Establishing work – Mothertongue
Mothertongue - a culturally and linguistically sensitive therapeutic support service for people from black and minority ethnic communities, was established in 2000. Its CEO and Clinical Director was Beverley Costa from 2000 until its completion and the successful handover and integration of their Interpreter Service and elements of their therapy model into the local NHS Mental Health Service. Mothertongue also ran a dedicated Mental Health Interpreting Service. Beverley founded the Pásalo Project in 2017, partly to share the learning from Mothertongue.
In 2008 Mothertongue won the Award for Excellence in the Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and in 2009, The Queen’s Award for Volunteering.
Beverley’s paper, Psychotherapy across Languages, in collaboration with Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele, won the BACP Diversity and Equality Research Award for 2013. She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/linguistics/our-staff/academic-staff/dr-beverley-costa
The Pásalo Project – 2017 onwards
In conjunction with her work for Mothertongue, Beverley has published a number of papers and chapters about language, culture and therapy. She has made this work central to the Pásalo Project. Now, drawing in senior colleagues from her history of work, Beverley is the core facilitator of the Pásalo Project, working with professionals across professional disciplines. In 2023, Beverley was made a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading as a result of her ongoing research in collaboration with Professor Teresa Murjas in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television.
In 2018, Wellcome/Birkbeck ISSF awarded funding to the Pásalo Project and Jean-Marc Dewaele, under their Translational Activities strand. The funding was used to create short films and awareness-raising training material for training supervisors who train and clinically supervise couples counsellors and relationship therapists.
The Pásalo Project continues to train psychotherapists and counsellors. It has initiated training on the Speech and Language Therapist programme at the University of Reading and on the Masters programme for Public Service Interpreters at the University of Alcalá, Spain.
It has developed and delivered supervision groups for multilingual counsellors and psychotherapists and an apprenticeship supervision model for interpreters.
In 2020, Pásalo created an e-learning resource for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy: The Social Response Cycle - about effective therapeutically framed social action.
https://www.bacp.co.uk/cpd/social-response-cycle-member-resource/
In 2020, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation awarded The Pásalo Project funding through its Ideas and Pioneers programme to create an e-learning resource on mental health and multilingualism.
Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele describes the impact of our research: http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/research/2021/01/27/how-words-can-misfire-in-a-foreign-language-a-look-at-the-impact-of-our-research-on-the-role-of-multilingualism-in-psychotherapy/
The Pásalo Project’s current research projects focus on interpreters’ experiences of interpreting for Mental Health services; the efficacy of online support for refugee psycho social workers in international contexts; and the experiences of multilingual clients and therapists in therapy. Other Tongues: psychological therapies in a multilingual world, by Beverley Costa, was published by PCCS Books in 2020. The book is a guide for qualified and trainee practitioners, supervisors and trainers.
Dr Beverley Costa DPsych, UKCP approved supervisor, MBACP
Beverley has delivered training to statutory and voluntary sector health and social care organisations for the past two decades. Beverley has run supervision and case discussion groups for the voluntary and statutory sectors. She has also offered management support to individuals in the UK and internationally. In 2017 and 2018, she was awarded funding from The Big Lottery to provide training for small organisations, which otherwise could not afford training and supervision in multilingualism. In 2018, she contributed as a research consultant, to the Language for Resilience Research Hub for the British Council, on the importance of language for refugees and IDPs.