Celebrating Black History Month with the RCN NW Multicultural Group

From Allyship to Action: Building an Inclusive, Anti-Racist Future for Nursing

22 Oct 2026, 10:00 - 16:00
6 Mount Street, , Manchester, M2 5NS

Free

Book onto our celebration for Black History Month.

Join us for a full day at the Friend's Meeting House in Manchester to celebrate Black History Month!

North west members are invite to join us in celebration alongside the RCN President, who is making a special trip to Manchester to join us for part of the day.  This year we will be exploring the theme: From Allyship to Action: Building an Inclusive, Anti-Racist Future for Nursing.

The event, organised by the member-led North West Multicultural Group, will hear from speakers including:

Estephanie Dunn: Non-Executive Director of the Caribbean and African Health Network (CAHN)

Estephanie will discuss exceptionalism and how intentional and unintentional actions can negatively impact equity, inclusion and belonging in healthcare. Her session will encourage reflection on bias, challenge inequitable practices, and promote more inclusive workplaces for all.

Temitope Babajide: General Practice Nurse

Creator of both the General Practice Nurse Starter Manual and a separate nursing-themed colouring book, will share her inspiring journey in primary care. Her session will recognise and celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of Black nurses, while showcasing the achievements, leadership and influence of Black nursing professionals in the North West and beyond.

Patricia Hughes: Associate Director RCN : Nursing Practice Nursing

Patricia will focus on equality, leadership and career progression, encouraging greater representation of Black nurses in senior and decision-making roles.

Bejoy Sebastian: RCN President

The President, will discuss the importance of allyship and the role nursing professionals play in creating anti-racist, inclusive workplaces. He will recognise and celebrate the significant contributions of Black nurses to the NHS and wider health and social care sector. The session will explore how inclusive leadership, workforce equality standards and fair career progression can help create a culture of belonging. Attendees will be encouraged to take practical action to challenge discrimination, support equality and inspire the next generation of nursing leaders.

Anandi Ramamurthy: Professor of Media and Culture, Sheffield Hallam University; Principal Investigator, Nursing Narratives: Racism and the Pandemic; Co-Editor, Anti-Racist Nursing and Midwifery: A Resource for Students, Practitioners and Activists.

The Anti-Racist Nursing and Midwifery book, the Nursing Narratives research project, and the film 'Exposed'.

There will also be a panel discussion and a poetry workshop and 'Allyship in Action' challenge workshop in the afternoon. 

Book now to avoid missing out. This event will take place in person and is open to all North West members. A sandwich lunch is provided. 

For further information regarding the aims and objectives of the NW Multicultural Group, please visit our webpage. 

Olanike Babalola

Olanike.Babalola AT reps.rcn.org.uk

Optimism - Pessimism c/o Baggini & Macaro

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Cognitive flaws, or psychological adaptations? 'Van der Lugt: "reality confound" ... Optimists believe they have more control over what happens than they actually do.'   Dunning-Kruger Effect:  people tend to overestimate their own expertise. Baumeister:  "The negativity effect"   Norem: "defensive pessimism"	Optimism and Pessimism are independent scales. 'Age also makes a difference, for the simple reason that life and its potential future vary accordingly.' 'Designated Cassandra'^ Rotation of role. 'When your prospects are bleak, a gloomy outlook is realism, not pessimism.'
'... how optimistic we feel depends not just on us, but on our life circumstances.  Think about how race, class and social inequality have real impacts on life chances.'	'In western culture, optimism is valorised more than pessimism.' 'To suggest that people struggling in an unequal system should simply adopt a more positive attitude is to turn social and economic problems into psychological ones.'

^With apologies.

Source: J. Baggini, A. Macaro. In defence of pessimism. Or. why optimism is not quite a prerequisite for achieving a valued goal. FT Weekend Magazine, 1131: June 28, 2025, pp.18-20.
https://www.julianbaggini.com/in-defence-of-pessimism/

Books noted in the above article:

Sharot, T. (2011). The optimism bias: A tour of the irrationally positive brain. Pantheon/Random House.

Tierney, J., & Baumeister, R.F. (2019). The power of bad: How the negativity effect rules us — and how we can rule it. New York: Penguin.

