We’re excited to invite you to an illuminating webinar on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, at 1pm Eastern, featuring Professor Victoria Bird from Queen Mary University of London. This event will spotlight the innovative PIECEs project, a four-year initiative aimed at transforming community-based care for people living with psychosis in Karachi, Pakistan, and Chennai, India.
The PIECEs project is unique in that it centers people with lived experience as not just participants but as co-creators of knowledge and change. Using cutting-edge participatory methods, including lived experience advisory panels, frontline-led quality improvement, and the powerful Theatre of the Oppressed, PIECEs explores what culturally grounded, inclusive mental health care looks like in under-resourced settings.
Theatre of the Oppressed transforms audiences into ‘spect-actors,’ empowering people to rehearse resistance, explore liberation, and envision change from the ground up.
Cost: $0-$40 sliding scale
Note: CEUs will not be available for this webinar
Can’t attend live? The webinar will be recorded and shared with all registrants.
Description
This talk presents insights from the PIECEs project, a four-year initiative aimed at improving community-based care for people living with psychosis in Karachi, Pakistan, and Chennai, India. PIECEs placed people with lived experience at the centre of research and system strengthening—working with them not just as participants, but as co-creators of knowledge and change.
Through innovative participatory methods—including lived experience advisory panels (LEAP), Theatre of the Oppressed, SALT/CLCP dialogues, and frontline-led quality improvement—PIECEs tested what inclusive, culturally grounded care can look like in under-resourced mental health systems. The session will explore how these methods were implemented, what they achieved, and challenges encountered along the way.
About the Speaker
Professor Victoria Bird is Head of the Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry at Queen Mary University of London. Her research focuses on community-based mental healthcare, especially arts-based and engagement methods across Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Africa. Professor Bird leads several international research programs funded by prestigious bodies, including NIHR, MRC, and the Wellcome Trust. She also advises various funding agencies and works closely with clinical services to develop interventions that improve quality of life for people with mental illness.
