IMI partners with Radical Therapist Network

A central part of Inclusive Mosque’s work is to understand and improve all the systems of support that our community access. One strand of this is our work with the mental health sector. We are pleased to announce that we have formalised a partnership with Radical Therapist Network (RTN) with three deliverables. Together we will:

• Co-develop and deliver training on working with Muslim clients that challenges the normalisation of Islamophobia in therapy.
• Create resources for therapists working with Muslim clients.
• Build resources to support IMI and Muslims seeking support.

In their wider work, RTN provides a number of support spaces for trainee and qualified therapists including a BIPOC Support Group, Trans Support Group and Student Support Group. They also deliver regular learning spaces such as the Culture & Literature Group, Peer Supervision Group and offer frequent external events and workshops.

RTN and IMI want our partnership to demonstrate a long-term relationship between a mosque and a network of therapists already committed to uprooting racism, colonialism, homophobia, queerphobia and transphobia. We believe this partnership can create systemic change by showing both the mental health sector and the faith-based sector that safe, affirming support for Black, brown, straight, queer and trans people of faith is possible and sustainable. We will be evaluating our partnership and sharing our learning with both sectors and anyone interested in anti-racism in the mental health sector.

This partnership is part of a wider piece of work that IMI calls our Raise Your Gaze programme. Raise Your Gaze is about advocating for our right to safety and justice in all aspects of our lives. Through our Raise Your Gaze work, we collaborate with actors in specific sectors offering support to marginalised people to make those sectors safer for all who seek support. We have worked with organisations in the mental health sector, the anti-VAWG sector, the LGBT+ sector and the inter-faith sector on challenging Islamophobia when it shows up in the conception and delivery of work. All these sectors are doing great things, but their services are often inaccessible to marginalised Muslims or put Muslims in danger because Islamophobia has not been acknowledged or mitigated. We want the work we do at IMI to be useful to our community beyond our own events.

If you would like to learn more about Radical Therapist Network, please consider supporting their QTIBIPOC Free Therapy Fund which provides free therapy to Queer, Trans and intersex Black, Indigenous and people of colour.

• Uncategorised