Structural violence and collective trauma impact communities in Southwark, London. An intervention is proposed to address this by facilitating a community event celebrating life stories that challenge dominant narratives of deprivation. This aims to increase empowerment and community resilience. Risks include project failure reinforcing hopelessness, and outsiders not giving the community voice. Careful planning with community is needed.

1. Restructuring perspectives of poverty
and building community resilience
Facilitating a sense of empowerment in people living in a deprived borough of
London

2. Inspiration for presentation
● Vulnerable children in Camberwell
● Financial issues
● Allegations led to immediate close
● Issues with the government management
needs to improve so it doesn’t happen
again
(House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional
Affairs Committee, 2016)
What approaches could we draw upon to address the
issues this community faces?

3. Overview
● Background and rationale
● Community psychology intervention
● What impact do we hope this will have?
● Critical considerations
● Ethical and professional issues
● Reflections and questions

4. Southwark
● Diverse in ethnicity (47%)
● 8 neighbourhoods in the bottom 10% most deprived
● High levels of income inequality
● 4,509 individuals received help from the Southwark Foodbank in 2014/15
● 43.5% of the housing is social housing
(Southwark Giving, 2016)

5. Structural violence in Southwark
What is structural violence?
“a continual rupture in social relationships with harmful psychological effects.” (Bell, 2016, p.
116)
“A form of social suffering… Choices, both large and small are limited by racism, sexism,
political violence, and grinding poverty.” (Hanna & Kleinman, 2013, p. 30)
Social location matters deeply as it significantly impacts one’s life opportunities -
lack of symmetric relations

6. Structural violence in Southwark cont.
Applicability to Southwark
Examples:
- Poor housing
- Social services and ignorance
- Rich and poor divide
- Racism
- Lack of opportunity
- No differentiation in education based on context
(Southwark Giving, 2016)

7. Social inequality is correlated with a range of psychologically relevant issues,
including:
● Mental health problems
● Drug abuse
● Interpersonal violence
● Reduced educational attainment
● Child well-being
(Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009).
What is the impact on the individual?

8. Individual trauma
● Neuroscience starting to provide a richer picture of the impact of interpersonal
trauma
● Lack of literature on the dynamics of intergenerational transmission
● A multileveled framework is needed for understanding
(Haskell & Randall, 2009)

9. The weight of interpersonal trauma

10. “Psychological and sociological effects can be
seen more clearly in their interrelationships”
(Watkins &Shulman, 2008)

11. Collective trauma

12. Collective trauma?
“Collective trauma works its way slowly and even insidiously into the
awareness of those who suffer from it, so it does not have the quality of
suddenness normally associated with “trauma.”
(Kai Erikson, 1976 p.154)

13. “a gradual realization that the community no longer exists as
an effective source of support” (Erikson, 1994)
Destructive community forces set in:
- Distrust (Somasundaram, 2007)
- Child poverty: Reed (2012) used the government's own data to show it will continue to grow
- Dynamic tension: Markowitz et al. (2001) found that that disorder reduces community cohesion.
But also found that community cohesion reduced disorder.
What is the impact on communities like
Southwark?

14. Compounded by the existance of “Two Southwarks”
‘‘The difference between affluent and deprived areas is becoming more
prominent in Southwark, with areas on or near the river and in the south
becoming increasingly unaffordable whilst the areas in the middle of the
borough are becoming more deprived”
(Southwark Giving, 2016)
● High correlation between income inequality and poor social and health
outcomes (Marmot, 2010; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009a)
● Income inequality amplifies mental illness (Patel et al., 2018)

16. Self fulfilling prophecy and aspiration
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Merton, 1948,
p. 193)
Positive feedback between belief and behaviour directly/indirectly causes original
false conception to come true.
Perpetuating reign of error makes it impossible to not believe messages of
inferiority, guilt & shame and leads to self blame, feelings of worthlessness and
hopelessness.

17. What is the link?
Why are these concepts relevant?
❖ Dominant cultural narrative infused into everything - multiaxial level
❖ Controlled by the elite voice
❖ Victimised and blamed (individually and as a unit)
❖ Growth shunned by consistent battles & internalisation of views; damaging
psychologically and produce distress
❖ ‘Stuck’ in the system

18. ‘Restructuring perspectives’ - Terroll Lewis,
founder of ‘Block Workout’.
Brixton
Single mother
Council estate
Unemployed
OC gang
Drugs
Gun crime
Fitness
Entrepreneur
Youtuber
Social enterprise
Role model
Influential
Valued community
member

19. Community Resilience
Reimann & König (2017) suggest that we cannot discuss trauma, collective or
individual, without talking about resilience.
Relevant factors that contribute to resilient communities:
❖ Community networks and relationships
❖ Communication
❖ Governance and leadership
❖ Resources

