 Welcome to Pukipondas, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. I'm Pukinite Smith and I'm your host. Today's question is, do creativity and confidence always go hand in hand? And I'm in conversation with Lucy Six. My name is Lucy Six and I am a co-founder and the director of an organisation called Lifefeet and we work with creativity and the power of the group and community to hopefully make very transformative interventions in young people's lives. And I'm passionate about children and young people and their development and potential and voices and also really committed to working alongside people who work with children and new people and have a background in the arts which maybe we'll talk about. Yes. So when you say transformative interventions what does that mean? What kind of transformation are you hoping to achieve? I think the overall goal is that when a young person or a group of young people come on our programmes, our only intention is that they are able to express themselves and become a little bit more of who they are, that they kind of find their unique spark inside and that that results in them feeling able to be safely more visible, more able to express themselves and at the same time more grounded and also that they have more hope in themselves, life, their own potential and also their own agency in making that happen for themselves. So that's what we're looking to achieve. So what kind of people do you generally work with? Who would get referred into your programmes? All sorts. We collaborate with youth organisations, schools, individual referrals, children's social care and so and actually the objective is to bring together as diverse a group of young people as possible and ideally not too many people who know each other and we build community straight off the bus so to speak and then we all go through a very high and intensive programme together and hopefully everybody will have discovered a little bit more of themselves and those partnerships with youth organisations and school partners are really important in terms of the kind of before and after. Okay. So in what sense that because they have to hold these young people either side of the programme that you're doing or what do you mean in a different way? Well we often find that actually with LiveBeat a lot of youth organisations send some youth workers with their young people because they discover themselves and they're young people in a new way and so it also works to kind of upskill the adults as well as at the same time kind of making this serious intervention of hope and positivity for the young people and that's probably the best model because you know we work in a very heart-centered way actually and so that's often quite a lot more that's sometimes a bit more intensively as our partner organisation so it's a great compliment and then you know in terms of embedding that back in their lives we offer an extended community all year round with reunions and meet-ups and youth counselling and so it means that LiveBeat Way can also be cascaded right through on the ground so to speak. So tell me about the LiveBeat Way I mean what does this actually look like in practice what happens if I turn up to your intervention what will I be doing? Okay so our sort of signature summer camp programme is you would arrive on a bus say the London ones coming from London and so it really starts before you get there and straight up the bus we organise everyone's you know where they're going to sleep and so it's I suppose as a priority we prioritise their care we make it feel like they're they're coming to someone's home okay so the prep we do with our staff is very much about that warm loving welcome yeah and that first day we do intensive community build so after a few hours really everyone will have connected learnt each other's names will have laughed will have actually created something together within just three hours wow yeah how do you do that how do we do that well we do lots of creative it's very structured work all our programmes are very structured with practice after practice for a reason and how do we do that we do that with just very skilled facilitators okay and we separate everybody so we might have 50 teenagers who haven't met before and they're all then placed in smaller groups called family groups they're like home groups so that's like your sort of anchor group for the week and so with just within just a few hours every family group will have named themselves and also come up with a creative performance okay wow okay yeah and it is amazing it's so quick but we do it we turn the temperature up in terms of risk creative risk very very slowly very very carefully um we don't kind of pull pull out volunteer we ask for volunteers so we would never kind of elect someone to speak or do something we just it's all by invitation um yeah and why why tell me about creative risk and why that matters and why you want to introduce that albeit nice and slowly because there's something about well just broadly just stripping it back more constructively um you know there's something about the arts and creativity that link something about the head and the heart and what really really matters to us yeah what is essentially our own value and the value and things we value and that we're able to express our souls something deep in our soul you know find a language for um something just deep in the fabric of who we are through creative expression um in terms of creative risk stepping into meanness whether that's through play or games every time we do that and we have a we're seen and heard accepted and valued and we find our place within that and we actually overcome a little challenge in a way that makes us feel good um we become a little bit more visible and to ourselves and other people actually um and we do it slowly so that there's not that awful feeling of feeling overexposed yeah yeah there's a lot of people associate creativity where come on perform or yeah and and they're evaluated on the on the sort of condition of their performance so we're not about that at all I guess you have to facilitate quite carefully so that people don't feel that they're failing because I guess you could have the opposite effect couldn't you on their confidence if you got one yeah completely in a room full of 50 people we usually work with a community of about 80 90 