What helps us take off our masks and connect with each other?
Divine Charurua – anti-oppressive practice
Professor Divine Charura’s anti oppressive practice workshop on 20 June 2025 asked questions that were challenging, thought provoking, and transformative.
The workshop was organised by the Jersey Association for Family Therapy (JAFT), which supports training and awareness of systemic and family therapy skills and training in the Island. The JAFT team organises training each year. We had wondered about how professionals could increase their awareness and skill of working with people across cultures, in the context of the increasing diversity of our Island community, and a much broader range of racially minoritised island residents.
We hoped to broaden our understanding of working respectfully to address issues of culture, race, ethnicity, and other relevant identity factors in our professional and personal life, to invite conversations about these topics and explore the impact of these experiences on families’ lives.
Divine is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of York St John. He is a counselling psychologist, psychotherapist and Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and an adult psychotherapist.
He captured his audience in the first five minutes. Hosted (grateful thanks) by the Salvation Army, those attending were a diverse bunch from faith, heritage, abuse, and employment support charities, and government departments across a range of roles.
Divine skilfully and gently dissolved our personal and professional walls through a range of exercises and small and large group discussions. He used the idea of taking off our masks to support the group to experiment with being open and to encourage authenticity, describing it as the precondition to ‘answer the call to respond to another person’s needs, whether in therapy, or in any personal relationship’ (Schmidt, 2001, cited Charura 2025).
He reminded us that ‘anti-discriminatory practice is about recognising, respecting, and supporting ways children, families, and staff are included and excluded within our settings. It has to be reflected right throughout the setting, this includes the curriculum, all record keeping, and the ethos of the setting. It requires our behaviours in all encounters and our approaches to demonstrate our understanding of difference, diversity, equity and humanity.’
He used stories of his own and others’ experiences to relay the message that being anti oppressive isn’t a list of rules and conditions, but is a willingness to identify and acknowledge the biases that we all have, and to try to move past our defensiveness and relationally connect on a one-to-one level. ‘Social justice approaches invite us to challenge our privilege and the safe comfort zones we may find ourselves in. Because if we are authentic then we will respond accordingly’.
The feedback from delegates was overwhelmingly positive:
- ‘The session content was extremely valuable and applicable. Divine was very engaging and created a safe space for sharing personal experiences and ask questions; allowing opportunity to challenge perceptions in a supportive way thereby, encouraging the consideration of different perspectives and new ways of thinking.’
- ‘Divine was extremely passionate and knowledgeable’
- ‘Brilliant event, loved his communication style and approach’
- ‘Divine’s enthusiasm and passion for the topic was evident throughout’
- ‘He encouraged us to ask questions without the worry of getting things wrong and gave us permission to sit with discomfort and name our feelings, recognising that we all have different levels of discomfort. But also, to recognise that when we are silent and choose not to open up, that is privilege and others don’t always have a choice.’
From a personal point of view, Divine created such a genuine, safe and loving environment for the workshop that I felt able to take up his invitation and ‘risk’ connecting with others more deeply than perhaps typical in a training workshop. I left with more confidence about initiating and sustaining ‘difficult’ conversations, and with hope in the power of one-to-one connections.
The only negative note was Divine’s experience at Jersey Airport where he was stopped and questioned by authorities. Divine, who was born in the UK, was wearing a suit, carrying tins of Fortnum and Mason biscuits for the JAFT team, and was the sole Black passenger on the Leeds-Bradford flight to Jersey.
The JAFT team is now planning training for 2026 and will publish our plans in the near future. We look forward to meeting old friends and new at the next event.
One thing remains constant about our humanity … that we must never stop trying to tell stories of who we think we are. Equally we must never stop wanting to listen to each other’s stories. If we ever stopped it would all be over. (Behar 2003, p. 37, cited Divine Charura, 2025)