Dr. Beverley Costa grew up in a multilingual and cross-cultural family. After qualifying as a psychotherapist, she set up Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service. (2000-2018) for multilingual clients.

In 2009 she created a pool of mental health interpreters, in 2010 she established the national Bilingual Therapist and Mental Health Interpreter Forum and founded The Pásalo Project in 2017 to disseminate learning from Mothertongue. In 2013, Beverley established “Colleagues Across Borders” offering support to refugee psychosocial workers and interpreters based mainly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and has written several research papers and chapters.

Together with Jean-Marc Dewaele she won the 2013 British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Equality and Diversity Research Award. Beverley has produced a play about a couple in a cross-language relationship for the Soho Theatre, London.

In 2021 she received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation grant to create a free online training course on multilingualism and mental health.