Anti-Racism Summit - Hackney Council

I was in Hackney last week working for the council, the council is tackling racism by consulting with staff and giving them the tools to collaborate and learn from each other. It felt like the start of something that's long overdue.

Hackney has a history of migration and civil rights campaigning, and as there are over 100 languages are spoken in the borough it's time to address racism head-on.

 

Cafcass: Practice Week 2023

Always a very intense week of learning, reflection and setting an intention for the coming period. 

Cafcass is an organisation that aims to protect the needs of children and young people when there is litigation due to a divorce or request for custody.

It's a difficult time for children and parents so anything that improves their experience during this process is plus.

Favourite sessions of the week were by Laughology on FLIP-it thinking and also the Being and Staying Resilient session run by an internal member of staff.

Open University and Bangla Housing Association

This is for an ongoing research project into elderly Bangladeshi people's housing situation in collaboration with the Open University and the Bangla Housing Association https://www.banglaha.org.uk/. 

This meeting was held over the summer, and the next meeting will be in November. It will be interesting to see how the project develops, it's great to be involved in a longer term project, rather than just being parachuted in for the day and then never seeing anyone again!

The lady in green was also used to recruit more people to get involved in the project. Such a friendly smiley crowd, and some delicious food for lunch :)

Image with Bengali translation to attract more people to take part in the research project.

Live Scribing for Kent County Council

I was back in Kent yesterday and last week for the second visit of two children's centres. I hope both these centres become thriving Family Hubs once the next phase of restructuring is over. 

The staff at both sites are just so dedicated and they serve a very deprived local demographic who are hugely grateful for their support.

 

Cafcass - Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service

Just sharing some of the work I do for Cafcass. I illustrate situations and ideas that help the organisation communicate with children, young people and their parents/carers, and my drawings also help Cafcass gather feedback so that the people they work with are treated respectfully and are really listened to.

I also work as a live scribe to help Cafcass managers communicate more clearly with their staff, and promote better ways of working. Please click on the images and they will enlarge.

Slowly things are starting to change and the ripple effects will hopefully mean better outcomes for children and young people after their parents split up. 

I created these Practice Framework images - this is used to promote and share good practice and was specifically designed with children and young people in mind, in order to make it accessible to all:

I designed the Together logo. The concept of the Together Framework was created in order to promote the values that the organisation holds dear, and the champions within Cafcass try to share and promote the framework.

Some strategic leadership images, again used to promote best practice:

 

Telling stories in collaboration

Just sharing some projects I've drawn this year where the client helped speed up the drawing process hugely, by sketching out what they wanted. That left me more time to respond using drawings because the brief was very clear.

This first one was for a public consultation on a new public space in Wandsworth, this was to tell the story of the project and next steps:

...created from this layout info sketch done by the client:

This was a Theory of Change explainer for a consultation between Living Roots and Ealing Council: 

...created from a draft sketch by the client

And this poster was for Merton Centre for Independent Living, to share their plans for the coming years:

Created from this layout sketch done by Merton Centre for Independent Living:

Theory of Change - for TSIP

Katie Fowler, the CEO of TSIP https://www.tsip.co.uk asked me to illustrate the organisation's 'Theory of Change'.

It was an interesting one because it involved so many 'moving parts'. Katie very kindly edited down the huge amount of information that they'd originally wanted to include. There's only so much you can fit on an A4 sheet of paper!

 

Family Hubs in Kent

I've been commissioned by Kent County Council to record local views on the development of the new Family Hub model. I was in Margate on Wednesday and Sheerness on Thursday. Very different views and demographic in the two different areas which was interesting. I'll return in a month to gather more feedback.

Caring for people with Autism in Camden

This month I was commissioned by Richard Lohan of Camden's accessible information team to draw out some images that will be used for a short film to explain how to assist young people with autism who may be going through a period of change.

I especially liked drawing out the breathing exercise and thought we could all probably do with the adoption of the worry box: put all your worries in a box and then make an appointment to go through them one by one with a person who cares about you.