Workshop Title: Working Therapeutically with Diversity
Date: 18 October 2025
Time: 10am - 4pm
Location: Dublin - The Address Citywest, Kingswood Village, Citywest, D22 W580
Presenters: Angie McLaughlin and Liliana Morales
CPD: 6 CPD hours
Workshop Cost:
€130 for IAHIP Members and Associates
€150 for General Admission
DETAILS OF WORKSHOP
Aim
To develop and enhance clinical knowledge, skills and comfort in working with diversity in the therapeutic space in a safe and non-judgemental environment.
In this one-day workshop, Liliana Morales and Angie McLaughlin will be exploring the inequalities in Mental Health in terms of Social Graces. They will be challenging current practices and encouraging reflection on how we position ourselves as Mental Health Professionals in order to meet the needs of our diverse communities in the therapeutic realm.
Research consistently shows that there is a lack of equality in availability, access and help seeking behaviour in minority groups. People from these groups have reported that lack of competency in clinicians around diversity has been a barrier to both seeking help and benefiting from help that has been given (Carpenter, A (2019) Let’s Talk-Mental Health Experiences of Migrant Women). Historically the mental health profession has been homogenous and dominated by white, middle-class individuals with Northern European backgrounds.
While knowledge about the detrimental effects of discrimination is not new, movements such as Blacks Lives Matter and #MeToo have brought issues of equity, diversity and inclusivity into the forefront. The influx in Ukrainians following the war brought to attention the mental health needs of forced migrants from not just the Ukraine, but from multiple countries living in Ireland.
Many of the clients that we come into contact with will have experienced discrimination in their everyday lives. It is no longer ethical to be passive clinicians when it comes to discrimination. In order to support our clients and adequately meet their needs, we must move towards being proactively non-discriminatory in our practice.
Content of the Workshop
- Invitation to reflect on culture, difference and unconscious bias.
- Explore theoretical perspectives useful in working with diversity.
- Explore effective practices for working with diversity.
- Working effectively with interpreters.
What will the participants learn?
- Participants will gain insight on how social determinants affect privilege and position in the world, and the relationship to mental health risks and outcomes.
- Increase awareness of inequalities and unconscious bias that may be present in the therapy space, how this affects the relationship and how to work with this in an Irish context.
- Learn how to move towards non-discriminatory service provision through understanding different interventions seeking to address mental health inequalities.
- Increase knowledge and understanding of intersectionality.
- Learn how to adapt a position of Cultural Humility.
- Learn how to bring a lens of inclusive practice to their therapeutic spaces.
- Increase skills on working with interpreters.
- Explore useful theories in working with diversity.
PRESENTERS - Angie McLaughlin and Liliana Morales
Angie McLaughlin
Angie McLaughlin is a cis gender heterosexual woman (she/her). She was brought up working class in Scotland, with an Irish father and Scottish mother, and married into an African American family. She is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Family Therapist with a passion for exploring Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity in both her professional and personal life.
After completing her training in San Francisco as a Marriage and Family therapist in 1997, she went on to work in community mental health in San Francisco for several years before returning to Ireland. Working with marginalised groups such as those at risk for homelessness, ethnic minorities, the LGBTI+ community and people diagnosed with HIV allowed her to witness first-hand the direct relationship between poor mental health and discrimination. Throughout her career she has brought an EDI lens to her work in multiple types of organisations with adults, youth, couples, families and groups. She values the diversity in the work that she has done which has allowed her to be challenged by different perspectives on an ongoing basis. Along with Liliana Morales, she is co-founder of PARC Training and has developed and delivered training on proactive non-discriminatory practice for mental health professionals. She co-formed the EDI subcommittee in Family Therapy Association of Ireland and represents this group on the FTAI Executive Board. Her current position is in youth mental health as Regional Clinical Manager for Jigsaw. She continues her life long striving to have humility when working with people who are different from her.
Liliana Morales
Liliana Morales is a migrant woman, and Counselling Psychologist, originally from Colombia. She is a Latin American mestiza, and Colombian-Irish. Liliana has 20 years’ experience working therapeutically with asylum seekers and refugees in Ireland in the public service sector, and she is now working in the voluntary sector managing services for survivors of torture. She is the Therapy Manager and Acting Head of Clinical Services in Spirasi. She is involved in delivering training for doctoral psychology trainees (Clinical, Counselling and Educational), psychologists and other mental health and health care professionals on cultural competence/cultural humility/migrants’ mental health.
She’s a member of PSI and was a co-founder of the Culture and Ethnic Diversity SIG, no longer in existence. Along with Angie McLaughlin, she is co-founder of PARC Training. She has been invited to deliver key note speeches, and participated at events, organised by special interest groups and women’s mental health networks. She provides supervision to staff at a voluntary organisation who works with vulnerable populations and forced migrants. Liliana has a passion for culturally inclusive practice, challenging systems, politics, social justice issues and diversity within psychology/mental health and the health space in general. She lives with her tri-cultural family in Dublin.
PARTICIPANTS
Minimum number: 25
Maximum number: 35
This workshop will proceed subject to minimum numbers.
Cancellation notices received within 7 days of the date of the event will be subject to full payment.
Full terms and conditions are available at www.iahip.org/Events-TermsAndConditions/
