conference with a renewed sense of hope- yes, it did deliver as it said on the label- and energy to contribute my voice to the growing voice of social workers who care, and who want the tide to change in favour of those who need change the most- the alienated, disaffected, disempowered and disenfranchised population of this country.”