Affiliation : Mother Tongue

Dr Beverley Costa, a psychotherapist, set up Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service in 2000. Mothertongue also runs a dedicated Mental Health Interpreting Service. In 2009 Mothertongue won The Queen’s Award for Volunteering. Beverley is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and has written a number of papers and chapters on therapy across languages. Together with Jean Marc Dewaele, their paper: Psychotherapy across Languages: beliefs, attitudes and practices of monolingual and multilingual therapists with their multilingual patients, won the 2013 BACP Equality and Diversity Research Award.

She established “Colleagues Across Borders” in 2013 which offers pro bono peer support and training, via Skype, to refugee psychosocial workers based in the Middle East. She set up the Bilingual Therapist and Mental Health Interpreter Forum in 2010. This meets twice a year in London. She produced the world premiere of the play about a cross language couple “The Session in 2015 at The Soho Theatre, London. She is currently producing an Arts Council England funded play about interpreters.

Website : www.mothertongue.org.uk