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Research activities

2012

April 2012

On 25-26 April Renos Papadopoulos offered staff training to IOM and other relevant agencies and Government services in Dublin on the psychosocial dimensions of programmes of ‘Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration’ (AVRR) of asylum seekers.

On 24 April Renos Papadopoulos was an invited speaker at the 'International Dialogue on Migration' (IDM), the flagship annual event of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) held in Geneva. The title of this year's IDM was ‘Migration Consequences of Complex Crises’ and was attended by senior diplomats from all 146 member states as well as representatives from most relevant international organisations, e.g. the World Bank, the European Union, The International Red Cross, etc. Renos spoke at the session on ‘Internal Displacement’ and specifically on ‘Long-Term Measures and Cooperation Mechanisms’ where he presented his approach to consultancies in this field.

March 2012

Frank Rohricht and Renos Papadopoulos were in Cyprus (Frank from 26 March to 6 April and Renos from 23 March to 6 April) and together they were involved in the following:

In connection with the planning of the Cyprus National Health Service scheme, they met with two senior officials of the Ministry of Health, the director of mental health services ( Dr Y. Kalakoutas) and the director of the psychological services (Dr K Kyranides).
They participated in the meetings to develop the Health Policy document of the Cyprus Think Tank ‘Thucydides’ ; Renos is a founding member and Frank is an external consultant to this Think Tank.
3. Both were invited by to join the International Advisory Board of the ‘Cyprus Health Journal’
Frank was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Nicosia and on 29 March gave his inaugural lecture at the new Medical School of the same University.

Renos was also involved with the following activities:

He followed up the training he offered for the UNHCR on working with survivors of torture; the feedback has been extremely positive and further activities were considered
He consulted to Kalliopi Kampanella a senior officer of the Office of Commissioner of Administration (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Cyprus and a member of the Cyprus committee assigned to lead the implementation of the long-awaited ‘Common European Asylum System’ (CEAS). Cyprus is due to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union (between 1 July and 31 December 2012) and, inter alia, it is planned to implement CEAS.
Was appointed consultant for psychosocial issues to the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church in Africa. More specifically, he met with the Head of the Orthodox Church in Africa (the Patriarch of Alexandria who was visiting Cyprus, at the time) and the permanent representative of the same Patriarchate in Cyprus and planned future activities in Africa in the field of psychosocial assistance.
Aaron Balick took part in the special three-hour show on Radio 1 on Sunday night dedicated to discussing and answering questions about all aspects of sexuality.

On Wednesday 7 March, Renos Papadopoulos offered consultation/training/supervision to the Refugee Council at their headquarters in Brixton. The meeting was intended for the members of the Therapeutic Team (led by Angelina Jalonen) but was also attended by two of our students who are doing their placements at the Refugee Council. These were Wendy Griffin (a student of the MA in Refugee Care) and Dena Alinejad (a PhD student). One of the issues discussed was the use of ASPIS (the instrument developed by the EVASP project) to monitor and evaluate their services, as it is also done by the 'Freedom from Torture'.

Aaron Balick recently presented a paper discussion "The Hidden Adaptive Potentials of Seemingly Pathological States." at the International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Conference (IARPP).

February 2012

Between 16 and 19 February. Renos Papadopoulos was in Milan, as a guest of ’Terrenueove’ a specialist organisation (social cooperative) that works with refugees and organises training courses. During his visit, Renos offered a training event under the title 'Working with refugees: trauma, resilience and adversity-activated development'; he was the speaker at a public event sponsored by the Municipality of Milan, and offered consultation to the ‘Terrenuove’ staff team of psychotherapists.

The training event was part of the ’Terrenueove’ course ‘Displaced persons and refugees: reception and therapeutic relationships in the country of asylum’ and was attended by 18 professionals from various disciplines working with refugees and migrants in various services in many parts of Italy. The public event (entitled "Dilemmas in working with Refugees: a psychosocial perspective") was ‘Terrenuove’s’ annual public lecture and was held in the hall of the Civic Aquarium in the centre of Milan.

The lecture was preceded by an account by Dr.Giancarla Boreatti (the chief officer responsible for the Social Services department for Refugees and Immigrants of the Comune di Milano) about the approach and activities of her department. Access to the lecture was by advance application and the number of applications far exceeded the 130 seats available. The audience (who were professionals and other workers with refugees and migrants from northern Italy as well as members of the public) were given a list of Renos’ publications in Italian as well as copies of four of his recent published articles.