people so they're 52 ages so we're very high ratio our doctor team and yes the smallest gesture the smallest mistakes from the front in terms of that facilitation can have a huge impact so you know we put a lot into staff training to kind of be very vigilant of those the nuance you know just as it happens on an interpersonal level in a therapeutic relationship it's it's it's things have to be facilitated with the same same level of awareness really and consciousness of what's happening in the room and how has this kind of developed because you've been working on this program for some time now haven't you and as you know just tell me a little bit about how it kind of came about and why this felt important and yeah the evolution of it so um well to me um to me you mean yeah okay um well how I came upon it I had a background in the arts and um I ended up being director of the London Contemporary Art first so that was a kind of previous career where I suppose I I became passionate about the value of culture and and the arts then I retrained I decided well actually that in itself didn't matter enough to me personally it was a real fork in the road um where I decided am I gonna ramp up my own kind of knowledge and um sort of vision for what that could look like yes and and I decided no because I decided what really mattered to me were were people and I'd had my own journey um you know in a journey and my own exploration before that quite some time from quite young you know I was probably 20 when I had a kind of awakening around that and then and then I retrained as therapist and um but there was something so I had these two sides of me and the therapeutic stuff you know I work with families and and adults mostly um and then I had some experience with American treatment residential treatment centers that worked very experientially with the power of the group and often used creativity in that endeavor and um and then so something had to bring these things together yeah just as life happens you know it was a it was a kind of convergence for me of of a meeting that propelled this I was sort of looking for it yeah um I was doing a bit of group supervision um at a therapy training college and one of my colleagues I said I was chance conversation I said you know what I'd really like to be doing is working with young people and this this um friend and colleague who's extremely intuitive said she'd just written a paper therapeutic kind of paper about creating safe spaces for teenagers okay and yeah and she had a quake background and anyway she said oh I've heard about this guy and he's working with this model in the States and it was called power of hope and um and anyway things rolled out and I had a chance meeting with this man and it was just so the model that they'd been working with the States was so familiar to me in terms of all the things I'd done that I just I just knew it was it was extraordinary I just knew that in my deep mind states and so we set up life beat and and it's you know why have I see it's just the extraordinary results why haven't I been able to turn away from it it's just the most impactful thing I've ever been involved with it's the it's truly inspirational what happens and you know I had a lot of questions as a therapist you know camp programs or interventions you know what but and I thought well okay and you take it you take it in person out of their family system and their social system and make an intervention how is that when they go back yeah you know and then I thought also you know really over time and loads of questions but you know consistently I've just seen the impact and really they they hold on they get something that just no one can ever take away from them ever again that's it could you give an example like is there anyone that's really stuck with you that way you feel it's really impacted yeah I could think of thousands of yeah um okay well at a very you know we've we've welcomed all kinds of people um young people from you know high achievers through to say a high achiever who might be ostensibly on a very successful path but through that level of being a high achievers also huge pressure and then experiencing kind of divorce separation in their family and the sort of hardship and the rupture and the trauma of that at a particular time and then you know life be becoming like an extended community or family for them and just seeing that person really on their way so I've known some of these young people now for 10 years so I see them blossoming into their lives you know successful happy lives and not in the world's terms but in their terms and I think so it can be that or it can be you know at the moment we're looking very intensely at anti-racism and our role in that as an organization we have a high um black we we have a lot of young people from black community and just you know hearing a lot of the challenges they face daily in terms of racism and you know that sense of being displaced and uh dislocated and also all the family traumas and the traumas of exclusion or you know and just seeing them find their place you know in our community and also the behavior changing where you might see behaviors as a communication that sort of acting out that that real fear of contact relationship and often we see the behavior go up you know because the trust levels are more on the table the trust question and and then there's a midpoint in the program where you just see that behavior change and the trust come in and and releasing them into a place where they can just relax and be themselves and trust that they're going to be met in that I mean it is so I can think of so many examples of you know someone we don't have many young people with high levels of need in terms of whatever the you know how whatever the label spectrum but you know talking to families who might say that the sun has been a couple of times and it's the only place where he's fine found his place you know you know I mean I can think of someone at the moment I don't want to in any way indicate so they might see themselves but you know it's just so moving when when a family says and then they turn up to everything everything and um you know find their place in a leadership program where you know they're exploring dance as a way of dealing with mental health or something just doing things they wouldn't otherwise do it's all broads broads