Network Lead
Colin King
Black and Asian Coaches Association, Freelance Writer
Profile:
Colin King is the convener Black and Asian Coaches Association. The association is focused on the empowerment of BAME coaches, challenging the structures of sport and the theories and concepts of European science, psychology and management to address equity and equality in relation to coaching, management and administration. The aim of the association is also to challenge institutional whiteness in the mental health system through a collaborative approach across the color lines of professionals and survivors in terms of the academic and practice changes to address race equality in mental health work.
Colin is also the lead for the Whiteness and Race Equality Network.
cbking@hotmail.co.uk
Co-Lead
Simon Clarke
Freelance writer, Educationist and musician (guitar).
For many years I worked in Further Education as a specialist teacher focusing on individual learning needs including dyslexia. I have facilitated creative writing groups in college and community settings working alongside authors such as Alex Wheatle, Irenosen Okojie, and Courttia Newland and the actor Adjoa Andoh, aimed at promoting health and well-being. I am currently working alongside Dr Colin King in setting up of the Race Equality and Whiteness Network. My other main interest is music. I am a guitarist and songwriter. I also run a website to commemorate, and celebrate, the music of singer/songwriter Sian Daniels.
Background and Aims
Work on race equality has traditionally focused on the lived experience of being black in terms of mental health and diagnosis. But for co-production to stand any chance of success understanding has to be two-way, especially in relation to coproduction: we need to understand the lived experience of being white alongside and in equal partnership with the lived experience of being black. This is the aim of The Race Equality and Whiteness Network in the Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice. It was set up following a conference at St Catherine’s College in October 2016.
Objectives
- Work with survivors, practitioners and researchers to develop frameworks and concepts to address and resolve race equality issues through coproduction.
- Examine issues around diagnosis and race from the perspective of what it means to be white as well as what it means to be black.
- Reflect on the lived experience of survivors of the Mental Health system and of practitioners and researchers through presentations and workshops that explore the live experience of whiteness alongside the lived experience of blackness.
- Work with statutory and voluntary agencies on ways of supporting co-production good practice through teaching and learning strategies that are of practical use to researchers, survivors, and practitioners alike.
Members
For a list of members please CLICK HERE
How to join the network
The Network is open to all those with an interest in or involvement in this area. It brings together the expertise of individuals: survivors, and those working in health, social care and education. It offers a forum that will produce new perspectives on diagnosis and treatment by reason of its unique approach. For, it will interrogate the methodologies and values that inform diagnosis and treatment in order to understand the lived experience of being white alongside and in equal partnership with the lived experience of being black.
Read More
Race Equality and Whiteness Network 2016 – 2018 progress report
Promoting mental health across the colour line
The summary outlines the channels through which we have worked to achieve our aims from the launch of the Network in 2016 through to the end of 2018.
Dr Colin King – Radicalised Body
Network lead Dr Colin King discusses the relationship between whiteness and race equality and body image for the “Public Mental Health: Pushing the boundaries” VBP Webinar Series. The talk outlines, analyses and critiques how theories of philosophical forms of whiteness have dehumanise the black body for violation within the criminal justice and mental health system similar to slavery. It argues the challenge for a politicised racialised dysphoria of the black body can only be dismantled by dismantling whiteness.
Seni’s Law, the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018
On Thursday 31 March 2022 Seni’s Law, the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018, came into force. WREN has made presentations at a number of events and seminars bringing together lived experience activists, mental health units and mental health agencies to embrace Seni’s Law Community Empowerment Network Ajibola Lewis coproduction model to address an integrated approach to patient safety across lines of mental health providers and black service users. We present here the presentations from these seminars.
