Lifting the Lid: A no 'experts' welcome space for community care of practitioners

Member: $35
Student: $25
Non-Member: $50

12/10/2021 7:30pm-9:00pm/9:30pm AEDT (Daylight Savings Time, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra)

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated pre-existing health inequities, marginalisation, and oppression. For therapists working with people with lived experience of oppression and exclusion due to their genders, bodies, kinship, and/or sexualities, particularly for therapists who share these lived experiences, our work has become even more challenging during the pandemic. The pandemic has placed extraordinary burdens on people with these lived experiences and resulted in vicarious trauma and burnout for therapists. Unfortunately, much of the professional community's response to these challenges has been to promote toxic positivity, to mischaracterise these issues as personal problems that can be fixed by superficial personal solutions like "go meditate and practice mindfulness", and to engage in similarly harmful forms of professional gaslighting. Systemic problems like the ones many of us continue to experience require systemic solutions, not a "think yourself well" approach that invalidates practical realities you and those whom you support are experiencing. Given the collective frustrations expressed by therapists and the gap in truly affirming spaces for therapists to seek communal support for the challenges our work presents during these conditions, we are offering a facilitated space for respectful and validating community care practices that provide the support so many therapists working in this space have said they are missing. This is not a place for self-proclaimed 'experts' or 'fix-it' problem-solvers, but rather a space where your struggles, fears, and pandemic stories can be heard and validated. This is also not a substitute for clinical supervision or personal therapy. We will send an agreement of conduct with a few key principles and a run sheet to registered participants in advance, as part of our efforts to ensure an anti-racist, neurodiversity positive, and anti-oppressive space aligned with the core values of the Diversity in GBKS Leadership Group Team.

PACFA will be contacting everyone who registers 2 weeks before the event with an accessibility needs survey, running sheet outlining the content, and some guidance for making this a trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-oppressive space. By registering for this event you are giving permission for the organisers to have your names and contact details to follow up with you prior to this event.

For PACFA Registrants, the webinar counts as 2 hours of Category A CPD (Continuing Professional Development)

GBKS Convenor: Dr Gávi Ansara (he/him)
GBKS Deputy Convenor: PJ Menon (she/they)
GBKS Leadership Group Team Member: Trish Thompson (she/her)

Event Cancellations
Customers seeking to cancel their registration more than 5 working days (for courses) and 48 hours (for webinars) prior to the event date may request a credit to be applied to their account. Cancellations must be made in writing to [email protected]. Cancellations made with less notice than this are non-refundable or exchangeable. Credits will be accessible through the PACFA Portal and are valid for up to a year from the purchase date. This policy is at the discretion of PACFA and may change. Queries should be directed to [email protected].