This event is included in a series of seminars organised in collaboration with the Therapy and Social Change Network.
This facilitated space-sharing offers a unique opportunity to participate in giving time to our political and sociological consciousness. It is based on the assumption that, conscious or not, you can create change beyond the therapy room, through small gestures, attentiveness, and values-led ideas — rooted in kindness and justice. The community meeting is an opportunity to take stock of your values and ideas: preserving and equalising a “brave space”. This space can serve to elicit critical thinking and harmonise values with action. Rather than creating a set of rules, this space recognises the purpose of egalitarian practices for knowledge-sharing, emergences and co-production in three intentional moments: beginning, process and ending. Here, words, silences, pauses and attentive listening are all important and – together – restore and activate our individual and collective potential. The meeting is inspired by ideas and practices from Atavar (2016), Mycroft (2019), and Kline (2021). [Atavar, M. (2016). Better Magic. How to have creative ideas in 24 steps. Tonbridge: Kiosk Publishing. Kline, N. (2021). Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind. London: Octopus Publishing Group. Mycroft, L. (2019). A World in Miniature: the storytelling potential of research offcuts. Journal of Research in Postcompulsory Education. Vol. 24.]
Course Content
Organisation
Presenter
Francesca Bernardi is a writer, advocate, artist and creative coach. She trained in Arts Therapies and Art and Design education and has worked as a teacher and artist-in-residence in schools, Alternative Provision and Further Education. She most consistently engages in multi-disciplinary research, setting up creative environments for critical participatory work with marginalised communities.
Francesca volunteers as an international board member of the Disability Without Abuse Project (Los Angeles), is founding chair of the Antonio Gramsci Society UK, an elected Global Councillor of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Associate Member of CATA (Canadian Art Therapy Association).
Francesca is a Visiting Lecturer in Childhood Studies at Leeds Beckett University and Arts Therapies at the University of Roehampton.
The Therapy and Social Change (TaSC) Network is a broad affiliation of people interested in exploring the interface between therapeutic ideas and practices and social justice perspectives and actions. We are interested both in the ways that counselling and psychotherapy can be practiced with social justice concerns in mind (for instance, tackling unconscious biases in the consulting room), and also in the ways that therapeutic principles and practices can be extended out to the wider social realm (for instance, developing social and emotional literacy in schools).
