The Coalition for Inclusion and Anti-Oppressive Practice brings together organisations with a shared mission to improve diversity within the counselling, psychotherapy and psychological therapy professions.
Its current focus is promoting inclusive and anti-oppressive professional training as part of a greater vision to address further barriers to inclusive practice, particularly in relation to supporting racially and ethnically minoritised communities.
In October 2023, the Coalition for Inclusion and Anti-Oppressive Practice launched a ground-breaking toolkit for psychological therapies training providers.
The Race is Complicated toolkit aims to help the UK counselling and psychotherapy sectors better understand and address race and diversity.
Following consultation with trainers and training providers in February 2021, the Coalition partners agreed to commission and deploy a toolkit to support the development of skills, knowledge and understanding for delivering inclusive counselling and psychotherapy training across a range of learning organisations.
With an initial focus on race and ethnicity, the primary objective of the toolkit is to help the counselling and psychotherapy sectors better understand and address race and diversity. The toolkit provides support on three areas of course provision: the institution, the training programme, and the individual tutor.
Relationships are at the heart of therapeutic work. Anti-Oppressive practice is a way of being in relationship with others. It asks us to pay attention to who has power, and how it’s used; to listen deeply to everyone, no matter who they are; to live with respect and integrity in the spaces we share with others. Anti- oppressive practice is a conscious and intentional approach to these relationships.
It happens on many levels at once. It begins with the personal work of reflection and unlearning; grows through the relationships we build with others; and reaches into the systems and structures we help to create or challenge. Each level shapes the others: our self awareness influences how we connect, and our connections influence how we act in the wider world. Practising anti-oppressively means tending to all three, so that our inner work, our relationships, and our systems become more honest, equal, and humane.
These guiding principles are invitations to reflect; encouragement to speak openly with others and listen openly in turn; and reminders to take accountability for ourselves and the systems we have a hand in shaping. They remind us that everything we do is about relationships, which are in turn shaped by the wider systems in which we live.
10 Principles of Anti-Oppressive Practice:
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