Camila Batmanghelidjh, innovator, campaigner, entrepreneur, Director of Kids Company and former student of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust was this year’s recipient of the Honorary Doctorate in Education 2009.
Camilla is a former student who trained in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies (ref M7). Her life and work have been centrally important in bringing the reality of the experience of forgotten children and young people to the mind of everyone, and, not least, the policy makers of this country.
Following the ceremony we asked Camila to tell us a bit about her experience as a student here.
This is what she had to say...
''It was a real honour and privilege to get the award from the Tavi especially since I studied there. The Tavi is going through a special transition allowing itself to offer the best of what it has to offer to vulnerable communities.
I had some of the best international tutors. I had Jeanne Magagna and Margot Waddell. I had Sheila Miller and Cathy Irwin as my tutors and lecturers and they were totally inspiring. My biggest terror was that I would be wearing thick opaque tights, navy skirts and flat shoes which seemed to be the uniform that all my contemporaries were wearing.
But what the Tavistock taught me has enabled me to survive in very tough circumstances in the inner cities. It was very much their minute attention to detail and sensitive thought that my tutors offered that gave me the thinking tools to be able to do the work I do.
I thought I wanted to learn psychologically and the best place to learn it was the Tavistock and Portman and that was part of the preciousness of it that you discovered the thinking. You evolved. It was a very good experience.
At the beginning when I started I was bored (laughs). No one argued, everyone was quite compliant. I thought, 'hang on they’re all thinking and feeling and no one is arguing'. It was a different intellectual position. If you come from a tradition of cerebral thought constructs the Tavi is a challenge.
We are currently paying for 17 of our workers to do Tavistock courses because I think they are going to learn something amazing.
What is great is that they have taken people from communities who have no formal qualification and the work is a brilliant experience. The Tavistock gives them the thinking tool kit that can advance their work.
The Tavistock has a thinking tool kit which has both intellectual and emotional capacities fused together. That’s rare and that’s why it’s very special plus the fact that the best clinicians are there. Not just academic people, but clinicians teaching too.
If you gave me a million and said shop for whatever you want. I would shop for theory. I love theory and learning. I am not ruling out doing a course with the Tavi in the future - as long as I don’t have to wear opaque tights (laughs)''.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, January 2009
Director and Founder of Kids Company
