The Black Business Psychology Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode we have Dr Uracha Chatrakul Na Ayudhya. Dr Uracha is a Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck University, University of London in Human Resource Management. Her journey to the role of senior lecturer took her from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and the UK, where she forged her career in organisational psychology. She completed an MSc in Occupational Psychology followed by a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her first lecturing role was at Middlesex University, where she stayed for over ten years. Dr Uracha's research areas include My research interests are:

• Unequal working lives and careers
• 'Diversity' and intersectionality at work
• Lived experience of marginalized and minoritized workers in the workplace
• Work-life balance (WLB) and transitions over the life course
• Assisted fertility and work
• 'Agile working' as a managerial agenda
• Qualitative methodologies

You can find out more about her work here

Welcome to the latest episode of the podcast. Today we are hearing from William Annang. William is currently a trainee cognitive behavioural therapist and has previously had roles as a psychological wellbeing practitioner, assistant psychologist and assistant occupational therapist. Listen to the really interesting and inspiring career of William.

This episode features Dr Rima Lamba, Counselling Psychologist and founder of private practice Blue River Psychology. Dr Lamba's work focuses on working therapeutically with women and couples from ethnically minoritised groups, especially women from South Asian backgrounds. She also specialises in transgenerational trauma, feminism, the patriarchy and issues of race, equality and inclusion. In this episode, we speak about her route to counselling psychology and how she got to where she is today. 

You can connect with her on her Instagram page using this link.

Rebecca Francis is a qualified Speech and Language Therapist who currently works for a third sector organisation. She specialises in working with children and young people. Her background she studied psychology studied for undergrad and completed a thin sandwich 4 year degree allowing her to have a few placements. She then went on to secure an assistant speech and language therapist role and then went on to complete her Masters degree in the topic. There are many overlaps between the work that psychologists do and what is studied and practiced by speech and language therapists. If you are interested in the area of speech and language therapy please have a look at this link for further information.

This week we have a guest, Yannick Yalipende. Yannick is currently training as a Clinical Associate Psychologist in the NHS and completing an MSc in Applied Neuropsychology from the University of Bristol. Yannick is also the Founding Director of Black People Talk (BPT); an organisation that supports the mental health of the UK’s Black community through psychoeducational and therapeutic peer support groups. Following his current role, Yannick hopes to qualify as a Clinical Neuropsychologist, to provide much-needed representation in the sector and continue challenging inequalities within mental health care. Yannick and I met when we volunteered at the BiPP Network together. 

You can find Yannick on Twitter, you can find out more about Black People Talk here. You can also find out more about the BiPP Network here, an organisation formed to broaden access to careers in psychology. 

In today's episode we bring special guest, Dr Luke Brown who is a Clinical Psychologist with two doctoral degrees! Luke became interested in studying psychology at a young age and he completed his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Criminology at Keele University and then went on to complete an MRes at the University of Birmingham focussing on research around clinical psychology. He then became a research assistant on a research study called the ENRICH, and also completed his PhD during this project. He researched help-seeking behaviours during the first episode of psychosis in young black people in the West Midlands area. After completing his PhD, Luke applied to study the clinical psychology doctorate at the University of Birmingham. This is a really interesting episode so please feel free to listen and share. 

This week's guest is Dr Ken Greaves. He is a specialist senior educational psychologist with over 20 years of experience working with children and adults in local authorities in East London. Dr Greaves has also worked and consulted for the Lorna Wing Centres, which were established to diagnose and provide support for those who are on the autistic spectrum. He now works privately and consults with workplaces, higher education, social and healthcare and works with children and adults with dyslexia, dyspraxia,  learning differences and difficulties and those who have autistic spectrum disorders. Dr Greaves has a fascinating and very established career which by listening to this episode you will learn a lot from. You can learn more about Dr Greaves on his website.

This is one of my most exciting episodes (I say this about every episode!) with two very accomplished mental health social workers, Laurie Johnson-Mathison and Jan-Michael McIntosh. Laurie completed his undergraduate degree in psychology and wanted to continue to study to become a clinical psychologist; however, when working in practical mental health settings he then became more interested in the practical part of direct client work. He then went ahead to pursue a career in mental health social work with the fast track programme called Think Ahead - which is mental health social work scheme. 

Jan completed his first degree in history and then after some years of practical work experience, he completed an intense psychology conversion course before embarking on the Think Ahead programme to become a mental health social worker. This is where Laurie and Jan met. They also run a successful social enterprise called the Knack Box with their co- founder Elly who also trained as a mental health social worker. The Knack Box is a monthly craft subscription box and you can check it out here. 

This is our 20th episode! Thank you all for your support. This episode we introduce Milimo Ninvalle, who is a senior programmes manager at a charity. She manages implements and oversees programmes all over the world to increase international development. The areas her projects focus on include education, sustainability and emergency provisions. Milimo is completed an undergraduate in psychology but decided to follow her passion and completed an MSc in International Development despite being told when she first begun university that this career path didn't exist!

This week's episode features Dr Ernest Darkwah who is a lecturer at the University of Ghana in Psychology in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Workplace Health. Dr Darkwah completed his undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Ghana, he then went on to study an MPhil which got upgraded to a PhD research study when he gained a scholarship to study at the University of Bergen in Norway.  His research looked at the work-related experiences and health situations of people who work in human care services which included people who worked in children's homes and orphanages.

Stay tuned for a fascinating listen, you can find out about Dr Darkwah here.