Violence Reduction Unit, London UK

I worked on an event held by the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in London, quite a long time ago at the mayor's office. I was told that they wanted to use the images I created at the live event for a poster, and now I've seen the poster, twice in one week! 

So I thought I'd show it up 'in the wild'. This one was outside a primary school in southeast London.

The reason 'Why Talk Matters' is because it has the potential to help young people before they end up in dangerous situations, and this campaign is focussing on the very young, because gangs are targeting the young and the vulnerable.
 

Communicating ideas with your Social Work staff team

These images were commissioned earlier this year by an east London borough as part of their social work practice week. They act as reminders to the social workers to capture the child's voice at every stage of their life, including from pre-birth (well, the circumstances of their pre-birth life!) and as a baby.

Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) - UCL Grand Challenges

University College London asked me to scribe at this event. This was a steep learning curve for me, but fascinating. All about using a natural process of rock weathering of basalt, but giving it a nudge to capture a lot more carbon from the atmosphere.

More on enhanced rock weathering is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65648361

If it works it could really help our warming planet!

Cycling UK - Live Scribing and illustration, London

Commissioned by Cycling UK https://www.cyclinguk.org/

This was a really great afternoon spent listening and responding to various disability cycling groups as they came up with ideas and plans for the future. There was so much energy and fizzing ideas in the room!

Examples of some of the ideas/discussion: It's really difficult to take a non-standard mobility aid on the train, how can we change this? How can we expand our services? And how to cut the red tape?

SEND conference in Leicester

Please click on the image to enlarge.

A couple of weeks ago I was live scribing at this conference in Leicester because they spotted me working on a similar conference up in Derby last year. 

This inclusion conference was for the Discovery Trust https://discoverytrust.org/ and was the first gathering for quite a few years. It was a big cohort of about 600 and the room was just buzzing with enthusiasm and a lot of laughter.

I was really amazed at how much this trust has achieved in only 14 years. They have a large network of SEND schools, with other more mainstream schools also in the process of joining and they pool resources. This means that the kids get to enjoy a really well rounded education and are really given so many chances to exceed everyone's expectations. It's really wonderful :)

UCL Research project into Intersectionality and access to Mental Health Services

I had a fascinating insight into the lives of South Asian women, working at the Stratford campus of UCL recently. So many stories of resilience and some very heartbreaking testimonies, as well as a rallying cry to improve services and take action to make change happen. Thanks to Labiba Rashid for asking me to scribe at this event.

 

The Future of Work for Young People, London UK

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to scribe at a wonderful day of discussions, learnings, and poetry for a charity in central London. 

The aim was to dig deeper into the Youth Futures Foundation's research findings: what does the next generation want from their working life? Unsurprisingly zero hours contracts and unfair dismissal came up several times. Also: young people are being set up to fail, with poor HR treatment from small companies, a lack of training and progression. Young people need to be educated about their rights from an early age, as some of these experiences happened while the participants were still in secondary school.

This was commissioned by the Youth Futures Foundation https://youthfuturesfoundation.org/ in partnership with Durham University. 

After the morning's work, done on my ipad (above), in the afternoon I pivoted and drew up a mural using old school pens and paper on the wall, as the poetry workshop unfolded. An intense afternoon for the young people taking part! Please click on the image below to enlarge.