Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) In-Person Course, Mumbai, May 2025
Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) started the Queer-Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) Course in January 2019 with 22 participants and now, as of February 2025 we have crossed 730 MHPs who have completed the QACP course. Moreover, QACP has extended its reach beyond individual practitioners, engaging in collaborations with government and international educational institutions.
To be part of the upcoming Mumbai-based In-Person QACP Course, read below!
"An apology, in essence, has two dimensions, namely acknowledgement of having done a wrong and the expression of a willingness to atone for it [1]." [1]."
Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised non-normative sexualities was read down on September 6 th 2018. The judgement went beyond the detached language of the law to uphold the Right to Love for queer people. It acknowledged the oppression of a section of people pushed to the margins due to their genders and sexualities and stated that 'History owes them an apology'.
The judgement also centres on collective responsibility. For too long, the mental health community has been complicit in upholding oppressive structures of gender binarism and heteronormativity by providing a "cure" for the non-normative. When we speak of being queer affirming, we are beginning to challenge these structures that pathologise and discriminate against queer persons and participate in promoting their wellbeing in a deliberate and affirming manner.
How might we, as mental health practitioners, contribute, generate and operationalise ways to make amends? This 6-day training is an opportunity for us to reorient ourselves to an anti-oppressive therapeutic practice. The training covers both perspective building to recognise inequalities and their impact on mental health and also provides tools to address distress and promote the well-being of LGBTQIA+ persons. These perspectives and tools will support practitioners to modify their ongoing practice to make it queer-affirmative.
Eligibility:
This course is open to Mental Health Practitioners, viz. Psychologists, clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists, counsellors, social workers, and psychiatric social workers, preferably with experience of working with queer-identified clients/their families.
Course schedule: 6 days
Dates
Module 1: 8th, 9th and 10th May (Thursday to Saturday)
Module 2: 29th, 30th and 31st May (Thursday to Saturday)
Timings: 9 am to 5 pm every day.
Medium of Instruction: English
Curriculum:
- Understanding gender & sexuality-related norms
- Interrogating gender-sexuality as social structures
- Exploring sexuality in the personal and professional/ clinical context
- Paradigms informing Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice
- Working with Queer individuals and queer-related distress
- Working with Queer individuals and their interpersonal relationships, addressing issues with family, peers and intimate relationships
- Understanding the psy diagnostic frameworks from a queer affirmative lens
- Operationalising Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice - queering of the traditional approaches to clinical and counselling practice
*Please note: This course will focus on both queer and trans mental health concerns, however, will not cover specifics related to gender affirmative therapies (GAT) or medical transition services for trans persons. Participants will be provided with links to resource materials related to GAT.
Registration:
Subsidised fee by MHI: 35,000 INR (Includes breakfast and lunch on course days)
Venue: Mumbai
Last Date for Applications:23 March, 2025
How to apply?
Apply for the course by filling out the Google form here by 23 March 2025.
For more information:
For further questions, please write to qacp@mariwalahealthinitiative.org with the subject line QACP In- Person Mumbai, May, 2025.
Selected applicants will be informed by 31st March 2025. A limited number of scholarships are also available. Please indicate whether you'd like to avail a scholarship in the application form. You can also email MHI (qacp@mariwalahealthinitiative.org), with your reasons for seeking a scholarship, so that your request can be assessed.
Please note that scholarship requests are assessed only after the registrations are closed and the participants are selected.
Faculty:
Shruti Chakravarty, PhD, (cis woman; pronouns: she, her) has 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector, as a mental health practitioner, researcher, trainer, and social worker. Her areas of engagement have been mental health, gender and sexuality, from a rights-based perspective. She has an independent therapeutic practice based in Mumbai, has in-depth experience working with LGBTQIA+ clients in the therapeutic space, and has co-authored Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP): A Resource Book for Mental Health Practitioners in India. She has completed her PhD on the subject of queer intimacies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Shruti is Chief Advisor at Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI, and also faculty at the Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice course run by MHI. She also leads the training vertical at MHI.
Pooja Nair (ciswoman, pronoun: she) has been part of the non-profit sector for over a decade. She has worked as a researcher, documentation consultant and trainer. She is a counsellor with an independent therapeutic practice based in Bombay. She has an MPhil from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has worked in the areas of life-skills training, curriculum development, feminist theory, gender, sexuality, violence and child sexual abuse. She is also visiting faculty at the psychology department at KREA University. Additionally, she is a consultant therapist with Mariwala Health Initiative, and is also faculty at their flagship Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice Course, as well as co-author of the QACP Resource Book for mental health practitioners in India. Pooja also conducts trainings on peer counseling and suicide prevention in the LGBTQI+ community.
