‘Let’s raise this flame of great things that can be built’

What is your keynote going to be on?

Poverty, and the potential path to its eradication. 'No poverty' is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a globally agreed 2030 agenda towards a healthy planet and peaceful and inclusive societies in the world.

Poverty, exclusion, and inequalities are old, present, and, unfortunately, future challenges of humankind. I will talk about poverty as a major contributor to the loss of dignity, health (including mental health), well-being, self-determination, and societies' social cohesion.

These are important goals of psychology, and psychologists are guided by ethical principles of intervention. As a science and a profession, we must address this major societal challenge, with huge impact on several other challenges and SDG. 

At ECP, I'll try to promote reflection on how, as psychologists, we can contribute to this challenge. There's also a role for professional associations promoting and stimulating these contributions.

I will be presenting the '.Final à Pobreza' [Full stop to poverty], as a strategy of the Portuguese Psychologists Association targeting this purpose.

What has changed in the area of poverty and exclusion in recent years?

We have achieved an important decrease in poverty worldwide in the last decades. This confirms that through a collaborative effort, it is possible, just the same way we addressed objectives that seemed unattainable some decades ago and ended slavery, apartheid and some diseases.

However, the World Bank pointed out that Covid-19 was the 'biggest setback to poverty reduction efforts since 1990'. The reduction in poverty and social exclusion has stopped in 2020. If we consider new geopolitical, economical and climate threats (such as the Russian aggression and war on Ukraine, new conflicts in Asia and Africa, the weakening of liberal democracies and United Nations, socio-economic uncertainty and climate crisis), it is now expected that we will finish 2030 still with 7 per cent of the world's population living in extreme poverty and high rates of poverty in the UK, Portugal, and other countries in Europe.

We're in an era of paradoxes. More resources than ever and, at the same time, huge inequalities, mental health problems and major threats to the opportunity of well-being for all. This menace is reinforcing the need for psychology and psychologists to study social determinants of mental health and well-being and their impacts in effective interventions. We need to fulfil a role in this area, informing public policies and promoting social transformations that reinforce equity and the chance of well-being for all.

We've had big advances in psychological research, as an important hub of science, and a growing number of psychologists in the world (e.g. in Portugal, an increase of 67 per cent in the last decade). We now have plenty of data on causes and consequences of poverty. We must use that knowledge to inform practices and public policies in a better and more efficient manner.

How do we do that?

Globally, we must talk and discuss more about poverty and exclusion at different microlevels, in society and media. We must really set poverty eradication as a priority and collaborate at national and international level, with an interdisciplinary focus to achieve this goal.

But there's more. We must promote literacy on poverty and its causes and impacts, for people at risk of poverty and for all society. This will have an important influence on discrimination, stigmatisation (and self-stigmatisation) and exclusion.

Also, regardless of the improvement of the last years, we still need to reinforce research on poverty and on the effect of interventions reducing it. We need to stimulate more reflection and training of psychologists in this area. We need more collaboration between psychologists practising in different areas and between psychologists and other professionals working in social, educational and health contexts, as well as with decision makers. And we must lobby for more equality in the access to evidence-based psychological support for vulnerable people, and to the factors behind the success of these interventions (e.g. see Improving Access to Psychological Therapies data about the inequal access to support for people from deprivation areas, or the impact of deprivation on the success of interventions).

Finally, we must have a more evidence-based design of public policies. This is even more important for poverty and exclusion, given the impact of some civil society prejudices and biases. We also need to evaluate the impacts and to follow the longitudinal effects of the policies.
 
What's holding us back, either as psychologists or as a society?

We are facing interdependent, interconnected, and intersecting crises. This 'polycrisis' challenges the prioritising of poverty and inequalities. Psychologists, in some countries and societies, are lacking the capacity and the tools to influence civil society and public policies. We have to promote psychologists' identity, and psychologists' professional associations must work for this and contribute to people's confidence levels in governments and public policies. We must lead, and assume roles as decision makers to take a more active position on social transformation.

So is it primarily a lack of evidence, or a lack of the networks and infrastructure required to put that evidence to work?

We need to strengthen research and have better data on poverty. But more than that, I feel that the greater need is of transferability and impact of evidence and data on the design of policies and on the literacy of civil society.

Today, we have plenty of scientific information on consequences of living in poverty, organised in multiple layers. We know about scarcity mindset and its effects on stress or in reducing our cognitive resources to anticipate, plan and make good decisions. We have moved on from ideas of inherent incapability, lack of character or motivation, or personality problems of people living in poverty. Studies on the first 1000 days of life, beginning in the womb, confirm that this period is crucial for the development of brain structures.

