2015: stepping up and looking back

2015 is drawing to a close. The world continued to get warmer, the Conservatives won the General Election, the House of Commons authorised airstrikes over Syria, people the world over were killed at the hands of terrorists... It's been an internationally frightening time. Yet, important political campaigns also started, there were also lots of amazing books, films and songs written and made, sporting events I have no interest in happened and people won them, same-sex marriage became legal in the USA and the Republic of Ireland, and scientists made amazing discoveries, including the first new antibiotic in 30 years. And the 'future' also became the past with Back to the Future day. What a year!

So, what have I been up to?

I married the woman I love and we went on an amazing honeymoon to Canada. We got some really bad news. We got some really good news. I sat with someone whilst they slipped out of life. I 'MC-ed' a funeral. I discovered that the reason we keep not having hot water is that the boiler was plumbed in with the pipes the wrong way round. I've taken THOUSANDS of trains, buses and tubes. I've done lots of jobs (old and new). I've made new friends.

Here's what I've been doing in my working life (this can now act as a crib sheet for my wife when I test her on where I work!) - in no particular order:

• Turning Point - delivering their bi-weekly 'Creative Space' for service users on an Abstinence Day Programme, who are all in recovery from substance addiction. I also recently ran professional training for the staff team on how they could make their sessions more creative, which I'm hoping will be rolled out to other teams in the new year. I got one of my favourite pieces of feedback of the year from a participant at this service the other week who, when 'checking out' at the end of the session, said: "Kate, you don't step back, you step up. And that makes us step up too." Gave me the feels. My other fav feedback that day was: "I thought I was going to fucking hate it and I didn't." 
• Attic Theatre Company - running weekly Drama workshops for young migrants to help them learn English and make friends, as well as developing communication skills, team work, mutual respect and empathy. I also delivered a week's summer school (for the second year running) for children who are preparing for the move from primary to secondary school, where we designed Drama-based activities to support them with this transition (such as a giant, interactive game I made up loosely based on Snakes and Ladders).
• Fearless Futures - a new job I started in the summer, as a 'Trailblazer', I first worked on their summer school and then worked with a small group of ten 16yr old girls to discuss gender inequality (locally, nationally and internationally), develop their leadership skills, discuss their aspirations and inspire them to be social activists. It was really moving to read their feedback at the end, as one young woman wrote that she had been being bullied since starting at the school and our work together had given her the confidence to tell her teachers about it. So definitely worth the early starts and three hour round trip to the school! 
  
• Equilibrium - facilitating a weekly group at Clarendon Recovery College with mental health service users, supporting them to produce a quarterly online magazine about wellbeing, with the help of our amazing graphic designer, Anthony. Check out our latest issue.
• 3FF - facilitating interfaith workshops in schools for their education team, including 'The Art of Asking', 'The Art of Empathy', and 'Encountering Faiths and Beliefs', where I facilitate the dialogue between our guest speakers and students; for example we might go into, say, a Catholic school and take a Muslim, an Atheist and a Buddhist speaker, and the students get to ask them questions about their beliefs (I love those sessions).
• Family Lives - continuing to work on their TeenBoundaries project, delivering Sex and Relationship Education in secondary schools - particularly focusing on sexual bullying, self-esteem, consent, sexting, porn, and healthy relationships.
• Future Creative - another new job, delivering Drama-based workshops, which has already taken me as far as Lincoln, to run a day of workshops on immigration, and Birmingham, for a Roald Dahl day.
• Inner Drive - another new one (one can't have too many zero hours contracts), running education workshops drawing on neuroscience to teach young people life-skills.
• 

