A Pedagogy of Vulnerability

Facilitator: Dr Fevronia (‘Fenia’) Christodoulidi
📧 fenia.christodoulidi@metanoia.ac.uk

Date & Time: Wednesday 21 January 2026 | 1:00pm – 3:00pm (UK time)
Format: Online (via Zoom)

This session invites educators to explore a pedagogy of vulnerability: a relational, reflexive, and activist stance that dismantles hierarchical power, fosters trust, and creates courageous learning spaces. Drawing on practice-based insights and research, we will consider how vulnerability can become a catalyst for engagement, empowerment, and transformation in the classroom. What the session will cover:

• The concept of vulnerability in teaching: what it is and what it is not
• How vulnerability shifts the educator role from authoritative expert to co-learner, increasing connection and participation.
• Using vulnerability to facilitate diversity, equity and decolonial conversations and move students from intellectual debate to embodied, reflexive engagement.
• Strategies for creating ‘brave spaces’ that hold discomfort safely and ethically.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

• Identify vulnerability-informed practices within their own disciplinary contexts
• Recognise and manage boundaries, emotional risk, and power dynamics when integrating vulnerability into teaching.
• Design or adapt one learning activity or assessment that foregrounds reflexivity, dialogue, and student voice.

Optional Pre-reading

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371913569_A_pedagogy_of_vulnerability_Its_relevance_to_diversity_teaching_and_'humanising'_higher_education

Tickets

• Students: £30
• Members: £50
• External attendees: £70

(Members may self-certify at checkout — eligibility may be verified post-registration.)

Important Information for Online Attendees

To join this CPD session via Zoom, please follow these steps:

1. Zoom Account Required – You’ll need a registered Zoom account before booking your ticket. If you don’t have one, you can create a free account here: zoom.us/signup.
2. Use Matching Details – When joining Zoom, please ensure your first name, last name, and email address match the details you used when booking your Eventbrite ticket. This allows the system to authenticate you and generate your unique join link.
3. Receive Your Join Link – After your Eventbrite booking is confirmed, you will receive an email containing your unique Zoom join link. Please do not share this link, as it is unique to your registration.
4. Join the Session – On the day of the event, click your unique link a few minutes before the start time to join the session.

Facilitator Biography

Dr Fevronia Christodoulidi (known as Fenia) is a BACP accredited Psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience supporting clients across various settings, including student and staff counselling, occupational health, charities, and private practice.

After spending 11 years as a Senior Lecturer at the University of East London, Fenia joined Metanoia Institute in autumn 2024, where she teaches and supervises doctoral students and contributes to programmes such as the MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy and the PGCert in Teaching and Learning in Counselling and Psychotherapy.

A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fenia is actively involved in the decolonisation movement within higher education. She is recognised for her work on Personalised Learning and the Pedagogy of Vulnerability, advocating for the inclusion of lived experience and diverse voices in educational spaces.

Her collaborative research with Dr Paul Galbally earned the CPCAB Counselling Research Award at the BACP Research Conference 2024.

For more about her work, visit www.drfenia.com.