ELEVATE 2026: Faith, Power and Practice in Muslim Mental Health

ELEVATE 2026: Faith, Power and Practice in Muslim Mental Health

A Lantern Initiative and MCAPN (Muslim Counsellor and Psychotherapist Network) Collaboration

📍 Location: Leicester

📅 Date: Saturday 26th September 2026

⏰ Time: 10am-5pm

About the Event

ELEVATE returns as a one day immersive experience designed to support, challenge and replenish Muslim mental health practitioners.

Created for those in therapeutic and helping roles, from counsellors and therapists to chaplains, wellbeing practitioners and community workers, this gathering offers a space to deepen your practice while reconnecting with your purpose.

This year’s programme moves beyond surface level inclusion and into more intentional, faith rooted work. It brings together critical conversations, Islamic frameworks and reflective practice, supporting you to work in ways that are ethically grounded, spiritually attuned and responsive to the realities our communities are navigating.

You’ll leave not only with deeper insight for your client work, but with a renewed sense of clarity, direction and care for yourself.

Key Learning Areas:

✅ Applying an Islamic Psychology framework to Client Work: Working with the nafs, heart and soul in practice
This session introduces an integrated Islamic psychology framework, offering ways to understand distress, behaviour and healing through concepts such as the nafs, qalb and fitrah.

✅ Decolonising Mental Health (Workshop): Exploring mental health beyond dominant modern frameworks
This interactive workshop creates space to reflect on how contemporary mental health models are shaped by particular cultural values, historical influences and assumptions about wellbeing. Together, we will explore what has become normalised within training and practice, who defines what is considered “healthy” or “effective”, and how these ideas can sometimes overlook diverse ways of understanding the self, healing and human flourishing.

The workshop encourages thoughtful reflection, discussion and reframing, supporting participants to develop approaches that feel more grounded in their own values, communities and lived realities.

✅ Anti-Oppressive and Faith-Centred Self-care and Wellbeing: Moving beyond individualism towards collective care
Self care is often framed as a personal responsibility, detached from the systems people are navigating. This session rethinks self care through an anti oppressive lens, recognising burnout, fatigue and emotional strain not just as individual issues, but as responses to wider pressures. It explores sustainable, faith aligned approaches to care that honour both the individual and the collective.

✅ Introduction to Islamic Ethics: The Foundations for Spiritually-guided Therapy
What does it mean to centre Islamic values within the therapy room without falling into rigidity or imposition? This session explores adab, amanah and ihsan as ethical anchors in clinical work, moving beyond the idea of value free therapy and towards a model grounded in accountability, compassion and principled care.

Who Should Attend?

🔹 Therapists, psychotherapists, counsellors and chaplains working with Muslim clients

🔹 Mental health practitioners working in the field of psychology, mental health, wellbeing etc looking to integrate culturally and spiritually relevant techniques

🔹 Those seeking a more grounded, faith aligned and socially aware approach to mental health, and practical tools to enhance their therapeutic approach and client care

Why Attend?

🔹 Gain therapeutic techniques to support client healing and resilience

🔹 Learn how to navigate systemic challenges and biases in mental health spaces

🔹 Engage in interactive exercises that can be applied directly to client work

🔹 Connect with a network of like-minded professionals in the mental health field


ELEVATE is more than a training. It is a space to return, realign and be resourced for the work you carry.

About the Speakers:

Saeed Nasser

Saeed is a qualified integrative counsellor and a clinical supervisor with proven experience supporting clients and supervisees in a variety of settings. Saeed is committed to delivering client-centred counselling and supervision that supports the empowerment of individuals to enable them to make informed decisions and fulfill their potential. Saeed has a sound understanding/knowledge and experiences in a variety of theoretical counselling, approaches and their practical application to supervisory and client issues/settings. He has a special interest in a variety of supervision modalities, person centred therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, couple counselling, faith and culturally sensitive approach to supervision/counselling. Areas of expertise include Islamic based counselling, trauma and bereavement counselling.

Mohsin Hashmi

Mohsin Hashmi is co-founder and director of The Lantern Initiative, he helped set up TLI in 2015 and coordinates retreats and events. He completed his Masters in Religion and Education at the University of Warwick with his thesis focussing on Islamic Psychology. He has also undertaken the Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy (TIIP) Level 1 training with Khalil Center in North America.

Mohsin began his Islamic studies at intensive programmes in 2007 with Shaykh Samir an-Nass and Habib Kazim as-Saqqaf in the UK. Since then he has studied the sciences with a number of scholars and continues to do so today. He has been involved in various community initiatives and educational projects over the last decade, and he also serves as an Imam at Central Jamia Mosque in Milton Keynes.