  St Albans Arts - continuing to deliver Creative Writing workshops in St Albans. The project I'd started in 2014, first working with Mind in Mid Herts and The Living Room, then Albany Lodge (an inpatient psychiatric hospital, which proved a logistically challenging context to work in), culminated in May 2015 with the publication of an anthology of their work, Tell Me on a Monday. Then for the next phase of the project, I delivered 'Write it Out': workshops for people with/supporting people with Parkinsons, in partnership with Parkinsons UK (who are funding me to come back and work with them again in the new year - yay). I also presented at Creative Hertfordshire's 'Art of Wellbeing' conference and did some group writing with the delegates. I'm now really looking forward to working on an Arts on Prescription project in partnership with Trestle Theatre Company in the new year.
• The Living Room - after delivering Creative Writing workshops there funded by St Albans Arts, I was really pleased to be invited back for two sets of eight more sessions with the service users, all in recovery from various addictions. It's been really interesting working with people whose addictions aren't only substance-based, and has really made me reflect on my practice.
• Coopers Hill - I've been doing some consultancy in the form of Creative Direction and Partnership Strategy for the lovely Peter Rabbett, supporting the evolution of a new centre for Creative, Digital and Performing Arts at Coopers Hill in Bracknell. It also meant I got to meet one of my educational heroes, Sir Ken Robinson, at the Festival of Education.

  

  Me and my "new best friend", Sir Ken

• I've done a few more bits and pieces for the Southbank Centre, including running a two-day workshop for the Festival of Love, in the place of Jodi Ann Bickley (who was unwell), called 'one million lovely letters'. This is a project designed to send 'a hug in an envelope' for anyone who needs one, and so I spent a couple of days helping people write and decorate letters to strangers, old and young, near and far, who might need to know someone out there cares. 
  
  I also came back for a second year to do some early morning 'speed mentoring' in the London Eye for their International Day of the Girl celebrations, which was again a complete privilege. Watching the sunrise over London, whilst talking to young woman about their ambitions, worries and dreams, might be one of the very best ways to start the day. 
  
• Another little, but very moving, work-thing I did earlier this year was for Jennifer Lunn at Culturcated Theatre Company, when I spent the day at Evelina Children's Hospital with three other actors, performing stories the children on the ward had written to them at their bedsides. I got to be a giant bubble floating through the sky, a robot warrior, a naughty cactus, an Elven King, and plenty of other bizarre and amazing characters. It was such a wonderful and inspiring day; I really hope I can go back sometime and do it again. 
• In May, I made a brief appearance on CBBC's 'Vote for Me', a programme designed to engage children in democratic processes. I was doing a Shakespeare assembly in a primary school in Lewisham. I had a wooden sword. Next stop, fulfilling a life-long dream of being on Jackanory??

So, that was all the paid stuff (I think; I may have forgotten something). As a volunteer, I also did:

Talking to Yr6s in Lewisham about my wife

• Diversity Role Models - I've been volunteering as a 'Role Model' with DRM for four years now. They're such an inspirational charity, working tirelessly to prevent homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools. I've only volunteered in secondary schools in the past, but a few weeks ago was invited into a primary school to talk to the young people about being bisexual and my recent marriage, which was super fun and the children asked such brilliant and interesting questions.

One Yr6 child's promise after the workshop

Feedback from another Yr6 child

• Action Breaks Silence - this is such an amazing charity, working internationally to combat and prevent sexual and gender-based violence. I supported them in the development of their new programme for 7-11 year old boys, designed to build empathy and prevent abusive or violent behaviour in the future. Like them on Facebook if you want to watch the most AWESOME videos of small girls being empowered to kick the shit out of violent attackers!
• I helped make a Fun Palace in Streatham (and you should all make one where you live too next year!)
• Female Arts - continued as a reviewer for an online magazine focusing on female creatives
• Women's Equality Party - I started off as a volunteer Branch Maker (helping set up local branches across the UK) for this new and exciting political party, whose ambition of bringing gender equality to the mainstream political agenda is, I believe, hugely important and well overdue.  I spoke at the Youth Branches' first meeting (you can listen to it on Soundcloud) and am now supporting their education outreach group. I'm also planning on putting myself forward as a candidate for the GLA elections. Watch this space!

I think that's everything!! In other work-related news, I'm currently applying for funding for a PhD, and I'm also co-editing a book with Annie McKean (to be published next year) on the work of Playing for Time Theatre Company in HMP Winchester. I think January is going to be pretty full on.

