Abstract
In this chapter, we describe a role for clinical (counselling and other applied psychologists) or community psychologists in building alliances with marginalised communities to challenge London’s unjust and distressing housing system. Unjust systems are the social contexts that create distress and we believe it should be our professional duty to challenge and change them through collective action. We advocate for health professionals to join the wider housing movement and participate in movement-building activities. A shorter version of this chapter originally appeared in the British Psychological Society’s Clinical Psychology Forum in September 2018.
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Notes
- 1.
We note that the use of the term ‘mental health’ can be problematic, but the network honours the local communities who use this term to describe their experiences.
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Dedication: we would like to dedicate this chapter to all the housing Housing activists activists in Focus E15 and other London campaigns who devote so much of their time in the struggle for a just housing system and for which there is little recognition Recognition or paid work. Their support for those most affected by the unfair housing system simply cannot be quantified.
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Carey, N., Zlotowitz, S., James, S., Dennis, A., Gillespie, T., Kate Hardy on behalf of The Housing & Mental Health Network. (2022). Building Alliances with Marginalised Communities to Challenge London’s Unjust and Distressing Housing System. In: Walker, C., Zlotowitz, S., Zoli, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Innovative Community and Clinical Psychologies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71190-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71190-0_2
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