that learning from difference so you know we like that's the whole point I think it's one of the few places where young people can come and everyone is on a level playing field so what kinds of so you mentioned dance I mean what what are the actual kind of activities that that young people might get involved in as part of your programs okay so every day I'll tell you how we do the community build with games and games and games and all sorts so every day we start with a community meeting we create a community and the young people share in the making of that community around agreements so it's very democratic and there's a sense of young people's voice has been important from the beginning okay um so that's the backbone of the community and and the program and we revisit that every day and we say how are we doing as a community we're very clear about our program goals and an essential one is expanding our creativity learning from others different to ourselves um connecting with nature exploring our inner lives and that's beyond all different all denominations and taking action on the things we care about so the whole program is geared around that and every day we do a community meeting then we do a plenary which is a whole group session for 90 people where we explore a theme and that might be looking at our lives as the river and the trajectory of that story we do it in our family groups in the big space it might be looking at prejudice and discrimination and stereotypes but we we do it experientially and creatively through art and performance it might be kind of how we connect to our natural world yeah so these big plenaries are designed with a creative component which it also involves self-reflection and personal storytelling in the group um then every day there's a choice of two two blocks of workshops and they are the staff and volunteers this big volunteering program um deliver creative workshops so that might be you know drumming dancing poetry writing lyrics on themes or not on themes and we again we deepen that might be a discussion program youth led if there are attorneys who might have a series of discussions um sort of you know bushcraft land-based stuff um and so they can choose those and try new things you know there's a whole art barn for the week just an art space that's just held and people can do lovely workshops there in all kinds of medium and media and and then that space is often held at free time for just hanging out in and finishing off things listen to music it's lovely i mean so lovely and do people readily engage or are they ever kind of scared by these kinds of activities because as an adult like the idea i mean it sounds amazing on the one hand and on the other i'm thinking i wouldn't know how to do any of those things i'd feel deeply uncomfortable do you know what i mean is it yeah it's complicated it's a really good question and um um i think because we the way we do things i would say and everything can sound a little bit arrogant or complacent but after 12 years i can honestly say this is consistently because we take things up the temperature out very slowly i would say we get buy-in within the first evening from but at least 80 percent of the young people are in well and truly in and and also the workshops break down into smaller groups and they're very you know the facilitates are trained in being mostly focused on the relationships of the young people and and the interpersonal balance so it's it's invitational rather than kind of it's framed as as a choice and so no and then that other 20 percent or some counts it's 10 percent some counts counts it's five percent as i said you will get a group of young people that will stand on the fringe and and every time but really what they're concerned about is the risk posed to them on a psychological and emotional level in terms of stepping into the fray and trusting and connecting with others they're the ones that are likely to either be at risk of exclusion or have been excluded yeah and then you know there's real fear of the intimacy of that so it's not the art activities it's more the relational stuff that they're afraid of because they've been let down or what do you think is the barrier there they've been let down a million times yeah they've been let down with their primary caregivers their families their you know rupture and relationship let down by the system exclusion from school their behavior has become a challenge but their behavior has become their safe way of being in the world because it creates a job there then when you've got these young people who've been kind of let down repeatedly and they're kind of standing on the fringes and you've got this amazing program what what role do you play what changes well we have a team on the staff who will have a skill set and an experience of interpersonal um work you know um with young people who and the brief to all the staff is look the relationships are the most important thing here okay so whether people are you know we know the program works so we encourage as much participation as possible yeah and the more we can fold people in individually so we have a strategy that says you know if there's a group staff get alongside that group and do kind of youth work form relationships and then invite them to come and join a workshop over time and as the group gets smaller because it becomes like a group of belonging outside of the group which is how society is how life is yeah how schools are and um you know we see that right from dot right through don't mean so and so slowly slowly through the relationships of the staff and then the bonds that they start creating outside of that home safety group they generally fold them i mean i i've in 12 years and then we do something right in the middle we do personal storytelling you know we are invite the young people to tell their stories so as they start to become more authentic yeah then the barriers break down because they the you know really the fear comes from looking at people's outsides doesn't it yeah don't we don't know each other in terms of that those veils and and and and every everybody is a potential threat if you've been let down many times of course so um i think the trust starts to build as people start to tell a little bit of their story and start to become more and more authentic and what form does that storytelling take is that