The new year can be a good time to look back and reflect, as well as look forward and plan (as long as we haven't eaten too much cheese, spent too much time with family, and slip into a 'what am I doing with my life' panic!). Parts of this year have been truly amazing and other parts have been genuinely devastating; we never know what life is about to throw at us (sorry if I'm starting to sound like a motivational fridge-magnet) - so I only hope 2016 brings us some luck, a bit more money (being a grown up can be shit), and I keep getting the chance to work with amazing people in inspirational places. I'm going to keep stepping up...

Foxes and Feminism

I was brought up by parents who were (and still are) feminists. They taught us that no-one should be limited by their gender (or class, or race, or disability status, or sexuality, or all those other tick boxes you see on forms) but that, world over, they are. We were dressed in gender-neutral colours, we cooked, we gardened, we climbed trees, played football, played with Sylvanians... We wore clothes that were handed down from my sister, our baby-sitters, the boy down the road, the girl across the field - they were just clothes (I mostly favoured a heady combination of orange leggings and a lime green t-shirt). 

When I cut my hair short with the kitchen scissors behind the sofa, my dad neatened it up and I chose never to grow it long again. When I was seven, I decided I didn't want to wear a skirt or dress to school, so they bought me some trousers and shorts. I was the first girl at my primary school ever to wear trousers; people teased me but I didn't care. A couple of years later, a few more girls were wearing trousers. I bet if I went back now any girl who wanted to would be wearing them without question. What can I say? I'm a trend-setter. 

I went into a primary school in London quite recently and asked the pupils to divide the list of jobs I gave them into 'Jobs for Boys' and 'Jobs for Girls'. I felt like I had been transported back to the 1950s when they wrote:

BOYS

Farmer

Doctor

Lawyer

GIRLS

Nurse

Beautician

Receptionist

In a secondary school the other day, we discussed what words girls who are perceived to be sexually active get called. They said:

Slut

Sket

Whore

Hoe

Slapper

Slag

Thot

[700 more....]

I probably get new ones every month. Then I asked them what boys get called:

Player

Legend

Man-whore, man-sket, man-slut...

One of the girls looked at me and suddenly her pupils went big and she just said: "But that's not FAIR!" I looked back at her: "Of course it's not". And then I taught them the term 'double-standard' and we talked about why it might be there and how we could try and get rid of it.

What can I say? I think (I hope), I'm making my parents proud. Certainly my Dad's eyes went equally big when we had a conversation recently about to what extent gender was essential or socially constructed; he had a light-bulb flash the next morning and turned to me over breakfast and said: "I could wear a nice dress if I hadn't been socialised not to". Yes, Daddy, yes, you could.

A couple of weeks ago I got married. I heard afterwards that my mum had gone around telling the guests it was a 'feminist wedding'. Was it? I don't know - I'm not sure what the criteria would be. It was an excellent wedding. It was excellent because I got to marry the person I'm in love with. The WOMAN I'm in love with. And because it didn't cost too much, the food was great, we made it ourselves, people danced The Snake like children and sang 'She'll be coming round the mountain', getting sweaty and kicking off their shoes. We used, ignored, altered and borrowed traditions, based on if we liked them (no-one 'gave us away' *shudder* and our mums walked us down the aisle, but my father still gave a speech because he's ace at speeches). It was excellent because everyone there got to bear witness to our love and commitment to each other and to celebrate it with us. And because my beautiful wife made a speech about same sex marriage which made half the room cry (men and women), and we toasted Equal Love and sent our hopes and our love across the world to those who aren't as lucky as us and are punished for 'doing nothing more radical than loving each other' (as Gem said over the noise of tissues being madly scrabbled for). 

Posers.