Van der Lugt, M. (2025). Hopeful Pessimism. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.17707125

See also:

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323–370. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323

'Anthropologically strange'

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"Phenomenology focuses on the inter-subjective constitution of the social world and everyday social life. Schütz (1964), in a seminal essay on 'The Stranger', shows how a social group has its own cultural pattern of life - folkways, mores, laws, habits, customs, etiquette, fashions and so on - that, as far as its members are concerned, are taken for granted, are habitual and almost automatic. Schütz's stranger provides a model for the ethnographer using participant observation. The ethnographer tries to treat the familiar world of 'members' as anthropologically strange, to expose its social and cultural construction. This is particularly demanding when a researcher is studying a group with which he or she is familiar, but represents an ideal attitude of mind for the researcher to pursue nevertheless." p.246.

Researching Society and Culture

"Anthropological strangeness: The art or mental trick of making a social setting and behaviour within it appear as if the observer is encountered as a stranger. If applied to mundane 'taken-for-granted' events, this can lead to unusual and original insights." p.556, (Glossary).

This ethnographic idea 'strangeness' provides an extension to the role of Hodges' model as a template, a clean slate across disciplines, settings and contexts. A means to 'reset' conceptually, to clear the mind, mindset, attitudes and start afresh.

Walsh, D. (2012). Doing Ethnography. (Chapter 14. pp.245-262) In. Researching Society and Culture, Seale, C. (Ed.). 3rd edition. London: SAGE.

See also:

Schuetz, A. (1944). The Stranger: An Essay in Social Psychology. American Journal of Sociology, 49(6), 499–507. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2771547

Another book student bound.

What's in a word - 'hysteric-al'?

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Hysterical: Exploding the Myth of Gendered Emotions Pragya Agarwal	"Rolling resistance is a compound of two factors: hysteric and dampening losses. Hysteric loss is the energy surrendered when a soft tyre deforms; as pressure rises, deformation decreases, therefore diminishing hysteric loss." p.17.

Sources:

Book - various.

Bates, D. How time lords win race against clock. Sport, Cycling, The Times, 17 September 2022, p.17.

Cycling image: c/o @DavidSBates

https://twitter.com/_DavidSBates/status/1570789552985632771?s=20&t=KPyb7YjvVHMZhuvtAFDa7A

Call for Papers - Basic Needs: Normative Perspectives

Call for papers*

for a special issue on

Basic Needs: Normative Perspectives

(Editors: Lukas Meyer – Daniel Petz – Alessandro Pinzani)

Lessico di Etica Pubblica

http://www.eticapubblica.it/

 

In recent years the debate on basic needs and their place in normative theories of ethics and politics has been rekindled. This controversial concept has finally been openly adopted by authors who adopt different approaches to discuss issues of social justice. There are good reasons for this.

As a currency of justice, needs have several advantages. First, in contrast to preferences, desires, and some other currencies, basic needs are fully objective, i.e., whether a person has a basic need for a certain thing is independent of her own or anybody else’s mental attitudes towards that thing. A second important reason for preferring basic needs as the currency of justice is that they are also universal, although their definition might be culturally influenced. Thirdly, basic needs are intrinsically morally demanding: that P has a basic need for O by itself entails that P ought to be able to have, be, realize, etc. O. Finally, basic needs also have an important advantage in the particular context of sufficientarianism. One of the main objections against sufficientarianism is that it is unable to provide a plausible substantive specification of its threshold of sufficiency. The concept of basic needs, in contrast, essentially entails the idea of a qualitative difference. Being able to fulfill such needs takes precedence over being able to fulfill non-basic needs and desires. Moreover, it distinguishes a life that has a certain minimum quality from a life that lacks this quality.

We invite authors to explore these and other aspects of the concept of basic needs and its use for normative theories of social justice, including intergenerational justice.

Contributions can be in English, Italian, German, and French. The deadline is September 30, 2022

For inquiries please contact: Alessandro Pinzani <alepinzani AT gmail.com>

 

*currently.

"Being Horizontal: Vulnerability, Interdependence and Resistance" c/o Confabulations

The title of this event last week struck a cord ...