a literal kind of verbal thing or is that done through art or how do you how do you access people's stories well we invite them and again at their at their own pace so we might do an exercise called the river of life and um and um that's an art practice where they might draw draw draw a river if they want you know otherwise it can be a mark on a page or they can do it verbally it's nothing's coercive and then the invitation is you know our life we have a life and this is a unique we are unique and valuable and precious in our life is and so um we might share you know some we take again we take the temperature up a challenge we've overcome yeah or um some things that people that have mattered to us in our journey yeah and um and so people draw their rivers and then they share whatever they want or feel able to and some some some people won't want to do that but then the request is that we just we we try and stay as present as we can but we've always got the backup you know of teams of people that yeah and kind of be there and sweep in and and get alongside at different points so so that's how really it it the trust builds over time and and that's how we ask them tell the stories that's it so but we also do it your question about creativity you know every night and even when they're doing their art projects so if you're doing a sort of lyric writing there's a little ask there to for people that have come to that workshop to express something okay and um so the confidence just starts building really really quickly in terms of that finding a voice and um is it important because you said before that you try specifically to bring people together who don't already know each other is that because that creates a safer environment for exploring the stories or what's the motivation between bringing strangers together essentially I suppose when we think ourselves about how we are in different relationships we're often um you know we have different stories attached to every relationship we have and we know ourselves in certain ways depending on who we are with in terms of shared experience or expectations of roles and dynamics and particularly with teenagers who are so socially cued aren't they to fit in and behave to to certain norms um when you get groups of friends coming um also that they want to have a really good time account together yeah in their roles so this idea of exploring and becoming exploring new sides of of self and and trying new things that can sometimes help them back because they they want to they've already got a set of norms yeah I feel themselves so it's quite freeing if they're not amongst their peers they're well they're amongst new peers essentially they can kind of find themselves a little bit and be free to to do new things how does the transition work then when they leave you how do you help them to hold on to the things that they've learned about themselves and the skills that they've developed yeah well at the end we do quite a lot around ending I mean I'm sure you know you've been involved I'm sure in programs these intensive programs every day feels like a month doesn't it yes so we do quite a lot around the ending before the ending can and they for instance they'll they'll do a sort of home plan for themselves around enhancing their well-being and um self-care strategies for self-care and also what new things they've tried that they really want to take home and and intentions for the steps they want to take and um and then they write a letter to themselves that we then posted them in six months time oh wow what a lovely idea yeah their vision for how they how they see themselves at that point what they want to give to themselves there's a lot about self-nature and self-love and then we have a reunion shortly afterwards and um we bring everyone together and we revisit those intentions that they left they left the programs with and then obviously we have the relationships of the partner organizations which and then there's a kind of handover into what what next steps might look like and yeah that's how and with the kind of the the sharing of stories which seems like such a kind of crucial part of this journey and experience do you think that it is about the sharing of their own story that's the important bit or is it about hearing about other people's stories or both that's super interesting and pertinent question well it's both it's absolutely both because I think the liberating thing for young people you know is it's very very rare in their school lives for them to experience a level of authenticity amongst their peers of people really speaking from the heart you know it doesn't generally happen in schools I mean I'll tell you about that we've been doing some training schools around that but um and so I think just that experience of that becoming a norm amongst their own peer group is so empowering because it means that socializing that teenage peer kind of attunement is dropped to an authentic level where people can be themselves and talk about their vulnerabilities and their hopes and fears and dreams in a way that isn't usually acceptable no actually so that is really empowering and liberating and just and then also you know it's extraordinary the natural empathy that is is drawn out in in teenage for each other which usually we assume that there isn't but it's just it's it's totally innate and through and through in that situation and then the feeling of being heard seen valued not humiliated judged excluded marginalized hmm when you are authentic and say well I haven't got it all sorted yeah um it's just it's liberating no it sounds like you create an environment where teenagers are able to kind of be the very best version of themselves and I don't mean like a perfect version but just a real version I guess um so tell me about the training you're doing with schools then what's the motivation there and what are you doing and what are you hoping to achieve well we um we do our own trainings anyway and that's how people come to volunteer on the programs that's in creative facilitation creative practices that anyone can use easy to outskill people that are not artists to use art space practices to achieve certain things we've been doing that for 12 years right alongside programs and that's how people come to volunteer on our programs they come on those trainings it's only maybe you know half