About this event
The process of ‘understanding through making’ offers a powerful catalyst to elicit personal and interpersonal connection through creative practice, pausing, collecting and collating. Utilise this practice as a way of engaging new clients, or colleagues, welcoming creative ideas (yours and others’), visualising priorities and facilitating interaction through our creative potential (that hidden source, we all have).
The 2-hour session is designed to offer a joyful, practical and soul-nourishing space to welcome the power and potential of creative exercises, facilitated by art practitioner, community artist and scholar Dr. Francesca Bernardi PhD.
Making together and responding to materials in ways that release tensions, bringing forth intuition and dialogue, collage-making can offer routes to sharing and enabling intentions that are not reliant on talk, questions or external demands.
Essential materials:
- Newspapers, magazines, unwanted books or any printed materials, cloth, card, bus tickets, anything you can stick together and repurpose.
- Plus A4 (letter sized) card, cardboard or heavy paper.
- Glues stick (or tape) or PVA glue + brush or a little spatula, or any other glue (suitable for paper and card).
Optional:
- Scissors, paper cups, small vessels/containers.
Your joy and any other materials you may like to use on the day.
This event will not be recorded to support the group process.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- Broaden your skills-set to welcome creative modalities in your day-to-day, therapeutic communication and process.
- Make time for an intentional, playful and joyful process in your therapeutic offering and space; establishing connection and thoughtful affinities with clients, and colleagues, and your own creative intuition through an openness towards creative possibilities.
- Expand your professional offering and create with clients to elicit rapport and set intentions, establishing a nurturing space for exchanges that are not solely based on words (helpful for clients of different ages as well as those whose first language, or language of choice, is not English).
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- This workshop is designed for those in the helping professions—whether you work with individuals, couples, groups, or colleagues. It’s especially beneficial if you want to rekindle your own creative potential and have clients who would appreciate expressing themselves through visual, textual, or tactile methods.
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- Rekindle your creativity and engage your multiple communication tools, welcoming creative modalities in your day-to-day, therapeutic work and process, making time for a powerful and joyful process in your therapeutic offering and space.
ZOOM
This event will be hosted on the Zoom meeting platform where we will use our cameras and microphones to interact with each other as a group.
SELF-SELECT FEE
The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this event is £20.00, however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training.
___________________________
At Onlinevents, we and the presenters we collaborate with are committed to working in a way that aligns with the ethical codes and frameworks of our respective professional organisations. We expect all colleagues attending our events to uphold the ethical principles of their professional membership.
If you are not a member of a professional organisation, we ask that you participate in a way that is both authentic and respectful, fostering a space of mutual learning and professional engagement.
By registering for this event, you agree to be present and interact in a manner that reflects these principles.
Dr. Francesca Bernardi (CATA, FRSA)
Dr. Francesca Bernardi PhD is an independent researcher, MA supervisor, dis/ability advocate, coach, and community artist. She has a rich background in education and outreach, having worked as a teacher and artist-in-residence with children and adults in diverse settings, including schools, alternative provision, further education, museums, and public spaces like TATE and the RSA.org.
Francesca’s expertise is built on her training in Art & Design Education, Arts Administration, and Arts Therapies. She works internationally, co-creating arts-informed practices with marginalized communities and professionals in the helping fields. Her approach focuses on establishing non-hierarchical, critically participatory environments that foster creativity, civic engagement, and personal agency.
Her published research, found in books and journals (Bloomsbury, Routledge, Taylor and Francis), covers topics such as autism, arts-informed methodologies, childhood, and children’s rights. Recent collaborations include projects with the William Temple Foundation & Spaces of Hope, Queen’s University Belfast, and the University of Surrey with Leverhulme Trust (Queering Shelter).
Francesca is the Founding Chair of the Antonio Gramsci Society UK, an Editorial Board Member of Disability & Society, and a Board Member of the Disability Without Abuse Project – Los Angeles. Councillor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2013-2025) and an Associate Member of CATA (the Canadian Art Therapy Association).
Website | www.frabeart.carrd.co