Disadvantages at day of birth deepen in the next two years for children exposed to poverty and exclusion contexts. We also have robust evidence on the cycles of poverty, and solid associations between mental health problems (anxiety, depression, and stress) and precarity, unemployment and poverty. This makes combatting poverty crucial when we want to promote mental health and the need to promote mental health if we want to interrupt cycles of poverty and eradicate it.

But as we know, changes in civil society, in decision making and social transformation, is a never-ending process. To secure gains on these matters, we must have strong networks of professionals working in this area, empowered, with resources and with support from people, institutions, and the government.

Tell me about your work with the Portuguese Psychologists Associations; for example how you sought to help communities through Covid.

On 13 March 2020, some days after the first confirmed Covid-19 cases and some days before the first lockdown in Portugal, I was designated coordinator of the Covid-19 crisis cabinet of the Portuguese Psychologists Association. Although we are a recent organisation, created by law in 2008, our past contributions and relations with Portuguese decision-makers and authorities allowed us to participate in the national effort. We undertook a central role on the response to pandemic in relation to the needful balance between protection of public health and protection of mental health and well-being, particularly for people and groups with specific vulnerabilities.

Five swift examples of that:

• our part in the design of the algorithm, and training and supervision of the clinical and health psychologists supporting the establishment of the psychological counselling 24/7 telephone service of Portuguese NHS, totally free and confidential, that is still ongoing today in Portuguese and English languages and has had more than 200,000 attendances in the first three years of activity;
• the strategy and creation of a behavioural science task force to work with government; 
• responsibilities on the training of more than 2000 psychologists as micro influencers to foster mobilisation and promote pro-health, pro-social behaviours, health literacy and to empower decision-making in their communities;
• the elaboration of literacy documents and tools for different targets and of eusinto.me [I feel] website – an online information portal on psychological health and well-being; 
• the development and offer of resource and training for psychologists to boost their role in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences on the mental health and wellbeing of the communities.

What role do schools, and educational psychology, play in uniting communities for a sustainable world?

How can we connect communities for a sustainable world without schools? The young generations have a major role on the present and the future of sustainability. And, like former Portuguese Minister of Education said before, I don't think that there is (real) school without educational psychologists and its contributions. Schools, today, must work as hubs for development and promotion of protective factors, not only for all children and adolescents (in particular, those living with personal or social vulnerabilities), but also for their families and communities. Psychologists are essential to that. 

In addition to traditional roles in education (e.g. vocational development, inclusion and specific needs interventions), psychologists must focus on multilevel approaches, working with school administration and with all the educational community, centred in human rights, sustainability, psychological well-being and socio-emotional development, as well as in promoting community unity and support, positive parenting and equity and inclusion in all society.

Fortunately, I think Portugal have good examples on that and recent changes in the role of the psychologist in schools, its models of intervention, and the important investment in these professionals (more than duplicate in public schools in last years), are evidence of this.

Have you been to Brighton? Do you think it's a good base for this particular Congress and its themes?

I never went to Brighton in person before, but I have strong images and a narrative of Brighton… the songs, the books, the movies. Brighton, for me, is a quite different sea and beach from the ones in Portugal that I (and I think all world) love. But it is also where Nick Cave lived before the city became 'both a more beautiful place to live, and a place where we [he and is family] can't really continue to live'.

I follow his career and life for long time now and I watched 20,000 Days On Earth, a documentary filmed in Brighton about 24 fictitious hours in his life. In that, he said that 'all of our days are numbered (…) sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame (…) if you can hold on to that flame great things can be constructed around it that are massive and powerful and world-changing – all held up by the tinniest of ideas.'

When in Brighton, in the first days of July, I'll have had almost 14,600 days in Earth. I'm motivated to make my small contribution to the world to 'become both a more beautiful place to live, and a place where we really could continue to live'. For that, it is critical and possible to eradicate poverty and exclusion, and to use psychology's contributions, in an interdisciplinary approach, to address other challenges that will shape our future and to unite communities for a more sustainable world.

Brighton, as a special, strong, and inclusive city, is the perfect places to unite psychologists in these challenging times. Let's raise this flame of great things that can be built around it, things that are massive and powerful and world-changing. To add another 's' to sun, sand, and sea: social. Social psychology and transformation for a fairer world with opportunities of well-being and self-determination for all.

My hope is to see this happening in my 20,000th day on Earth and, who knows, getting back to Brighton.