the people that come on those trainings have actually come on our program so that's been a strand so the school's work is was started off as kind of um PSA we actually worked with some of the county council public health team who I know you um you've also had like and we were working on their PSHE RSHE then more recently um training programs but very much been creativity at the heart of it trying to outskill teachers to take this creative approach and then also they develop this well-being framework around the three pillars you know belonging relationships healthy lifestyles and we've done trainings to creative group process trainings to enliven those pillars okay so that the teachers can take away with lots of can take away art space creative practices to explore different themes and to take the conversations deeper in safe ways that that aren't all about this really um you know the depth of storytelling that we do in our own programs but can at least take the conversations a bit deeper and into a more authentic place because teachers feel so you know felt so anxious about that what happened yeah I was going to say I mean that's a really hard thing that you're trying to do I mean I try and do some work in that area and it's really difficult to build that confidence actually um in people to have those conversations and I think it's much easier coming in from the outside often to to create that sort of space but for someone who's working with young people every day who knows them um I think that's harder how do you so how do you how do you do that how do you overcome that how do you build that confidence well I think I think the practice is very structured okay you know they include every voice so and they take the temperature up slowly so they're not designed to drop people into uh there could be all kinds of disclosure so and and and also I suppose the truth is as you say by in principle a lot of teachers will have different levels of confidence in there yeah yeah I think more recently um you know our vision has been also the power of creativity particularly at this time in COVID-19 to create to put the emphasis on schools as communities yeah create that sense of belonging and value where people are seen heard and and can express themselves um and that that is so to facilitate that through creativity creativity is also a buffer you know you create as kind of third party so if you really where you behold someone's expression that is not necessarily directly looking at them so there is a buffer there which brings about a kind of shared experience which is intimate and authentic and safe um but doesn't kind of drop the whole class into a very risky situation where a teacher might not have the skills of confidence to deal with that so so they're quite structured processes for giving people so you're teaching them kind of specific activities that they would facilitate and that kind of thing or is it a little bit looser than that yeah specific activities all the time so if you're doing emotional literacy as part of PSHE how do you play games to build up that that that language which works not only in terms of building up verbal language you know locating these in the body and that sort of motion coaching attunement self-regulation but you're also doing it in a group so that in experiential process so you're also already building in that building that confidence in terms of self-expression working with listening and expressing so you're also you're building that interpersonal skill set as well so I think rather than sitting in a class with a page of emotions and emojis and looking at them you bring that alive through a game that's very structured so that's the kind of thing we're doing and also looking at how at the moment schools can build their communities through a creative story okay tell me more so that might be a multi arts kind of story where you might use drama to explore a theme of this time you might then use you have an art space um practice that actually means that everyone can express their their experience through a display you might do a group poem that could be performed and so you know some of the processes we work with can take a group from you know within an hour into performing a poem that they've created wow yeah I mean I'd love to do I need to it sounds really but we do it all the time so that's so we're trying to give people the skills to do these things and and we do them you know we ask people the teachers and the people who are working there to experience that themselves and to see themselves go from here and within an hour to be performing a poem in a group you're expecting the teachers and the facilitators to kind of learn alongside the learners though and be part of that experience yeah the way we train is experiential so everything we're advocating as as a practice we ask people to experience themselves wow does that mean then that for the people who support and help to kind of lead and facilitate your programs I mean they must be giving a lot of themselves a lot of the time if that's the kind of practice you encourage I mean how do you you know how do they look after themselves and you know there's so many questions there but yeah yeah it's that's a really really good question as it is for teachers and schools isn't it and youth workers and everyone at Colface I think we try you know we do rotors we do a lot of training around boundaries and interpersonal relationship and you know we have the teams that have more experience than others who are the go-to teams that maybe have a therapy background yeah we're the boundary and then we we try we do rest is best slots where staff sign up to those you know because we're in family groups we have different rated tasks and and also just as I say to teachers when we're doing this you know if we build in well-being or sort of self-care practices for the young people the staff get to do them themselves yeah so in the program so if you have say half an hour geared towards just even relaxation or mindfulness or a stretching or a yoga practice everyone gets to do that okay okay so we try to encourage the staff to introduce well self-care well-being practice into their workshops as a way of also being able to sort of take those five minutes might be a mindfulness breathing session you know get to do it yourself so it's important that the the staff stick with