Winston Churchill Fellowship: Healing trauma with performing arts

My fellowship travels are complete! I can't quite believe I've been away for nearly two months. Pictured above are some of the many documents, books, scripts etc I've acquired along the way, including great white shark safety guidance from Cape Cod! I've been working on recovering from my jet lag and have just gone back to work. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to go abroad, learn, try new things and reflect on the work I do. Although I'm sad the travelling is over I am excited about finding ways to implement the learning. I feel especially grateful to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for making it all possible, and also to those people close to me who have supported and encouraged me.  Reflecting on my time in the USA, I realise I am very thankful for the extent to which I was invited to get actively involved in so many of the projects and places I visited. Before I left for the USA I was concerned that I would spend a lot of time being...

My final stop on my fellowship travels saw me return to Connecticut, this time visiting Artreach in Norwich. Artreach is a peer-based project for people with psychiatric diagnoses, and uses a range of art forms to promote healing, self-expression, increased confidence and social support. In addition to meeting with the Executive Director, Becca, to hear about the impressive array of work taking place through Artreach, I was lucky enough to be able to attend a performance by Second Step Players, Artreach's theatre troupe that performs comedy sketches to challenge stigma surrounding mental illness. The sketches performed by Second Step Players were funny and poignant. Spending time with the cast and production team, it was clear that they were really invested in the work and that they had formed a strong, supportive social network through Artreach. Participants spoke with me about how beneficial Artreach had been for them, allowing them to express themselves, p...

For the penultimate stop on my travels I returned to New York City. I visited The Possibility Project, a long-running theatre programme to 'empower teenagers to transform their lives and communities'. The project runs a number of different programs and I was fortunate enough to attend a rehearsal with the participants on the foster care programme. All participants must audition to be part of the programme, although no one is chosen on the basis of talent. The auditions are an opportunity to see whether a teenager would be comfortable with taking part in acting, dance and singing sessions and to find out more about the programme. This is followed by a nine month rehearsal period. Participants discuss the social issues that are affecting their lives, share personal accounts and improvise scenes based on real life experiences. Over the course of the rehearsal period the production team (largely made up of  the teenage participants) will develop a script for an origina...

I've been taking a little break from blogging for the last couple of weeks as I've been having some holiday time with no fellowship appointments. It has been restful and brilliant with lots of sightseeing in Memphis, New Orleans and New York. In this blog entry I'll be talking about my experience attending a Bessel van der Kolk conference at the Cape Cod Institute which I attended just before my holiday started. The Cape Cod Institute has been running annual continuing education conferences every summer for 40 years, all aimed at mental health professionals. I was so excited to attend the conference with Dr van der Kolk, particularly as his ideas and writing largely formed the basis of the focus of my fellowship. Dr van der Kolk presented a range of approaches for working effectively with trauma. He encourages clinicians to have trained in a number of different approaches and interventions, as trauma recovery is neither linear nor simple and it may take...

Following my time in Ohio I travelled to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In Cape Cod I had the opportunity to shadow Sam Holmstock, a talented and experienced musician. Sam facilitates a number of drumming classes with different populations and community groups in and around Cape Cod. I was lucky enough to be able to take part in some of Sam's classes, including the Drumming Through Trauma programme delivered through Cotuit Center for the Arts. Drumming Through Trauma is a weekly class that is primarily aimed at veterans suffering from PTSD, though it can also be accessed by other members of the community who have been affected by trauma in different contexts. The group meets each week for an hour and uses Conga drums to learn and play a series of rhythms. Many participants have been coming to the group for several years and it is clear that they have developed a level of proficiency as musicians. The group is also always open to new members, and Sam was a skilled teach...