CPASS student awarded PCCS Books Student Prize

Congratulations to Master of Counselling student Mia Zielinska who has won the PCCS Books Prize for excellence in student research.

Mia was awarded the prize at the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy Annual Research Conference 2019 for her research on the Talking Booth Project.

Mia and other student colleagues in CPASS set up and evaluated a pop-up listening service at the entrance to the main library where passers-by were invited to talk confidentially to a skilled listener about anything that was on their mind.

"We wished to explore the interpersonal space between an hour of traditional talk therapy and casually talking for up to fifteen minutes with a stranger"

Mia and colleagues were interested in examining the benefits of this kind of brief low-cost one-off community-based initiative.

"From conception to conference, the project took over two years and it took a small village to pull it off. I had a supportive supervisor and fourteen of us co-facilitating the project. Even my partner got involved by constructing and painting the booth in our kitchen. So, on behalf of everyone who supported and contributed their time and effort to the Talking Booth, I was very pleased to see it recognised with an award. I was also pleased for the project to receive a bit of attention because I feel it represents a timely and creative perspective on exploring how community members can support each other without professional intervention but rather with community members' time and capacity to listen and talk to each other."

"The original booth has been dismantled, but I am looking for ways in which it can live on in spirit." - Mia Zielinska

The project was funded by the University of Edinburgh School of Health in Social Science: Professional, Personal and Career Development Award scheme