‘BLACK BRITISH GIRLHOOD: CENTRED. CELEBRATED. LOVED.’

CENTRE FOR COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE 2025:

‘BLACK BRITISH GIRLHOOD: CENTRED. CELEBRATED. LOVED.’

Birmingham Newman University in collaboration with Milk Honey Bees

Wednesday 10th September 2025

9.30am – 4pm

Keynote speaker: Ebinehita Iyere (Founder, Milk Honey Bees, London: Milk Honey Bees | Healing, Empowerment, Resilience)

This year’s Centre for Community and Social Justice conference will take place at Birmingham Newman University. The theme is Black British Girlhood and is being delivered in collaboration between our Youth & Community Work team and Milk Honey Bees.

Black girls are often negatively stereotyped, labelled, stigmatised and demonised for just being themselves. They navigate the landscapes of racism, misogynoir and adultification biases in unique ways. They face daily microaggressions in every day social spaces as well as within institutions including school, criminal justice services, health services and other local community settings. Yet despite these challenges, there is much to be celebrated about Black girlhood. Their joy. Their creativity. Their resilience. Their being. This conference invites participants to be part of a range of dialogues that critically explore strengths-based practice approaches with Black girls in a British context.

About our keynote speaker

Ebinehita Iyere is a Researcher, Author, Therapeutic Practitioner and Founder of Milk Honey Bees. Born and raised in Lambeth, and invisibilised by the local systems, Ebinehita recognises that this is an experience faced by many Black girls in Britain, and without positive intervention, this can lead to negative outcomes. Taking a therapeutic approach, Ebinehita founded Milk Honey Bees; a space in which the voice of Black girls can be heard, respected and visible. A space in which those young Black girls are given the tools to make meaningful changes and challenge the stereotypes and presumptions that are made of them in public forums. They have published a book: Girlhood Unfiltered (2022) and conducted projects to expand the understanding of Black girlhood experiences of growing up in Lambeth (PRINT Sofia's Draft See Us, Hear Us.) and perceptions and wellbeing of Black girls in London secondary schools (See Us Hear Us - Expanded).

Conference format

This conference will intentionally be centred around and feature the voices and lived experiences of Black girls throughout the day. To facilitate this, we will be structuring our conference around a series of themed roundtable discussions. By doing this, our hope is that the roundtables will become inclusive spaces that invite a range of diverse perspectives from the Black girls themselves to the academic/researcher, the practitioner and interested observers. Our desire is for this approach to foster an environment of intellectual curiosity, collective learning and suggested solutions.

Key themes for our conference:

• Education
• The Criminal Justice System
• Neurodivergence
• Experiences of Violence and Harm (peer on peer, VAWG, social media)
• Black Girl joy and creativity
• Health (physical and mental)

So, if Black girlhood describes a stage that you are in, is an area of interest to you, is the centre of your practice, your research interest, a demographic that you wish to learn more about; book your place to join us for a day where Black girlhood is centred, celebrated and loved.

Refreshments and lunch will be provided

Please contact Kim Conlan at k.conlan@staff.newman.ac.uk with any responses to the questions below.

• Do you have any accessibility issues that we need to be aware of?

• Do you have any dietary needs that we need to be aware of?

• Accommodation (en-suite) is available. Please email if you will require this option.

Please note: By attending this conference, you are consenting to being included in photographs, video and images being taken throughout the day. You are also giving permission for Birmingham Newman University and Milk Honey Bees to use any images or video taken during the event for future promotional purposes.