the whole thing and they don't kind of dip out during those quieter moments to to get on with admin or whatever they they stick with the program and and work right through it all yeah yeah yeah they're very intensive programs but we just before lockdown we did a residential weekend just a weekend and it was with a group to try and it was all creative workshops and from one school so they did all know each other and the aim was to build well well-being champions for the school and by day two they loved the workshops oh wow that's incredible so how long are your how long are your programs usually then so this was a weekend and that that was unusual how long are they typically they usually eight days eight days wow they're like yeah that's a long time no and what and how was your work changed during lockdown presumably you're not holding these kind of events because people can't come together in what what yeah what what form is your work taking at the moment well at the moment I would say we've done we did a lot of online creative workshops for young people the first month we also held our own staff team we're community really of extended facilitators all over the country so we had three sessions a week for them just a whole sharing circles and and we've had reunions and open mics and for our community and they've been really wonderful online and then we've done quite a lot of training for schools just little bite-sized trainings and more recently the most important thing that we're looking at as a community is anti-racism okay yeah because we have you know learning from others different to ourselves is very much at the heart of our programs and we have a strong black community in life beat and when the death of George Floyd occurred obviously it was the arising of of global trauma really in terms of that systemic racism you know oppression and so that arose in our own community so we've been doing an intensive program with the adults to look at that to look at systemic racism and what that means and what it's going to mean for our programs going forward and what does it mean for your programs going forward I think where we intend to go is to become an actively anti-racist organization very different to non-racist where we will even more explicitly embed racism as a exploring racism telling our stories about racism and doing healing work around that across lines of difference as a very fundamental explicit strand of our programs and trainings because um yeah this is just it this it just feels like that's kind of true to our our community why we wouldn't do anything else now I think with this kind of unfolding of awareness it's woken everyone up to much deeper levels and as white and I'm going to just know as what as a white leader you know I've had a really really big rigorous at looking at my part in where more subtle systemic issues around the taboo of racism might have come in you know where we've been going for unity and understanding and this kind of quite utopian ideas really um and experiences that could at times because I am white perhaps some more subtle stuff as may have gone under the radar not not overt racism we're doing a thorough review on that and that's not it it's more that as a white person if I don't make racism and anti-racism explicit in our programs we are complicit in systemic racism and that that's what we're doing and how can we do that in loving healing and creative structured ways that are meaningful for the young people we work with the staff networks they volunteer networks and organizations and so we're looking at all of that and is racial trauma something that you've specifically looked at or will look at in future definitely yeah that's coming up in a way that I think is going to be central in our work usually yeah so in fact one of the people I was going to suggest maybe you have a chat with I wanted to do to um suggest someone that you could talk to um yes definitely because you know some of the young black people we work with are experiencing overt racism daily in their lives and um whether that's at school in their experience of relationships and community with the police it's their daily reality and then some of our staff you know their children and the young people they've worked with outside in different places they know that to be their daily experience and that in itself is just creates a level of trauma you know that feeling of fear really what could happen at any time I've found this whole whole thing really distressing um kind of picking it apart um a little bit because I think I've carried a massive level of naivety about it um I was speaking yesterday with a friend and colleague of mine Kadra who works for the charity so whites and when she was talking about um kind of racial trauma and her experience of just kind of everyday racism I just I don't know I think there's something about you know hearing about the big stuff but then it was for me it's it's almost that it almost like less tangible every day bit that I think I yeah was just completely blind to and I'm I yeah and I don't know I don't know where one goes with that but I think at least beginning to understand that it's a big problem and we need to do something about it is is a starting point but it's it's really hard isn't it yeah it's a massive problem and it's centuries of problem and oppression and brutality um a kind of displaced people against their will and then this terrible um brutality and silencing and taboo collective taboo it's monumental and now is the time but I think every one of us can make a huge difference in in exploring exactly what you serve which is you know I have the luxury as someone who has white skin not that race is not on the table every day all day and it's only because my skin is white that that's that's the case yeah and that is just a terrifying reality that you know a white population in a multiracial society that has all the kind of um the ways that we've told stories about ourselves and what we've created in the world that are fundamentally flawed actually um you know that's that's I think it actually is a is and the inequality of that I think it creates a collective trauma actually yeah it's almost like keeping the lead on it or ultimately is um is doing harm to all all all of us I really do believe that and so it's now's the time yeah and and how do you you know as a white