Myira Khan

Myira is a multi-award-winning Accredited Counsellor, Supervisor, Coach, Trainer, Founder of the Muslim Counsellor and Psychotherapist Network (MCAPN), and author of Working Within Diversity – A Reflective Guide to Anti-Oppressive Practice in Counselling and Therapy and The Muslim Guide to Wellbeing: A Faith-sensitive Guide to Nurturing Personal, Spiritual and Relationship Growth. Myira has over 16 years of clinical experience, alongside delivering workshops, trainings and events internationally on Working Within Diversity and anti-oppressive practice and is a regular keynote speaker and presenter at conferences and events.

As the Founder of the Muslim Counsellor and Psychotherapist Network (MCAPN), established over 13 years ago, Myira runs the network for Muslim counsellors, therapists and psychologists, offering support, CPD opportunities and raising the visibility of Muslim practitioners. A visibly Muslim, ethnically-minoritized, neurodivergent/ADHD practitioner, Myira represents a diversity and intersectional identity within the therapeutic and coaching professions, supporting the establishment of diversity, anti-oppressive practice and culturally-attuned practice within the profession, alongside promoting counselling and coaching to ethnically-minoritized, Muslim, neurodivergent and under-represented, marginalised and intersectional communities and clients.

Safura Houghton

Safura is Managing Director and Co founder of The Lantern Initiative, she helped set up TLI in 2015 and leads the team on various ongoing projects. She is a Chaplain for HM Prison service, providing Spiritual Counselling and Pastoral Care, and is an accredited Mindfulness Teacher.
Safura also has an interest in Islamic Psychology, and holds L1 and L2 Islamic Approaches to Psychology and Psychotherapy from the International Association of Islamic Psychology (IAIP) and Cambridge Muslim College.

** Before booking, please ensure you have taken into consideration your travel arrangements to/from the venue. The organisers are not able to support with travel arrangements.

** Please note there will be photography and videography at this event. If you do not wish to be included, it is your responsibility to speak to the photographer on the day and to be mindful of your positioning at the event.

We reserve the right to substitute or replace any listed speaker on the programme if necessary. While we make every effort to maintain the advertised line-up, circumstances may arise that require changes. Any replacements will be carefully selected to maintain the quality and relevance of the programme.

FAQs

1. Who is this event suitable for? This event is suitable for all therapeutic and mental health professionals.

2. I’m not Muslim, but I am a therapeutic/mental health professional, can I still attend? The programme is developed for the needs of Muslim therapeutic professionals, therefore much of the content and discussion will be framed within the context of Islamic practices. If you are open to learning within this context, you are welcome to register.

3. I’m a trainee therapeutic professional, can I still attend? Yes, you are welcome to attend. The programme is is open to all therapeutic professionals, including trainees.

4. What material will I be provided with on the day? You will be provided with a programme and CPD certificate of attendance.

5. Will I get a CPD certificate? Yes, you will be issued a CPD (continuing professional development) Certificate of Attendance from The Lantern Initiative and MCAPN at the end of the day. This event will count for 6 hours of CPD.

6. Do I need to bring anything with me? All food, refreshments and materials will be provided.

7. How do I get to the venue via public transport? The nearest train station is Leicester. Taxis are available from outside of the train station. The journey to the venue is around 15 minutes.

8. Is there parking at the venue? If you are driving, there is plenty of free car parking at the on-site car park.

9. Will lunch be provided? Yes, lunch will be provided. You do not need to bring anything with you as mineral water, lunch and refreshments are all provided.

10. Do you cater for dietary requirements? All dietary requirements will be catered for. They need to be clearly stated on your registration booking form. Please note that all food served will already be catered for halal and vegetarian requirements.

11. Is there somewhere to pray onsite? A designated prayer space will be made available on the day.

12. Will spaces be available to book on the day? No, spaces will not be available to book on the day. All bookings must be made via our online booking system in advance.

13. Can I bring children to the event? This event is not suitable for children or anyone under the age of 18 years old.

14. What is the cancellation and refund policy? All bookings are non-refundable. If you are no longer able to attend, you are welcome to transfer your place to another colleague. You must email us with the details of the name change for our register and for the CPD certificate.

Please note registration will take place from 9.30am onwards for a prompt 10am start. The event finishes at 5pm.

*Before booking, please ensure that you have fully taken into consideration travel arrangements to/from the venue. The organisers are not able to support with delegate travel.

Click on the 'Book Your Tickets' button to book.