British Psychological Society (BPS) President Jamie Hacker Hughes and Stephen Weatherhead, editor of Clinical Psychology Forum, are walking the 100 miles from the BPS office in Leicester to its London office in order to highlight social policies that are leading to psychological distress.
They will be visiting food banks, supported housing, homelessness services and mental health centres, recording testimonies from people whose psychological wellbeing has been jeopardised by the benefits system and Work Programme.
Jamie Hacker Hughes said:
“Symbolically, we hope, through walking these 100 miles, to demonstrate that psychology really does care about these issues and wants to listen so that, as a group of professionals, we might be as effective as possible in informing changes in policy and practice.”
Stephen Weatherhead added:
“Poverty and psychological wellbeing interact, and the systems we have in place around these issues don’t necessarily support a person’s emotional wellbeing as much as they could, in fact in some cases they are detrimental.
We are trying to raise awareness of these issues and show that psychologists care about social issues, have something to say about them and want to press policy buttons to affect change."
During the walk the pair will be gathering narratives from people who use food banks and homeless services. Video recordings of those stories will be uploaded to the http://walkthetalk2015.org/walk website.
If you would like to suggest a food bank, homeless shelter or other place for them to stop at, e-mail Stephen Weatherhead or contact him or Jamie through Twitter. Also see their full route and more information.
See also The psychologists walking 100 miles to fight austerity’s impact on mental health @ www.theguardian.com