leader who works regularly with a really kind of diverse community who wants to lead um on sort of beginning to tackle some of those sort of roots of racism and begin to work with that trauma how do you do that in a way that sort of sits comfortably because I don't know about you but I feel it I find it hard to talk about these things because I'm very conscious of the fact I'm white and is it my place you know yeah how do you how do you do that what's your kind of take on that well I think my experience lately um as I have had my own unfolding awareness has been it's like a sledgehammer you know around my own sort of denial and it's been and I I just have tried to put myself in the fire and and really be accountable and and and say this is my own racism and I and and be there in that and say this is my commitment now that is unwavering and it's not a sort of faddish thing to be humbled and to be shown um where I've been blind and um created any kind of organization that mirrors that oppressive yeah kind of system that we're part of it's very difficult as a white leader actually that balance so what I'm trying to do is step back the community of staff are very very active in their exploration there's such a deep bond in our staff volunteer networks because of the programs we share and experience that you know that the commitment has been incredible from them to um to engage in this process you know we meet once a week and we do a session we're all reading and dialoguing we have a WhatsApp that is just huge confronting really confronting so um so I've I and then I've also committed to a month-long review historically for the last 12 years where people can anonymously register their observations and that's more subtle things it's subtle subtle systemic racism so we're we're looking at things like cultural appropriation in terms of the songs we sing okay looking at um staff that might tell their stories of travel you know inappropriately so we're looking at all kinds of things but I'm just trying to empower the voices of a many as many people as possible and to step back and and just to be right in the fire with that as an accountable myself as someone who and to to name my blindness you know and to feel some grief and certainly um you know and and to listen listen and be unwavering in being accountable and my own commitment to to this being now central in my life that's it and I I know this when I make a commitment to something as deeply as this feels that's it really because the taboo is so strong we'll all go back and to denounce so quickly gotta hold it right there front and centre which is a bigger kind of issue for you in terms of the way that you're taking your work right now the sort of the the race issue or the kind of trying to repair the rupture of COVID-19 that's such a good question again I guess we're good at least because it's so on point and and it's a kind of yes and we always say yes and in my feet rather than but um I think I think we're in a process exploring anti-racism that is actually about to come to a pause and then we will be redesigning and re-planning our programs we'll be coming out of a deep process into more being in the world with it so I think I think very quickly certainly into the autumn our our focus is going to be on yeah post COVID-19 whatever that looks like we know that is going to be very challenging for schools um they're in really extremely difficult stress or leadership challenges huge directives coming in you know this little bit in the in the guidance around well-being and mental illness so if we can support you with the creative part of that we want to put a lot of focus on that in the autumn in terms of young we want to get the focus back on trying to serve young people hopefully we can do face-to-face programs um I think we're going to roll out the well-being residential because it's a very I think that could then cascade through to the schools via the young people with these creative practices that they can lead um and then I think the anti-racism that will become embedded in in everything we do so I'm just telling you I'm just describing because we're in the process yeah yeah it sounds like a very kind of rich tapestry in that you're learning as you as you go which I think is really important and with the um you know as schools kind of return to a wider reopening and you kind of mentioned there about the the role of of creativity and I think there is this tension I'm feeling at the moment where there is this understanding that creativity and play and nurture are surely going to be really important ingredients in terms of helping young people to bounce back but then on the other hand they've missed six months of school and there's so much catch up to do and what's your kind of take on that what do you think you know people listening who are maybe working in schools working with young people how should they be prioritizing what they're doing I love I love that your questions um because they're so they're so current it's like everything you're asking is exactly what I'm thinking about um and and can you know dialogue about um well this question is coming up with schools we're working with every day and how's done obviously it's the last day of time today um you know I'm been quite bold in in in terms of what life heat stands for which is that children young people particularly teenage about actually right through I think primary schools are ready ready and more able to to commit to the first time being about community building emotional the processing of what's happened the reconnecting the kind of in sort of linking that to curriculum but actually that that that tension is not is not so problematic I think the secondary schools are really feeling the stress of this yeah and they're even bringing in how do we manage behavior yeah so and that really is their question is how do we meet the social needs and the sort of really the the reparative needs around a level of trauma for all for everyone that's been through this and he's going through this but at the same time get everyone to behave in a way that we need them to behave in order to sit and learn and catch up and so and so my take on that would be that particularly teenagers who will have an acute need to for that social those social needs to be met I would be prioritizing that certainly for the first few weeks making that