Changing Relations

In the light of the horrendous treatment of Jason Arday, we want to give a particular shout out today to the . We recently attended a working group led by that was focused on changing public attitudes through practical learning and awareness.

What has impressed us since first encountering this organisation towards the start of this year, is the humanity and openness they are ready to show even to those who would send them a torrent of abuse.

They resolutely do not want to remain within their own echo chamber of supporters and want to find a way to reach people who express racist attitudes and behaviours where they are, in the recognition that this is how you have a chance of encouraging people to shift their views.

This absolutely echoes the approach we have always tried to take at Changing Relations in regards to gender-based violence and we're really hopeful as to what we can achieve in this positive proactive coming together to make the North East a region that actively opposes racism.

Take a look at the Become the Bridge campaign - https://northeastantiracism.org.uk/become-the-bridge/

here

I want to reflect on the media coverage of Jason Arday. Much has been written on it, but as an educator, my mind turns to how we build a kinder society through education.

First, big love to all my Black friends & connections who are hurting in the face of the systemic racism evident in this case. It is heartbreaking for someone to be pushed beyond their limits in such a callous way. These are not the "British values" I want for my country.

As I gained insight into the provenance of the claims seized upon by a savage press, the 2 ingredients that feel missing are critical thinking & empathy.

So many news articles use the passive voice - "Claims were made..." - a useful way of obfuscating responsibility. It makes you focus on the person something is happening to.

So it took some time for me to see that it was a fundamentally racist person making the plagiarism claims so many seized upon.

It feels problematic to allow ourselves to run away with "news" items based on the passive voice without interrogating who is saying what & why.

It's not that we don't have the ingredients for critical thinking in our education system.

In English, children learn about writing to persuade & an author's purpose. What effect do they want to have on their audience? What do they want to convince us of? In History, they learn to critique sources. Are they reliable? Is propaganda at play?

So what's missing?

1. Critical thinking & empathy need to go hand-in-hand so we teach our children to consider how our behaviour impacts others, encouraging empathy for those who are hurting, to notice how others are & offer support.

2. When education is focused on exams, learning risks becoming geared towards that, so even if we critique an author's intention, the focus is on capturing this as exam technique rather than applying it to our lives.

If we want education to develop young people to be in the world as well as the workplace, we need to create space to reflect on social attitudes. To build adults who ask what is the story? What is the motivation behind it? Who will it impact? Is the intention kind or destructive? Is this the bandwagon I want to jump on?

here...

I'm a bit full of the love for the team this week.

Today it's a massive shout out to and .

Oh my days have they worked hard on creating the educator toolkits for our domestic abuse-themed learning programmes - A is for Amy and Sometimes it Hurts!!!!!

In my role, I tend to modulate between working on a strategic level, being out there, developing relationships, planning for our development as an organisation and, here and there, being really in the detail of project delivery.

I was very much in the thick of our educator consultation process back in the autumn and supporting our fab creative facilitation team to develop the schemes of work they would go on to trial in the winter.

Then there was a period of a good few months where most of my time was on funding bids, developing and trialing some smaller new programmes of work, whilst these two absolute beauts worked incredibly hard taking all the learning from our pilot programme delivery and translating that into detailed step-by-step lesson instructions to enable teachers and youth workers to be able to deliver our programmes for themselves from this autumn coming.

Having been very much out of the detail for all that time, when I finally got to reviewing the A is for Amy toolkit last week in the final stages of getting ready to hand over to our fab designer , I was absolutely blown away.

The detail. The thoroughness. The depth of facilitator notes to help educators get their heads around how to handle potentially tricky conversations on a definitely tricky topic.

So impressed. So proud. And absolutely can't wait to see them in print!

Gan on lasses!!!

Image credit:

here.

Last week saw the final board meeting with our absolute stalwart before she steps down from her role as Non-Exec Director, paving the way for 3 new Non-Exec Directors to join and I in the Autumn.

(This is not goodbye to Rachael thankfully 🥰 She is shifting to a Business Development Manager role thanks to Durham Business Growth Funds via Business Durham and we are super excited for this next chapter in our working relationship)

I will introduce you to our new Non-Exec Directors soon I promise.