For those who missed "Being Horizontal: Vulnerability, Interdependence and Resistance" last week - which touched on topics as diverse as austerity, invisibility, repetition and rhythm - a recording of the live event is available until 24th February: https://t.co/WnGFdmkMqF

— Confabulations (@con_fabulations) February 13, 2022

 

From the website with some additions:

 

"Being Horizontal: Vulnerability, Interdependence and Resistance"

  Self - INDIVIDUAL - Person

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sleep* ('in dreams') (found) un-consciousness (beware - risk?) intent non-verbal psychoanalysis patient personal vulnerability	gravity collapse position - posture horizontal - vertical human body, form 3D mobility, movement above - below look up/down angle - inclination clinical positions 'other' positions - sex birth, rest, deceased reclined nude "recline -
The 'games that people play', especially those seeking / in power. social customs dance - history - culture social hierarchies	is often associated with feminised and/or racialised powerlessness." fallen soldier (civilian?) choice*: of position look up/down to "Deliberately assuming a horizontal position in front of others can also, as the complex works grouped in this project reveal, challenge, subvert, and politicise dynamics of vulnerability and power."

 

HowTheLightGetsIn - ToTheIntra-InterpersonalDomain*

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Another headline debate for May 29th revealed: Has a diagnosis of mental health problems become a catch-all for life's inherent psychological messiness? Just one of 80+ events taking place in a totally unique virtual festival site. Find out more: https://t.co/N6xQnFKXRY pic.twitter.com/pAx5BydPpj — HowTheLightGetsIn Festival (@HTLGIFestival) March 15, 2021	light

* ... or gets out?

Gambling: First Team Standing

... not just the shirt on your back ...

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gambling?	gambling?
gambling?	TRANMERE F.C.

See also on W2tQ: gambling , addiction

Black Minds Matter - too (by Daniel Davies)

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"Black British men are four times more likely than white men to be hospitalised for poor mental health, and are less likely to seek help before they reach crisis point. The system in place to support them is broken, yet few in power have acknowledged the problem until now. So, how do we fix it? We spoke to men who have fallen foul of a dysfunctional service, and those campaigning for change"

 

 

MIND	b o d y
Shared Values 'One Mind'

 

See also:

https://www.menshealth.com/uk/author/220007/daniel-davies/

My source:

https://twitter.com/cityalan/status/1318822496557256704?s=20

World Mental Health Day: Using Hodges' model to anticipate...

.... a Person's reaction to Respite Care

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cognitive problems - usual routine prior visits - positive experience personal space person-centred approach - listened to, acknowledged, afforded dignity and respect able to 'exercise' choice even if a struggle non-verbal communication mood, withdrawal, behaviour change facial appearance, voices (unconscious?) reminder of friend or foe from distant past? staff knowledge of person - likes / dislikes - favoured activities, distractions personal care preferences recognising distress, anxiety sleep pattern disturbance

ambiance - atmosphere safety noise, smell sense of constructive activities temperature impact of visual cues, case, travel bag, coat.. impact of infections ventilation, draughts variety of spaces, large, small, able to gravitate towards preferred places places to wander access to garden territory "That's my chair!" comfort, chair, bed, pillows... belongings, valuables (avoid)

assessment at client's own home personal-social history degree of dependency negotiating goodbyes, hellos personalities of care staff, other residents clash of personalities or developing attachments, other resident mistaken for spouse? life experience, forces, disinhibition at various levels, invading someone's personal space, taking their things, touching them, 'surprising' them to visit or not - friends other family? cost of care - time away from home?

contingency plans (contacts) if agitated, acutely distressed, aggression diversity - residents and staff mental capacity deprivation of liberty locked doors observation 24 hour checks - (expect the unexpected) staff uniform or non-uniform the political ambiance - homely, cold - impersonal, formal community nurse follow-up - alt assessment environment authoritarian - fixed routine 'house rules' cost of care - funding?

World Mental Health Day

Life - the (pen)ultimate choreographer...?

