OISE hosts 6th Critical Multicultural Counselling & Psychotherapy Conference
June 8, 2011
OISE's Centre for Diversity in Counselling and Psychotherapy hosts the 6th Critical Multicultural Counselling & Psychotherapy Conference June 7 and 8. The two themes of the conference are: Métissage, Mestizaje, Mixed "Race", and Beyond; and, Race, Culture, and Mental Health. More than 60 workshop, paper session, and keynote presenters from OISE, U of T and around the world represented diverse disciplines including medicine, psychotherapy, psychiatry, social work, and sociology.
The highlight of the biennial conference is the presentation of the Lifetime Achievment Award. This year, Suman Fernando, M.D., Cambridge University, is the recipient of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award in Multicultural and Diversity Counselling. Dr. Fernando, is an honorary senior lecturer in Mental Health in the European Centre for Migration & Social Care at the University of Kent at Catnerbury, U.K. He also gave a keynote presentation and participated in a feature interview associated with the award called, "In the Therapist's Chair."
In his keynote presentation, Dr. Fernando discussed underlying problems of race and culture in the provision of mental health services and his thoughts on ethnic identity. Suman Fernando is Sri Lankan by origin but has been living in UK most of his life. He was a consultant psychiatrist in the (British) National Health Service for many years before becoming an academic. He is now attached to the European Centre for Migration & Social Care at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK) and currently Honorary Visiting Professor at Department of Applied Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University, London (UK). He has been involved in developing community services for black and minority ethnic people in London (UK), and in providing critical advice on service development generally.
The Centre for Diversity in Counselling and Psychotherapy is housed within OISE's Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology. The Counselling Psychology program provides the educational background required to become a licensed psychologist or psychological associate with the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) through its Psychology Specialists stream.