But before I do, I want to take a moment to thank Rachael for her support in this role.

Rachael joined our board 4 years ago at a time when I was really low in confidence. She brought a profound & nuanced understanding of the sectors across which we operate, the nature of a voluntary sector organisation & its funding structure & what we were trying to achieve as an arts education company. She understood that things are often uncertain but that that doesn't mean you can't chart a path through that terrain. Her insight helped me map our plans against the wider political, economic & social landscape.

For me, personally, as an ADHDer who very much does not think in straight lines, *really* struggles with routine & finds formality incredibly uncomfortable, she highlighted all of the ways in which I am doing the things I am supposed to be doing, even where they do not look how one might expect. If you've ever seen my note-taking, you'll know what I mean! Many comment that it astounds them I make sense of the scribbles, circles & arrows that scorch the page! But I do make sense of them.

And it makes all the difference to have someone who sees you, believes in you, stands by you & reassures you. Who is able to offer critical insight in a way that is also kind & supportive. It's hard in the voluntary sector. You live with perpetual uncertainty. You need bolstering to be able to keep on keeping on. And Rachael has bolstered me enormously over the last 4 years.

Thank you Rachael. You rock!!!

Image credit

It's not usual to do a "we submitted a bid" post. It's more likely that folk wait until the 💰 has been confirmed before celebrating 🥳.

But we really want to celebrate that we managed to get a proposal into the for our A is for Amy programme of learning around teenage relationship abuse.

Completely honestly, when the call came out, we looked at it & thought, "do we actually have capacity to draft a proposal requiring that level of detail whilst also"...

😮‍💨 finishing up an proposal for our Don't Look Away project

😮‍💨 preparing & delivering new training around our Weaving Stories animation (peer sexual abuse) & Navigating Vulnerability artwork (workforce wellbeing)

😮‍💨 getting our A is for Amy & Sometimes it Hurts toolkits ready for our fab designer to whip into shape ready to hand to partner educators in the Autumn as part of our funded project

The answer was partly, "no not really" but also "we can't not do it!"

There's always a judgement call with opportunities re fit & capacity. Crow-barring is to be avoided. Burnout is a v relevant consideration.

But with the focus of testing a violence against women & girls prevention programme in secondary schools, we just couldn't not throw A is for Amy into the mix, as it would create an incredible opportunity to take our film & learning programme further & positively impact more young people's understanding of (un)healthy relationships.

And so we went for it! Huge amount of work. Fabulous pool of SIX North East-based partners brought into the mix to support our delivery, should we be lucky enough to be awarded. And it's in!!!

Obviously we have no idea whether we will be successful with this proposal & the Youth Endowment Fund will undoubtedly get loads of great applications from other organisations also doing valuable work.

We just think it's really important to share this side of things as well as the "woo success 🥳" scenario. There's so much work that happens in the voluntary sector irrespective of whether you win the funds you have applied for. And sometimes it feels important to celebrate all of that behind-the-scenes work.

Really brilliant to hear about all of the work happening across the voluntary, public and HE sectors to gain greater understanding around the theme of teenage relationship abuse at the national working group this week, convened by -

🤩 told us about work are doing to develop the evidence base for risk assessments in teenage relationship abuse, addressing key national evidence gaps

🤩 Hannah Guy from shared the research the Centre for Protecting Women Online are doing into tech-facilitated violence against women and girls, with a focus on pinpointing how harmful behaviour escalates and therefore where we need to be able to intervene

🤩 Justine Dodds gave an update on a development of 's dating detox programme wherein they are testing how their teenage relationship harm programme could be woven into sports delivery as a way of engaging a wider pool of young people

🤩 referenced a piece of research into trends in teenage relationship abuse prevalence in Wales which has flagged that 1/3 of pupils report experiencing harm, using harm or a combination of the two

The key takeaways from all of these fascinating talks were absolutely in line with the work we have been developing over the last few years:

💡 It is absolutely critical that we pay attention to normalised, everyday behaviours rather than dismissing them as banter or just "low level" - this is the point at which we can make a crucial difference before harmful behaviour becomes more entrenched

💡 Prevention work needs to happen much earlier with young people - making sure we create an opportunity to model healthy relationship behaviours even before young people are thinking about intimate partner relationships - we can do this in relation to friendship, helping young people to understand the kinds of relationship behaviours that make them feel good or bad

Image credit: featuring the art classroom from Ayesha's story within our Sometimes it Hurts story series (https://sometimesithurts.org.uk/)

As well as the peer sexual abuse-themed training day we ran for last week, our fabulous creative facilitator also went in and spent a day with the whole of Year 9 and a small group of sixth form peer mentors.