the priority the rebuilding of the community the processing the experience the kind of reorientating in the spaces connecting different groups whether that's classes tutor groups in order that then the children young people are ready to learn otherwise I think they'll be trying to shoe on that a group of young people into a process that kind of denies life experience yeah it's huge what we've all been through and so to actually deny that is and then silo the odd young person into a counseling room to talk about I don't know a bereavement or their anxiety just seems to me to be just unreasonable and and actually I'm not sure it will work I think there would be lots more behavior issues even young people that may seem to be compliant me getting on with things could internalize a lot of questions for themselves about could get very disorientated although what we've also seen is that children young people are hugely resilient yeah and actually it's maybe the staff that actually um through that processing with the young people um I've seen actually sometimes in some of the workshops we've been doing that the staff have have need the space to process and connect because they have all the laws that they've been doing with around their own families are in challenges like we've all been doing with work looking after relatives all the additional challenges that um you know school staff have so in a way if I were a school leader I'd combine those two things and so we're going to commit to the first um bit of that time being about processing and rebuilding as a community and I would certainly prioritize that for the staff and what would that look like practically what kind of activities would you be putting in place um I would be sort of something we've been doing for staff in one county as I say in some sense we've been holding a regular um just a group for for staff to check in to focus on their own well-being in their own self-nurture I would implement that if I were a school leader in my in every school I would say right we're going to have a staff session that is reflective practice where the staff can actually talk about themselves to the level that they feel comfortable but the focus on themselves what they've been through I've been doing sort of introducing some process to actually talk about what everyone's been through um just reflective practice I might create an art process a creative process something like you know let's then work towards creating a poem together when we did this on some of our online sessions with teachers you know in five minutes and there's something about the beauty that happens that is so healing yeah when a group of people come together create something beautiful that has a soul soul in it it's heard out loud appreciated out loud it might drop people a bit into a level of grief but it's so it would need to be structured in that holding but there's something about it once it's done it's done because it's there and then okay now we move on and does there's something that people create together need to be beautiful to serve that purpose well my idea of beauty isn't pretty um I think there's very different things I wouldn't buy beauty I mean something that it can compare can tame um pain and anger and things that one wouldn't associate or even whatever you know um sort of darkness of different kinds that doesn't make something not beautiful somehow I'm really talking about the kind of beauty of the the soul really that that recognizes life in it the life itself yeah it's more about what's gone into it than the product I guess um it's it's not a we're not aimed for a perfectly constructed piece of art that's not that's that's never what we're aiming for um and and that's always stated at the beginning of anything and sometimes you know teachers can find that a challenge but mostly when we do these things teachers say oh this would be really good in our classes because it liberates the children into doing away with that self-critic particularly dyslexic students or actually anyone it kind of it enables that creative voice and imagining and the imagination um to and I think they find that for themselves sometimes they start to self-censor themselves into the perfectly form thing but I found that most teachers really really dive into it love that so they can kind of create a sort of slightly bolder braver way of learning maybe through that process it sounds yes and where they do away with the judge and the critic and the sort of evaluating principle of how perfect or beautiful is this it's not um it's not and we don't have a dissect the actual byproduct and I see it as a byproduct the performance the poem that piece of art we don't but we will reflect on it but more in a from the eye place if I feel this or I see this not we don't analyze analyze things in that way it's more of a holding of it's held very lightly you know yeah so um yeah I mean it sounds probably a bit um I mean I think the way to illuminate these things is to experience them really because they're very structured they're quite simple yeah and they're very accessible so yeah what thought would you like to leave people with what's your end note yeah what would I like to leave people with the schools the teachers for leaders I would say trust yourselves and your many of you have that primary motivation of being um a belief in and a commitment to to the development and the potential of all the pupils that in the young people you're around and the children and so trust that revisit that come from that place collectively and individually and um be bold around that be bold because um we know that learning happens out of that place actually um and then I would say to everybody else you know creativity just giving ourselves time to nourish ourselves through kind of uncensored play or experiencing something creative in in in its basic form might be making a mandala outsider of beliefs or it might be um you know writing a few words on a page just from your imagination it can really be self soothing and it can really give give us a sense of hope joy connectivity the kind of wonder of life which is a great scaffold it scaffolds the challenge the challenging the challenges we need that you know in order to scaffold and also hold grief pain challenge worry um can build more trust I think in ourselves and like the lives we're living and each other