PfPs Fellowship Program

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PfPs Fellowship Program

Fellowship in Embodied Social Justice in Mental Health

An 18- Month fellowship program starting Jan 2025 to July 2026

Overview

The Fellowship Program at Pause for Perspective began in 2020. We are in our fifth cycle of training, partnering and journeying with our Fellowship cohort currently. Over the span of the years, the Fellowship program has become a place for training and development for mental health professionals in leadership within community and psychotherapy practice. The fellowship program is a collective space of community, solidarity, and generativity in liberatory work in mental health.

The Fellowship program is currently christened as the Embodied Social Justice in Mental Health Program owning to the affirmation of our work in mental health and social justice. Our unique articulation of working through mental health via somatics and social justice in the context of practice supports the christening. The Fellowship program is open to mental health workers who have completed their Masters in Counseling, Applied or Clinical Psychology or Post Graduate Diploma in Psychological Counseling or EXA practitioners. It supports beginning and intermediate level mental health practitioners (typically with 0-5 years of experience in the field) to become leaders and community space holders with the clear vision to build mental health spaces in resistance and negotiation with the pathological framework of mainstream mental health.

The explicit aim of the Fellowship program is to support the Fellows to make mental health accessible to marginalized spaces. It is clear that in order for us to do that, mental health needs to be decolonial, anti-caste, queer affirmative, disability justice centred, aware and affirming of a Neurodiversity and MAD pride lens and above all embodied, in its understanding of Mental health.

This full-time, in-person program at Pause for Perspective, located in the city of Hyderabad, offers a monthly stipend for practicum & community work, and training in various modalities at a subsidized fee. The 18-month program fosters a co-generative learning space to develop communities of care.

The fellowship was previously called FELLOWSHIP FOR MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY FOR INDIVIDUALS, CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES (FMHAICF).

The Program:

Practicum

Practicum: The Fellowship practicum entails two main components:

Working within the mental health space at Pause for Perspective offering therapy at a sliding scale for those from marginalised identities. Fellows will be supported via individual and group supervisions to hold space for this practicum.
Fellows will also be nurturing and building into community mental health by working with marginalized communities at Pause for Perspective as well as with communities that Pause for Perspective is in collaboration with. Group training and supervision is offered for community mental health work as well. Group supervision hours for the 18 months total up to 144 hours and Individual hours total up to 36 hours. Your Practicum hours will be 45 hours for therapy and close to 25 hours for community mental health work per month. Stipend is offered for the practicum as well as the community work.

Training

Training: The Fellowship includes a series of ongoing training modules on embodied social justice. Training will cover:

Somatic explorations (120 hours)

Exploring the body as a site of liberation, protest and resistance. Weaving this framework into noticing, sitting with and responding to conditioned tendencies within our bodies, shared spaces and collectives.
Understanding the ethics of embodied practices in mental health, in the context of mindfulness and its connection to anti-caste Buddhist practices indigenous to India.
Exploring somatics, somatics informed psychotherapeutic practices and group-based practices to integrate into your work
Learning to resist the ‘McMindful-isation’ and pathologization of the body
Working towards the social justice goals of somatic work

Neurodivergence and MAD Studies (50 hours)

Understanding and addressing the needs of neurodiverse populations.

Exploring MAD studies and their implications for mental health practice.

Locating the psychiatric and mental health complex within the Indian context and bringing a critical perspective to mental health in India

Exploring the current framework of understanding mental health among marginalized in India and locating our work in the context of mental health and social justice in India.

Anti-Caste Framework(50 hours)

Reading, Embodied practices and reflection on caste

Exploring Anti-Caste Liberation

Working towards anti-caste mental health practice framework

Queer and Trans Affirmative Work (50 hours)

Understanding unique life stressors and queer trans joy

Affirmative practices for supporting queer and trans individuals and collectives.

Ensuring that psychotherapy is queer affirmative

Embodied Counseling Skills (100 hours)

Training in postmodern therapies for individual, couples, and group counseling.

Integrating a disability justice and transformative justice-based framework in our practice.

Trainings are a mandatory part of the fellowship and are offered at a subsidised cost payable in two instalments

Partial Scholarship for training is available for people with marginalisation which are available for people with caste marginalization, Indigenous and Disabled participants and those from low income families. If you would like to be considered for the scholarship, please email us this information during the application process.

Stipend and Fees

Stipend is Rs.23,000/-p.m.

Fees for Training Rs.90,000/- for 18 months. (Payable in two instalments 2nd Jan 2025 and second instalment 30th June 2025)

Program Faculty:

Aarathi Selvan is the primary clinical lead for this program. They are faculty and supervisor for individual and group sessions. They will be joined by a team of practitioners and guest faculty who will supervise lead and mentor the fellowship team throughout their 18-month fellowship program.

What will the Fellows get from the training:

Some of the things that have been special for our Fellows are that the Fellowship offers:

An immersion into learning and practice of liberation based mental health practices

Supervisory, mentoring support and peer led support to enhance community solidarity while practicing as Mental health workers in the field

Access to understanding one’s own ways of being and leadership in working with community spaces

Leaning and learning into the nuances of social justice and broadening ones hopes and vision for the collective

Leaders, specialists, teachers, and supervisors at the end of their training

Our graduates go on receive opportunities such as, to join Pause’s leadership, complete their PhD, work in the developmental sector and public mental health, become supervisors and teachers at different organisational spaces and community mental health workers and are independent practitioners.

Admission Criteria

This is an 18-month full time paid Fellowship for people who have completed their Masters or Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Social Work, Psychology, Counseling, Clinical psychology, EXA practitioners.

Application Procedure

Email us at aarathi.selvan@gmail.com with your updated CV and
a statement of purpose describing your background, previous work experience in the field of mental health (if any), what are your hopes from working with us through this Fellowship and why you believe you are a good fit for the program. The SOP must not be less than 1000 words.
Please send us an email with the subject line “Application for Fellowship – Your name”. NOTE: We may lose the mails if the subject line is not followed. In case you don’t hear from us within 3 working days, please write back to us.

An interview with the team with be held.

Deadlines

Last date for submission of applications: 30th September 2024

Interviews: October 2024

Announcement of results: 1st week of November 2024

Fellowship Start date: 02nd January 2025

Fellowship End date: 30th June 2026

Get in touch with us

Our Fellowship Community Initiatives 2020-Present

Our fellows from 2020 include: D.Srivalli, Laliteshwari K, Zahida War, Akshata Chonkar, Saloni Agarwal, Vaishnavi O, Ayushi Shah, Rajeshwari Singh, J.Shravni, Sridevi Kakuturi, Meghna Motwani, Sammy Sahni, Shravani Koduri, Anuradha Singal, Eera Vishnoi, Sahiti Maddi, Rachna Chollangi, Manasi Udgirkar, Trisha Reddy, B.N. Gayatri, Namrata Ajmani .