On 9 February, Renos Papadopoulos had another of his periodic half-day meetings with 10 senior staff of the 'Freedom from Torture' (FFT, previously 'Medical Foundation for the Treatment of Victims of Torture') at their London headquarters as part of his regular consultation to them. More specifically, FFT have been using ASPIS, the instrument Renos developed (in the EVASP project), as a way of monitoring their work and he assists them in adapting it to address increasingly more facets of their work, e.g. with families and groups.

On 8 February Renos Papadopoulos offered a seminar on 'Psychosocial dimensions of Human Rights' to the Masters students of Human Rights on the campus. About fifty students attended and there was a very engaging discussion about the relevance of this perspective to the theory and practice of Human Rights.
On 2 February, Renos Papadopoulos gave a half-day training workshop on 'Working with Involuntarily Dislocated Persons; issues of diversity and cultural competence' at 'The Place To Be' in London, to trainee school-counsellors who already work with children who experience a wide variety of emotional and other psychosocial difficulties

January 2012

Between 26-27 January Renos Papadopoulos was an invited speaker at the Second National Conference of the Irish Council for Psychotherapy. The Conference, held in Dublin Castle, was opened by the Irish President Mr Michael D Higgins who, quite unexpectedly, praised Renos’ work mentioning him by name twice during his brief opening address. Renos gave a lecture ('Trauma and beyond: a psychosocial approach to Resilience and Adversity-Activated Development') and a workshop ('Varieties of therapeutic inputs; using therapeutic principles in extraordinary contexts'). The reception was extremely positive and several services and organisations extended invitations to him to offer specialist training for them. The conference was attended by 170 psychotherapists from all Irish counties and from abroad. In addition, and independently from the Conference, Renos met with Theodora Suter, the Chief of Mission of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Ireland to finalise the plans for a two-day training module for Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR), that Renos was invited to offer to IOM staff in Ireland later in the year.

Between 14 and 15 January, Renos Papadopoulos was in Italy where he was invited by ‘EtnA’ (Etnopsigologia Analitica) to offer training to its members and in particular to 35 mental health professionals from the Puglia region that work with asylum seekers and refugees. The training was attended by over 60 professionals and it was held at the offices of AIPA (L'Associazione Italiana di Psicologia Analitica) in Rome.

Between 2 and 13 January, Renos Papadopoulos was in South Africa. During his visit he worked in Gugulethu and Khayelitsha, the African Townships near Cape Town, on the Nontsikelelo Arts Project mainly consulting to Ntombi Magantsela, the project director, and Evgenia Sofianos, a senior consultant to the project.

In addition, he gave two lectures and had two relevant meetings: on 5 January he gave a public lecture on ‘Psychology and Orthodoxy: complementary or contradictory?’; the lecture was attended by over 60 mental health and other professionals as well as members of religious organisations and of the general public.

On 11 January he gave a presentation on ‘Working with phenomena of unipolar archetypal manifestations in “traditional” and “non-traditional” settings’ at the Jung Centre in Cape Town that was organised by the South African Association of Jungian Analysts; the presentation was attended by a dozen Jungian analysts who are interested in developing expertise in working with these types of phenomena.

On 11 January, he had a meeting with clinical psychologists involved in the training of clinical psychologists both at the University of Cape Town (Dr Debbie Kaminer and Dr Anastasia Maw) and the University of Western Cape (Dr Umesh Bawa) and explored together possibilities of collaborating with CTAR in community projects that would combine training components.

On 13 January, Renos met with Miranda Madikane (director) and Daniele Boccalon (Welfare manager) of the Scalabrini Centre in Cape Town that offers a wide range of services to refugees, including trauma counselling and discussed possibilities of collaboration. Finally, Renos reconnected with Robyn Rowe, an alumna of the ‘MA in Refugee Care’ who is now the ‘Trauma and Healing Coordinator’ of the CWD (Catholic Welfare and Development) an organisation that (among other services) runs the only refugee shelter in Cape Town. Robyn is interested in continuing with her studies at our University doing a PhD based on the work she does with refugees in South Africa.