The Power of Togetherness: Groupwork with Refugees

Aim

GROUPWORK WITH REFUGEES AND SURVIVORS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES - support our campaign to ensure the book is free globally via Open Access

GROUPWORK WITH REFUGEES AND SURVIVORS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

We are seeking support to ensure our book is free via Open Access 

Support our crowdfunding campaign 

Editors: Jude Boyles, Robin Ewart-Biggs, Rebecca Horn & Kirsten Lamb

Who are we?

The book editors all have many years of experience of working with refugees and survivors of human rights abuses, in the UK as well as in humanitarian settings. All are practitioners and three of the team have worked in a torture rehabilitation centre for many years.

Our book and why it matters 

There is a wealth of expertise in the field of therapeutic groupwork with refugees and survivors. We are passionate about creating a book which brings together this experience in a collection that will be helpful to practitioners working with refugees and survivors of human rights abuses in various contexts across the globe. We wanted to create a practical book that is readable and accessible, rather than an academic publication. 

The book aims to bring together current thinking and practical knowledge on the broad range of groupwork that can support refugees and survivors of human rights abuses in their recovery and rehabilitation. We are committed to promoting groupwork as an effective and relevant approach based on a human rights framework, which values the power of naming injustice, promoting solidarity and prioritises survivors’ voices and self-efficacy.  

The book also aims to offer a critique of the focus on one-to-one therapy and an exclusive focus on trauma-focused therapy in western settings, through presenting a mix of international groupwork approaches, covering all phases of recovery.

Our authors - diverse approaches across different contexts 

Whilst we recognise that we cannot fully represent the range of groupwork taking place internationally, we aim in this collection to reflect the diversity of approaches across different contexts, aiming to foreground learning from the Global South where community-based and collective approaches are further advanced than in western contexts. Contributors to the book include groupworkers whose work is rarely shared globally, including survivors involved in self-led groups.

Our chapters

We have commissioned 23 chapters and currently our authors are drafting these exciting chapters about their work. Chapters include: therapeutic group work in a socio-ecological context with South Sudanese and DRC refugees; sociotherapy with Congolese refugees in Rwanda; Community-based activism and mental health in Peru; Tree of Life Group Work in Zimbabwe; FGM Self-led women’s group in the UK; theatre and creative group work; using music in a therapeutic group setting with survivors of torture; using art with survivors of human rights abuses and many more. 

Our publisher

The book is being published by Routledge and our is aim to keep the cost low. We are very keen to make the book freely accessible to all via Open Access and are raising funds to cover the cost of this. 

We need your support to make our book accessible to all

The cost for Open Access is £10,000 plus VAT. 

If you would like to support the process of ensuring our edited collection is free to all, please contribute to our crowdfunding campaign. Do contact us if you would like further details. We will acknowledge in the book all those who contribute to making it freely accessible. .

This project successfully funded on 12th October 2021