Spotlight on Birmingham

Since I moved to Birmingham in 2008 for my undergraduate degree, the city has represented community, vibrancy and diversity to me. The poem (below) I wrote at the request of a friend to sell to raise funds for the charity she worked for, Sifa Fireside, tried to capture some of what it means to me personally and what it represents more broadly.

Given my love for the place it was a pleasure to speak to the psychologists featured in this issue who are working with Birmingham's communities and beyond. Much of their work reflects the innovation and resilience we see in Birmingham in areas as diverse as learning disabilities, sleep, and posttraumatic growth.

This collection is part of a series – starting with our Spotlight on Swansea edition in April 2024 – where The Psychologist's team are aiming to get out and about to the four nations to spotlight Psychology in research and practice in a way that is grounded in place. 

We do tend to reach out across academic institutions, but some don't get back to us, and it is not our intention to be comprehensive in any case: remember, we're always keen to hear your stories of Psychology at any time, on [email protected].

Who's a Brummie really?
We all are bab.
One hundred thousand welcomes,
we know you've heard it's drab
spaghetti-junction grey,
the Bullring on a busy day…
That accent!
But those voices are our voices,
the languages ours too.
Not just sooty shadows of the past
under arches, brutalist glimpses.
Rags and jewels, buskers, artists,
life is here, home or home from home,
the second city but our first.

Conversations

• 'I am so passionate that the research we carry out at Birmingham ends up back with families as soon as possible'
• 'I realised that sleep affected all the things I had been studying'
• 'Helping others gives people so much meaning in their life'
• 'I was always really interested in why people would act in deviant ways'