FRDAY PANEL

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Eugene Ellis is a psychotherapist, writer and public speaker on issues of race, difference and intersectionality. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. For the past 20 years, Eugene has been the director and founder of the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network, the UK's largest independent organisation to specialise in working therapeutically with Black, African, Caribbean and South Asian people.

His book, 'The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue’ (2021), explores the race construct both through its cognitive and historical development and also, more crucially, on the intergenerational, non-verbal communication of race, both as a means of social control and as an essential part of navigating oppressive patterns

Sabnum Dharamsi is a psychotherapist, and writer. She co-founded the Islamic Counselling Model, developing an accredited training curriculum and practice based on sacred, timeless ways of seeing and being

Stephen Abdullah Maynard Has been a counsellor for almost 40 years, he has worked in mental health, drugs counselling and HIV and private practice In 1990 with Sabnum Dharamsi and the support of The Inner City Centre and The Lincoln Clinic he set up the Certificate in Counselling in the context of Racism, one of the first transcultural counselling certificate programmes in the UK.

Together with Sabnum Dharamsi in 1996 He developed the therapeutic model Islamic counselling. In 2008 He wrote the Department of Health Muslim Mental Health Scoping Report and in 2010 founded The Lateef Project an Islamic counselling service working in Birmingham and London. Sarah Henry is a published author, person-centred counsellor and counselling tutor. She is a contributor to the book People Not Pathology: Freeing Therapy From The Medical Model (PCCS Books, 2023), with a chapter focused on the overmedicalisation of Black people.

Sarah has also presented nationally about the impact of race and ethnicity within the counselling and tutoring relationship. Born in England to a Black British mother and Jamaican father, Sarah's formative experience was a notable dynamic of complementary and clashing norms Elements of this disparity continue into adulthood and inform her work, both implicitly and explicitly.

Dr Anvita Madan-Bahel specializes in multicultural psychology. A majority of her work is around diversity training, cross-cultural issues, and immigrant mental health She is also a psychosexual therapist and works towards reducing sexual violence & shame and stigma attached to sex and sexuality. She is most passionate about designing culturally based programs that address minoritybased issues

She designed one such program for her dissertation, using Bollywood films clips to discuss comprehensive sexuality education with South Asian girls in New York The dissertation was published as a book: Sexual Health and Bollywood Films: A Culturally Based Program for South Asian Teenage Girls. NY: Cambria Press. She currently lives in London and works as a therapist, trainer and lecturer