Our Values - Association of Family Therapy

Our Values

At the Association of Family Therapy (AFT), we take our responsibility to address systemic racism in all its forms seriously. AFT will provide equality in opportunities and ensure inclusivity within our organisational system and influence/change external systems. We will continue to explore and learn together how to overcome issues, such as white privilege and power that exist across society.

As an organisation, we are committed to creating an environment that supports people from all walks of life. We believe that diversity in gender and gender identity, race, sexuality, disability, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and culture is a key strength and pivotal in creating a supportive environment for staff, members and the public. We encourage and appreciate feedback and strive to ensure that the Association is a safe and open space for all.

Equalities Statement

AFT is committed to respecting equality of opportunity and values difference and inclusivity. As an organisational member of UKCP, AFT fully supports their diversity and equality statement and racial injustice statement.

We recognise historic systemic and institutionalised racism within our society and how this legacy has a lasting impact on generations of those affected. We also recognise that systemic and institutional racism is still present within the UK today. We acknowledge the hurt and pain that has been experienced by the marginalised community, some of whom are members of AFT.

Through our various committees, including DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) and Ethics, the AFT board and staff continuously strive to develop and promote anti-racist practices. Race, culture, social justice and equality should have continuous presence in clinical practice, supervision, teaching and training, on our website, in our publications and any online forums that are associated with AFT. We will continue to work to ensure there is more training, writing and guidance for family and systemic psychotherapists who may need support to decolonise their practices. We will also continue to challenge other marginalising practices and subjugation in all their diverse forms, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and ageism, alongside racial oppression, whenever these may occur. AFT values diversity whilst rejecting division.

A statement on the conflict in the Middle East – October 2023

As a board, we stand in solidarity as members from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist, Sikh and Jamaican communities. We unite in our advocacy for freedom, belonging, safety and healing for all. Our hearts are with all those affected by the terrible violence and humanitarian crisis in the region and we recognise the historical and political complexity that makes so much of this painful and hard to understand.

We want to support all members of our AFT community, and the communities we serve as psychotherapists, who have been impacted by these events, and particularly we reach out to our Jewish and Palestinian colleagues.

Together, in a spirit of unity, we hope for a time when every family and community can live in peace, safety and dignity.

Statement on Türkiye and Syria earthquake

At the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice we stand in solidarity with the victims of the devastating earthquake in Türkiye and Syria. Our sympathies are with all those affected and with those helping local communities through search and rescue, medical care and humanitarian assistance.

Many of our members work with diaspora communities in the UK and globally and may wish to connect with others working to support them in this time of loss and distress, or be able to support communities in Türkiye and Syria directly or through volunteeting organisations active in the region.

Gul Eryuksel is working to support engineers and mine workers and their family members who have been directly impacted by the earthquake, as well as linking with the Turkish Psychological Association.

If you wish to support this work and be part of the emerging network responding to these needs, you can contact Gul on gul.eryuksel@yahoo.co.uk.

Rwanda Deportations

The Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice stands in solidarity with asylum seekers in the UK who are at risk of being forcibly removed to Rwanda. We oppose third party processing arrangements, including the government’s plans to send asylum seekers in the United Kingdom to other countries for ‘offshore processing’.

Displaced people come to the UK because of a range of factors, including family, cultural, linguistic and community connections. Britain’s history of colonialism has drawn people here from around the world, and the UK continues to prosper from this imperial legacy. We believe that the UK has a moral responsibility towards those seeking asylum.

We also believe that the UK has a legal responsibility to treat all refugees consistently:

“Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.” (UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

The current UK deportation policy privileges some refugees over others, as evidenced in the crisis in Ukraine, where mainly White European refugees have been given legal channels for migrating to the UK. This stands in stark contrast to refugees from brown and black communities fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, who have been forced to resort to ‘irregular’ methods of reaching Britain, routes which have now been criminalised under UK law. We at AFT believe that this practice of differential treatment poses serious problems for our members, given our commitment to promoting social justice and anti-racist practices as core to our professional ethics.

People fleeing war, persecution or torture need both protection and support. The Refugee Council estimates that 61% of asylum seekers experience serious mental distress, and refugees are five times more likely to have mental health needs than the UK population. As systemic practitioners, we are keenly aware of the importance of strong family and social networks for maintaining wellbeing, especially during periods of transition and distress. The current deportation policy undermines efforts to promote and maintain relational connections at crucial times in the lives of refugees. AFT acknowledges the enormous mental health challenges asylum seekers and refugees face, and we commit to equipping our members with the skills to support their wellbeing. At AFT we recognise how systemic and institutional discrimination continues to harm marginalised communities, and this includes refugees and asylum seekers from outside of the European context. AFT remains committed to welcoming and working with all refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

Gillian Hughes, Kenyah Nyameche and Gretchen Siglar

The Board would like to thank the aforementioned authors for their work on this statement together with input from their colleagues from Refugee Resilience Collective and Systemic Activism for Black Lives Matter.

Ukraine Crisis

Refugees and those involved in direct warfare are faced with one of the most difficult and damaging set of experiences of adversity and distress that can be faced. The impact on families, individuals and communities is massive. We reach out in solidarity to the people of Ukraine to recognise the atrocious trauma that is being wrought by Vladimir Putin's warfare. Reports of racism and brutality on African, Caribbean, Asian people and visibly ethnic students evidence the ills of social inequality, oppression and prejudice. We extend our sympathy to all those who are affected. We call upon the government to ensure that refugees are given safety and welcomed in the UK, regardless of race and ethnicity.

With the help of colleagues across the UK, we have organised Systemic Support for both Host Families and Agencies working with refugees. Included within this are workshops for those preparing to become host families and for those already providing a home to guests. Details on how to access this support can be found on the link below:

Systemic Support for People Displaced by War and Oppression (click here)
Click here for Guidance Notes for Hosts (PDF)

"Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness"

Note: A call from our European colleagues, seeking training in how to work in war crisis. Please contact mail@aft.org.uk if you can help.

Black Lives Matter

As we marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, which sparked protest in America and around the world aiming to change racial injustice within institutions and wider society, we, AFT, affirm our commitment to racial equality and our solidarity against any form of prejudice or inequality.

The Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice stands in solidarity – whilst connecting with the principles of the Black Lives Matter movement – in addressing systemic racism and racial inequalities. We are committed to social justice and oppose inequalities on the basis of race, religion, culture and ethnicity. In practice, this means we will provide opportunities to learn more and explore the consequences of social inequality, oppression and injustice. We will encourage the continued revision of family therapy/systemic practice training material to take into account political and social ideologies that create and maintain racism; thus addressing the contexts within which the lives of those we work are embedded.

We have been reminded by the appalling murders of George Floyd and Stephen Lawrence that we must continue to play an active role in overcoming prejudice and institutional racism in all its forms wherever it exists.

Inequality impacts on us all as individuals, in our personal and professional contexts, in organisations, on our emotional and mental health, and on our relationships. AFT aims to highlight and challenge the injustices that create disparities in staffing of, and access to mental health and social care services, as directly relevant to family and systemic psychotherapists, systemic practitioners and systemic supervisors.

AFT is not aligning itself with or endorsing any specific organisation or their activity.