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Tolerance: Belgium Stamp

Women Children Disabled Unemployed Healthcare for All .... (Don't stamp here)

If the religious tolerance represented in the stamp above was the unequivocal reality across the whole of humanity that would be and will be an amazing step forward and a state of bliss. One day.  Progress is being made... Looking at the stamp, we realise that to be inclusive, life - the choreographer - is far more demanding.  The totality of equality and human rights requires the most complex of footwork and not just for the individual, but the many.... Women's March

Link and image:
European Diversity Belgium follows the model of Al Andaluz announcing a three-religion stamp

Amazing open access Townsend Archive - Poverty in the UK materials

The Townsend archive provides open access to a range of original documents underlying the 1967/68 Poverty in the UK survey led by Peter Townsend. This survey pioneered the application of relative deprivation in measuring poverty.

The archive includes over 2500 digitised questionnaires from the survey. On these questionnaires you will find hand-written notes made, at the time of the interview, by the survey field workers. They provide telling details of the living standards and attitudes of that time. They are searchable by region, interviewer and survey booklet number.

The archive also covers a range of other papers associated with the administration and conception of the survey and notes and drafts of Townsend’s book. You can also download Townsend’s ‘Poverty in the United Kingdom’ book.

You will also find video interviews with researchers, fieldworkers and colleagues involved in, or associated with, the Poverty in the UK survey. David Donnison, Hilary Land, Adrian Sinfield, John Veit-Wilson and others reflect back on this landmark project. These interviews provide unparalleled insights into survey and research methods then and now, the relationship between social policy research and policy making across the last 45 years, and the impact, or otherwise, of research on tackling poverty.

To take a look at this fascinating resource visit: http://poverty.ac.uk/townsend-archive

Original source includes SOCIAL-POLICY AT JISCMAIL.AC.UK

Bedlam exhibition and Nijinsky's Mask, 1919

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It is still surprising how often you are led to wonder: 'Will the real Mr - Ms X, Y please stand up?' So many people are still reliant, dependent upon psychotropic medication to the extent that they too acknowledge that to a lesser or greater degree they do not know themselves. Ordinarily, we take for granted the various roles and personas, yes: the masks that we adopt unconsciously in the course of the day. Reducing this medication, assisting in the removal of the mask can be a great challenge especially in a community setting. When the combined services of primary care, community mental health team work with patients and carers this brings its own rewards. From behind the mask a new voice emerges: independence, understanding, motivation, spontaneity, tangible happiness - contentedness. ... Before that though we still need to maintain and teach the skills to really attend and listen, to see the person behind the mask...

Bedlam: the asylum and beyond

Image source: In the Frame for December 2013 Vaslav Nijinsky's 'The Mask'

My source: Wesseley, S. (2016). Inside Bedlam, England's first mental institution, The Times, Arts. 14 September, 8-9.

Attitude - attitude

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Attitude

Image source: The Guardian

"Index Case": Do we need a new form..? ( cas index, Indexfall, caso índice, 指數情況, الحالة الدالة, सूचकांक के मामले ... )

index case

nounMEDICINE

noun: index case; plural noun: index cases

1. the first identified case in a group of related cases of a particular communicable or heritable disease.

Source: Google (and translations)

Hodges' model can map the first identified case of any disease, but just as medicine can turn a crisis around - we need a new form of 'index case'.

In healthcare we spend a lot of time managing 'caseness' and for a population casenesses. While triage is concerned quite rightly with prioritization, safety, efficiency, it also seeks to deny people caseness through gate-keeping. Alternately, for those diagnosed and meeting criteria, services then seek to assess when they are better - on the other side...

A new index case is required to respond to demographic, socioeconomic and environmental pressures. Talk, action and outcomes must be about well-being, sustainable health, strengths, health literacy self-care and recovery.

Hodges' model can facilitate this change in care philosophy, perspective and the concurrent focus of disease AND health.

Consider:

For how long how we espoused person-centered care?

Health is where the person resides*.

So often disease fragments identity, memory, the person, relationships, even the whole community...

Disease is a matter for our humanity.

Hodges' model can be the index case for a person's health and well-being and how they maintain, maximize this status. This might even help us define person-centeredness. A care indices.

Being person-centered should be a index-phenomena that takes cognizance of history where this is available.
This should - must be the index case?