This day was also based around our animation Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse and the aims of the session were to help young people recognise:

📢 the impact of "low level," highly normalised, yet nevertheless unwanted sexual behaviours - they are not just bants - they make young people feel uncomfortable and affect their wellbeing

📢 the range of options available to them in situations where they see behaviours that are making someone feel uncomfortable - being an active bystander doesn't have to mean standing up in front of everyone & calling out someone's harmful behaviour - we could check in quietly with the person affected later, offer to go with them to a trusted adult

It's such a pleasure to see the impact of our youth co-produced animation, empowering young people to understand what's not okay & what they do not actually have to put up with.

In particular love that one of the comments from young people was that the session left them feeling "supported." That is what we want. To create a space where young people know it is ok to seek support for things that are affecting them. Where their experiences are acknowledged.

Thanks again to Northumberland County Council for commissioning this piece of work supporting Berwick at a really important moment of transition.

This week provided an opportunity, thanks to & in particular , to test out a new training session built around our brand new Navigating Vulnerability artwork, created in response to the key themes emerging in the interviews we conducted earlier in the year with practitioners across the culture, education, university, domestic abuse specialist support & wider voluntary sectors.

This was a lovely session exploring the aspect of emotional load in our work - although we concluded we could have done with a full day to really get into it!

One of the overriding themes from the interviews was the sense that there's a huge tranche of the work we do in the sectors above that is invisible - hence the "payslip" artwork created by

In the course of our work, we speak to so many people who are exhausted, on the edge of burnout. People who deeply care. Whose roles involve supporting others. Engaging on a human level to provide support, encourage learning around tricky topics, create a space for others to emote.

It feels so important to create a space for the people doing this invaluable work to be able to acknowledge this aspect of their work, that it carries an emotional weight, that it is unsurprising that we will feel the impact of that, that this does not make us weak.

Lou also created this fab "toolkit" artwork that pulls out the breadth of personal coping strategies our interviewees use, but also the frameworks for helping them to think about this kind of work & the support strategies that practitioners need in place to be able to keep on keeping on.

It felt really valuable for practitioners from a range of sectors to come together & share perspectives & tools.

Some of the comments from our lovely participants:

🎤 "Was good to acknowledge different ways of working."

🎤"I found useful the toolkit of coping strategies & that's my take away."

🎤 "I think this is an incredibly helpful project & process. Very much needed."

We're really keen for this work to benefit as many practitioners in roles that involve supporting others as possible.

So if it sounds interesting, please give us a shout - [email protected]

It's a busy week for delivery this week.

Yesterday, we delivered a training session that used our Weaving Stories animation as a tool to explore the theme of peer sexual abuse with a core group of staff at .

It was a pleasure to work with such a thoughtful group of staff who were absolutely committed to considering how they as a school can better address this issue - from the pastoral perspective, within the PSHE curriculum, as well as considering school messaging to colleagues, students and parents.

Staff told us it was:

📢 "Great thought-provoking CPD."

📢 "Empowering, invaluable, child driven."

📢 "Motivating, clear and realistic."

📢 "A very worthwhile CPD session. Clear link to strategy and how to implement."

They said:

📢 "I loved this session."

And that it:

📢 "Increased confidence within [the] team to support and action in school."

Huge thanks to for commissioning this piece of work.

If you know of a school for whom this session could be useful, get in touch -

📧 [email protected]

Image credit and .thomas_

Random cheerful share for a Friday...

When you attend a research planning meeting in a Primary School and Thor knocks at the door to show off his hammer...

Obvs 🤷‍♀️

Thank you for the entertainment value Copeland Road Primary School !