20. Why does this
matter to us?

21. Intervention
What?
Instigate the creation of a community led event that celebrates life stories
that step away from the dominant narrative of the community
Why?
Start the beginning of social transformation within this community:
Aim 1: Change the narrative that people hold about their lives that lead to self-
fulfilling prophecy through watching others in their situation tell a different story
Aim 1: Bring people together to improve community resilience

22. How would this work
1. Gatekeeper: Build rapport and trust with a respected and knowledgeable
member of the community
2. Collaboration: share our ideas and psychological theory behind aims. But
gather feedback
3. Responsive support: Use professional capacities to support but in a sensitive
and responsive way
4. Community meets together: Develop ideas and allocate roles e.g. who will
cook within the event
5. Planning and community involvement
6. Event

23. What is the impact we hope to have?
Challenge to self fulfilling prophecy
1. Facilitate a growth in empowerment
2. Change people’s perspectives of their
expected life courses
3. Open up confidence to take up
opportunity
4. Contagion of questioning leading to
“conscientization” (Friere,)
Community resilience
1. Catalyse a growth in community support
2. Governance and leadership
3. Increase communication

24. Discussion
- Oppressive forces
- Structural violence
- Barriers that compound
trauma
Action
- Protest
- Change in housing
policy
- Increase in support
services Impact
- Sense of empowerment
- Less distress
- Improved wellbeing
- Exponential cycle of
liberation
Impact on structural violence and collective
trauma
“Conscientization”
(Friere, 1972)

25. Critique 1: Project failure
Risk:
People don’t engage
People lack self belief and a sense of community and so give up when faced with
challenges
The project doesn’t go ahead
Impact: Feelings of hopelessness are reinforced
Risk reduction reflection:
Discuss with gatekeeper

26. Critique 2: Outsiders initiating the process
Risk:
- Becoming sub-oppressive, not giving the community members their own voice
- Hindrance in forming relationship, liberation is not forced - no one liberates
anyone; no one is self-liberated (Paulo Freire, 1970), through relationships
instead
Impact: alienation, anger, frustration, deepening distrust, highlighting ruptured
relationships that are at the root of the problems
Risk reduction reflection:
Active attempt to not go in with an expert stance

27. Critique 3: Deepening divides
What are the risks?
● Deeper psychological divides formed between those who see themselves as
contrary to the community event
● Increases isolation
● Deepening of the impact of collective trauma
What would we aim to do to counteract this:
➔ Ongoing reflection and awareness within self
➔ Reflect with the community and ask them to develop strategies e.g. Different
activities such as sport and music/ celeb music

28. Critique 4: Social Anxiety
Risk: personal and/or communal issues may hold people back from full participation
Impact:
- Members unable/prevented to speak about what they really want due to fear
of judgement
- Strengthening entanglement between individual trauma, mental health and
collective trauma
Risk reduction reflection:
Create a relaxing, nurturing environment where people can let go of their
fears/anxieties and create discussion that provokes trust

29. Ethical and professional issues
Safeguarding risks uncovered
- Does reporting compromise empowerment?
- Does the local authority have the resources to respond to these?
- Do social services have the resources to cope with this?
Survivors guilt
- Effects on individuals
- Is it even possible to transform this into a sense of increased meaning and purpose?
What are we all walking away with?
- The community members (on an individual level and as a unit)
- Us

30. Reflections
Saneela
- Sparked importance of critical consciousness
- “Man in the mirror” - link to my own projects and work
Juliet
- Applicability to current work with individual trauma
- Challenges that may arise in this work
Collaborative learning
- Symbiotic growth in both of our theoretical knowledge
- Professional collaboration skills useful for applying to future work

31. References
Bell, D. (2016). Retrieving psychosocial signs of structural violence in (post)colonial Jamaica. Community Psychology in Global Perspective Journal,
1(2), 114-126.
Hanna, B., & Kleinman, A. (2013). Unpacking global health: Theory and critique. In P. Farmer, J. Y. Kim, A. Kleinman, & M. Basilico (Eds.),
Reimagining global health: An introduction (pp.15-32). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Haskell, L., & Randall, M. ( 2009). Disrupted attachments: A social context complex trauma framework and the lives of Aboriginal peoples in
Canada. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 5(3), 48-99.
House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. (2016). The collapse of Kids Company: lessons for charity trustees,
professional firms, the Charity Commission, and Whitehall. London: The Stationery Office.
Merton, R. (1948). The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. The Antioch Review, 8(2), 193-210. doi:10.2307/4609267.
Patel, V., Burns, J. K., Dhingra, M., Tarver, L., Kohrt, B. A., & Lund, C. (2018). Income inequality and depression: a systematic review and
meta‐analysis of the association and a scoping review of mechanisms. World Psychiatry, 17(1), 76–89.
Somasundaram, D. (2007). Collective trauma in northern Sri Lanka: A qualitative psychosocial-ecological study. International Journal of Mental
Health Systems, 1(1), 5.
Southwark Giving. (2016). A Tale of two Southwarks: A needs analysis of the London Borough of Southwark. London: The Researchery.