Gauri Shringarpure (ciswoman, pronoun: she/her) is a queer mental health practitioner with a private practice in Thane. She is an experienced gender-sexuality trainer, having conducted training for colleges and the NSS. She is a faculty at the Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice Course run by Mariwala Health Initiative. She is a positive psychology coach and is actively conducting workshops on mental health and self-care. She is also a consumer behaviour consultant and researcher with over 25 years of experience in the field.
To download the announcement in PDF format, click here.
[1] Alternative Law Forum, (2018). Right To Love, Navtej Singh Johar v/s Union of India: A Transformative Constitution and the Rights of LGBT Persons, Available at: http://altlawforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/RightToLove_PDFVersion-1.pdf
Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP)
A Resource Book for Mental Health Practitioners in India
Ketki Ranade, Shruti Chakravarty, Pooja Nair, Gauri Shringarpure
Answer a few questions and get a free copy of this resource book
Learn more about this book
The Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) Resource Book is for mental health practitioners (MHPs), social workers, stakeholders within mental health and those working on gender and sexuality. This is a pathbreaking text that is truly the first of its kind to be published as a textbook for Psy disciplines - which have historically colluded to pathologise and medicalise queer-trans identities.
The book provides a balance of information, perspective, skill and an eclectic set of pedagogic tools to engage with the content that is drawn from the lived experiences of queer-trans realities. This can help MHPs understand and respond in affirmative ways to the challenges faced by those marginalised on account of their gender and sexuality.
The QACP Resource Book highlights an anti-oppressive framework to challenge all systems that are unequal, thereby 'queering' mental health and contributing to social justice.
The Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) course
The Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) course was launched in January 2019, aimed at building capacity of mental health practitioners and allied professionals (counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, medical professionals) to respond to the specific needs and challenges of the LGBTQI+ community. It is a 6-day course run by MHI to orient and reorient mental health practitioners to an anti-oppressive therapeutic practice. The QACP faculty at the course are all queer mental health practitioners themselves.
For more information, please visit here.
QACP Internal Assessment Report, November 2024
A summary of the formal assessment done to document the ways in which practitioners have carried forward the aim of MHI's 6-day Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) training.
List of Queer-affirmative Mental Health Professionals, peer supporters and organisations
Click here to access LGBTQI- affirmative mental health support across India and a few locations in Asia.Building Allyship: The Mental Health Community and LGBTQI+ Rights (click to read/ download the report)
This report published by Mariwala Health Initiative showcases the queer affirmative mental health work undertaken by MHPs Vidya Dinakaran and Shanmathi Senthil Kumar during the Madras High Court Judgment of June 7th 2021, on LGBTQI+ matters. Vidya and Shanmathi are both part of the MHI-QACP cohort. We have incorporated their experiences in this report as a guiding tool for MHPs who want to build allyship and promote LGBTQI+ rights.
Mental health practitioners and participants of MHI's Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice (QACP) cohort have produced a massive body of resources to understand more about queer affirmative mental health and other issues important for the LGBTQI++ community.
AnnouncementYou're urged to scroll through these rich nuggets of information and insights to learn more about queer lives, issues and mental health.
PRIDE MONTH
Globally Pride Month is a solemn reminder of the Stonewall riots that took place on June 28, 1969 in Manhattan, United States, that is said to have sparked the queer rights movement in the US. Pride Month is witness to a variety of events and activities planned at various levels across the world. MHI's QACP cohort of mental health practitioners have been active in the past month participating in important talks, podcasts, and writing engaging articles. You can find more about this below. Feel free to read and share widely in your networks.
NOTHING TO CURE
Despite the reading down of Sec 377 in September 2018, a range of unethical mental practices continue against LGBTQI++ people. These serve to perpetuate shame, discrimination and trauma on queer-trans people. This has to stop. The community has been raising its voice against conversion treatment for decades but this time the mental health community also joined in. MHPs from the QACP cohort launched a public petition urging MHPs and MH organizations to publicly reject practices such as conversion therapy to commemorate IDAHOBIT 2020. Over 1500+ signed the petition and several MH organizations and associations have published public statements against conversion therapy and other anti queer-trans practices. You can read more about this advocacy initiative below.
THERAPY & PEER SUPPORT
The LGBTQIA+ community faces unique stressors and challenges from living in a queernegative society. To address these formal, professional counselling services that are queer affirmative will be useful. Reach out to a mental health practitioner who is certified by QACP.
Access to peer support groups and queer-friendly collectives are very important for LGBTQIA+ persons seeking support. Please find here links to such spaces that have been providing a range of support services to the LGBTQI++ community. Some of these have partnered with MHI on our Peer Support Practice trainings.