*taken-4-grantedness

LE t's GO

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	LEGO disabled mini-figure

Elahe Izadi (2016) The disabled Lego figures that have sparked actual tears of joy. Independent.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/lego-disabled-figures-buy-where-shop-a6846216.html

Photo source [mirrored]: 
http://www.11alive.com/story/entertainment/2016/01/30/lego-introduces-first-figure-disability/79594686/

Lego: "If you build it, they will come"

Will they - really? I wonder and hope so...

Still much building to do ...

Medical (local) history II

It is quite surprising (or maybe not) the things we fail to notice in our everyday lives. Making a slight alteration to my path through the cemetery on the way down to Ashton - my home town in WN4 - I came across the gravestone photographed below.

Of course, 'surgery' in 1822 would have been radically different to that of today. In Jameson's lifetime progress was nonetheless being made on several fronts within medicine:

1796	Edward Jenner develops a method to protect people from smallpox by exposing them to the cowpox virus. In his famous experiment, he rubs pus from a dairymaid's cowpox postule into scratches on the arm of his gardener's 8-year-old son, and then exposes him to smallpox six weeks later (which he does not develop). The process becomes known as vaccination from the Latin vacca for cow. Vaccination with cowpox is made compulsory in Britain in 1853. Jenner is sometimes called the founding father of immunology.
1800	Sir Humphry Davy announces the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide, although dentists do not begin using the gas as an anesthetic for almost 45 years.
1816	René Laënnec invents the stethoscope.
1818	British obstetrician James Blundell performs the first successful transfusion of human blood.
1842	American surgeon Crawford W. Long uses ether as a general anesthetic during surgery but does not publish his results. Credit goes to dentist William Morton.

Infoplease: Medical Advances Timeline

Posting the photo and reading this gravestone I am minded about the need for respect and given to wonder about this man and his contemporaries? Is the family still local in Ashton, are they listed in parish records? Are there other records to follow...? What specific deeds gifted him this epitaph?

"Year of his Age": is thought provoking as we carry our Age literally, individually, around us, a bubble of time. Then we try to distil this into the life story of those whose living memory's fail them, but not their families and carers.

It is remarkable to see, in stark relief, the impact of a practitioner's attitude and aptitude. A lesson from the past for all healthcare professionals. This was the case thousands, hundreds of years ago, it is the case today and must be tomorrow.

As you read this slightly weathered stone there is another lesson.
Reading each word, with aged grammar and worn clarity even the past begs us to 'listen actively': the greatest lesson of all.

Bless you Mr Jameson.


Related post:

• Medical history - I

Book: The Silo Effect

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The Silo Effect Image: Amazon.com	What are (or will be) the legacy issues that permeate your career*?
Integrated care?

We would never want 'parity of esteem' to mean 'parity of silo': would we?

*Assuming a 'career' continues to involve some sense of longevity (in healthcare 38 years)?

Related links:
Simon & Schuster: The Silo Effect
Financial Review: Why the silo effect makes us stupid

My source: Tett, G. (2015) Go Mingle, Have Fun. FT Weekend. Magazine, 22-23 August, pp. 30-33.

A headspace full of 'cans'

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"My headspace	is 25m long."
join me!

Sport England: This Girl Can

Photo: PJ Bus stop WN4

For people of a certain age 5 4 3 2 1 ...: Big Data and Little Data (please)

People of a certain age may be tied to the TV at 5pm today, in the UK at least as a CGI animated reboot of Thunderbirds hits our screens. Since the original series I've experienced the joys of Tracey Island as a toy and the increasing influence of 'nostalgia'.

While not spoken of with the same frequency in healthcare, there is still the need for a philosophy of care. Apparently this new series is trying to remain true to the values and messages of Gerry Anderson's original. Together with Star Trek, series like this can (surely) also contribute to children's having critical, empathic skills, an open attitude and a global perspective.

Since the 1960s and the data transmissions that John in Thunderbird 5 was listening for (yes, I know...), we are now in the realm of Big Data, the internet no less! I wonder if they will reference space junk and how this is reflected in the World's oceans? A great opportunity, but then this is a children's show.

As Thunderbird 5 monitors World communications for humanitarian reasons, I'm still seeking Little Data. If you are a nurse lecturer, UK or from the global nursing community I'd really appreciate your help:

...


Many thanks (especially for completed surveys thus far) and if you watch the new series - enjoy.

See also:
Thanks Gerry for pulling some strings