CPN Online Workshop: Coming face to face with our racism in physiotherapy
This online workshop has been compiled and organised by CPN member Louie Howie in collaboration with colleagues Ciara Hughes and Scarlet Sumagr. It is on Wednesday 2nd Sept 2020 at 7pm UK time. See below for full details, times and the meeting link.
This workshop is designed for White physiotherapists who have a willingness to progress in their anti-racism journey and to lean in to some discomfort in a supportive environment. It offers a frame and a set of practices to help them understand their own blocks and better support non-White patients in a non-dehumanising way. These practices would also be useful for White people working to support moves toward workforce racial equality.
The workshop will open with some key concepts including; White fragility as a bodily emotional phenomenon, White privilege, racism as prejudice plus power, and that racism involves socialisation. This socialisation can play out in a physiotherapy setting as the body language of White racial discomfort, hindering a therapeutic alliance between a White physiotherapist and a patient of colour.
Louie Howie will use these concepts as markers to talk about their own very recent White engagement with racism, and offer some strategies that they have found useful to increase their racial stamina. Ciara Hughes will outline her journey as a half-Asian woman in the world of MSK Sport Rehabilitation, as well as the importance of representation of people of colour in physiotherapy. She will also bring her perspective as a mixed-race person who is sometimes White-passing to the discussion about White privilege. The workshop will share up to date information on racism within the NHS and wider UK society, and an outline of work being done at UWE Bristol to support students of colour while they are on placement.
The workshop is prompted by the Black Lives Matter demonstrations around the world since the murder of George Floyd in May. It also sits in the context of COVID-19 in the UK, where death rates are much higher for Black people and other groups of people of colour, compared to White people. There are also large numbers of COVID-19 patients requiring rehabilitation, and the UK physiotherapy workforce is disproportionately White.
The workshop will be experiential, reflective, embodied, supportive, and welcoming of people trying to learn. We will work as a whole group and in smaller groups. The facilitators are based in the UK, but it is hoped that the workshop will be relevant to people in other countries.
As stated above, the workshop is designed for White people willing to engage with racism. It is not the job of the facilitators to justify the need for anti-racist work. If people wish to debate whether racism exists, they are asked not to attend. People of colour are very welcome to attend, and the facilitators are working to make it as safe as possible for everybody.
Workshop Facilitators
Louie Howie is a White, queer, middle-class and non-disabled physiotherapy BSc student at UWE Bristol, UK. They are also an artist and dancer, and have been a potter, a maths student and an office worker.
Ciara Hughes is a half-White, half-Asian, Graduate Sports Rehabilitator, physiotherapy student and VP of the Physio Society at UWE Bristol. She was born and raised in the Middle East and moved to Bristol in 2016 to begin her undergraduate studies.
Scarlet Sumagr is a queer White activist and body-informed facilitator with 15 years of experience working alongside marginalised communities. She is dedicated to helping create communities where people can grow and take action together to loosen the grip that oppression, trauma and power has over our lives, bodies, relationships and the more-than-human world.
Zoom link and timings
The workshop will last 90 minutes.
Cost: Free.
Zoom link: https://aut.zoom.us/j/4850164660
LocationLocal DateLocal TimeTime ZoneUTC offsetAuckland, New ZealandThurs, 3 Sept 20206amNZST+12Sydney, AustraliaThurs, 3 Sept 20204amAEST+10Perth, AustraliaThurs, 3 Sept 20202amAWST+8Mumbai, IndiaWed, 2 Sept 202011:30pmIST+5:30Dubai, UAEWed, 2 Sept 202010pmGST+4Berlin, GermanyWed, 2 Sept 20208pmCEST+2London, United KingdomWed, 2 Sept 20207pmBST+1Toronto, CanadaWed, 2 Sept 20202pmEDT-4São Paulo, BrazilWed, 2 Sept 20203pmBRT-3Vancouver, CanadaWed, 2 Sept 202011amPDT-7UTC (GMT)Wed, 2 Sept 202018:00UTC0