Merton Children’s Parliament

Had a lovely time yesterday, listening to children in southwest London in the Borough of Merton, as they were talking about their experiences of participating in the Children’s Parliament over the last couple of years.

The children were all around 11 and were really enthusiastic and very confident in speaking up, it was great to be a part of such a positive event. The Children’s Parliament will continue in the next academic year.

I was working digitally and prepared the first of the below images from briefing call notes and pre-designed the layout. The other 3 images were drawn directly from listening live.

Feeling included and cared for at school - Illustrations

I was asked to create a series of images aimed at educators for the Derby County Community Trust INCLUSION conference coming up later this month. I’ll be back live scribing up in Derby (go the Rams!) stadium in a couple of weeks, can’t wait :)

The first sequence shows the effects of applying strict rules instead of taking the time to understand the child, so by the end of the day she’s miserable. The second sequence shows the pupil feeling seen and heard, and the result is that he’s had the opposite experience, and he’s had a great day.

Dementia prevention, sharing research for University College London

I had a lovely afternoon scribing at a public engagement event about dementia in London yesterday. The event was run by University College London, and was a sort of crossover between knowledge exchange and public health messaging with several dementia research groups there to share their findings with the public. 

The good news is: research that has been undertaken recently by Professor Gill Livingston has found that dementia is up to 45% preventable if you remove the following 14 risk factors:

Unfortunately, as we heard from participants, as we grow older and become physically infirm or lose sight or hearing this can also lead to social isolation, adding to the potential risk for dementia. Other things were a surprise, eg I wasn’t aware of the impact of air pollution and high LDL cholesterol as risk factors for dementia. (So more walks in the woods and healthy snacks for me then!)

 

Heads Up is out now!

Published by Quarto books and written by Dr Clara Doran. A book about the science of brain health, written in an open, accessible way, with plenty of illustrations to keep you reading!

I had a lot of fun coming up with responses to the text, and also learnt plenty along the way. Here are some pics of what’s inside:

The Anchor Programme - Theory of Change

This is my drawing of a theory of change model, commissioned by the Anchor Programme. This is a funding programme that funds long-term projects up to 10 years, and is funded by the City Bridge Foundation. 

The City Bridge Foundation own 5 of the bridges in central London and is London’s biggest independent charity funder.

The ultimate aim of the Anchor Programme is to put the power firmly in the hands of groups of citizens who have lived experience within the communities of London.

Also I’m sharing the roughs that I did, this is a sort of ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at how I work. Often it’s easier to mock something up and talk through these tangible ideas than to use words.

Adult Family Group Conference Poster

Family group conferences are used to come up with a community/family plan, alongside the individual’s wishes. I was commissioned to give an example in the form of a story, so that professionals can explain the process to people in the community.

This was commissioned by Camden council, it was very much a collaborative process, we came up with the story together. Please click on and zoom in, it was printed at a large format to display as a poster.

Mental Health for Young People. UCL research project, London

Some recent work, I was digitally live-scribing at a young people’s Mental Health workshop. Professionals young people and students came together to work on ideas to collaborate across the sectors of health, charities and education in order to make the most of the limited resources available, and leverage what’s possible.

Anti-Racism local authority launch

I was in West London last week working as a live scribe for a bi-Borough local authority event. The keynote speaker Meera Spillett was very inspiring. The whole day was a spur to action and ultimately focussing on how to keep this going, as it’s an evolving process.

Scribing in Devon

Here is some recent live scribing work for Devon County Council for a training day for Children's services on the theme of child neglect. 

There have been some extreme cases of neglect in Devon and the service is keen to prevent this happening in future. 

To bring things very much to life the training involves a group of actors from a company called AFTA Thought, more on them here: https://www.aftathought.co.uk/

And above is the second job for Devon County Council I completed this week. A dedicated group of social workers, trying very hard to keep children not only safe but flourishing.

Illustrations for a new book on brain health!

I've been asked to draw gazillions of images for a new book by a GP Dr Clara Russell (who also has Multiple Sclerosis), all about how we can all look after our brains as we get older. Here are a few of them, I'm not sure when the book is going to be published but will update as soon as it is. 

And more about Clara here:

https://brainsciences.scot/the-sbs-blog-welcome-our-new-senior-clinical-investigator/