Laura Bates, of Everyday Sexism Project fame, wrote in her article 'How to have a feminist wedding' in the Guardian last year: 'Until I told my friends I was getting married, I didn't know marriage and feminism could be considered mutually exclusive'. Marriage has been branded an out-of-date, patriarchal institution (cue comments about property, chattel etc), and although when I was little I used to design wedding dresses with a particularly artistic babysitter, I'm not sure if I ever thought I'd wear one. A friend of mine recently said, "I don't know why anyone bothers getting married any more. Unless it's a right that's previously been denied to them." Could I use this as a handy Get Out of Feminist Jail Free card? Should I need to?

For me, equality is about opportunity and choice, having the right to choose. Cool if I don't want to get married, but if I want to then why should my genetically identical twin be allowed to marry her boyfriend if I'm not allowed to marry my girlfriend? And people might say we're 'aping' heterosexuals (I found Straight Expectations a really grating read), but a) there's nothing like a really animalistic term to degrade someone, and b) why should commitment be considered 'heterosexual' anyway? Equality is partly the right to legal recognition, and although that might not sound sexy, I like that my wife and I are now legally family.

Growing up, my mother always said, on the topic of changing your name: "It's one man's name or another". She'd changed her name when she married, no biggie, no desperate attachment. Yet over the years her views have changed and she has now begun expressing her disappointment at any of her daughters changing their names upon marrying. I think my view has secretly always been more based in vanity than politics and I'd always thought I'd just go with the better name. Massey-Chase isn't super hard to beat (although some people have, in recent years, bizarrely expressed their love of it, when I was younger it was a bit of a yoke/joke). My mum also hadn't anticipated our rather unique situation. It's not one man's name or another. My wife, Gem, doesn't have her dad's surname. Or her maternal grandfather's. Her dad is a massive shit, so she changed it a few years ago to a name of her own choosing. And who doesn't like Fox(es)? I don't know whether I would have changed it or not if this wasn't the case. I quite like Massey-Chase now. As a freelancer, generating and collecting my own work, it is also my currency, my reputation. So - solution: I'm using both. 

I am Kate Massey-Chase for work.

I am Kate Fox at home. For me, Gem and the extended skulk. And, hopefully, one day we will have fox cubs and we will all share our own, chosen, name as a family.

So, yes: I am a feminist fox. 

It's amazing what you can find in google images...

Volunteering with Diversity Role Models

With the next issue of Equilibrium about to come out, here's another one of my articles for it, to whet your appetite!

Volunteering with Diversity Role Models

I first discovered how volunteering could warm your soul in 2007 when I spent a good portion of my week at the Oxfam Bookshop in Winchester, whilst trying to sort my life, health and head out a bit. And it genuinely made a massive impact on me; I felt honoured to be giving my time for free there. It wasn’t completely selfless; in that little bookshop on the aptly named Parchment Street, I made friends, found a sense of purpose, and co-invented our Sunday game: Shop Cricket (and got ‘caught out by Proust’ for the first time).

Now I’m living in London, freelancing my arse off to pay my rent (doing a job I love, though, so can’t complain too loudly) and working for free is something I hoped was consigned to my student days. But volunteering and working for free are two different things: one a social problem of glass ceilings and a devalued sector, and the other an act of giving to a society you want to be an active part of. So when I heard about Diversity Role Models, I knew I wanted to volunteer as a Role Model (hard to say without following the term with some kind of witty, self-deprecating remark, but I’ll resist).    

Set up in 2011, Diversity Role Models is a charity that helps schools to eradicate homophobic bullying and provide an inclusive and safe environment for their LGBT students and families. Through high-quality, interactive workshops involving role models and discussions that allow young people to explore their views and understand difference, DRM hopes to tackle the prejudice that leads to homophobic bullying. ‘I firmly believe that by providing role models for LGBT young people, we can have a positive effect on the negative statistics’, says Suran Dickson, CEO and founder of the organisation, who was prompted to start the charity after witnessing the impact homophobic bullying had in the schools she worked in. And the statistics are shocking: LGBT youth are six times more likely to commit suicide and two thirds of them suffer bullying at school. Furthermore, as they say on their website:

            …it's not just LGBT young people. Straight students are terrified of being called 'gay'.   Girls drop out of sport and boys hide artistic talent to conform to gender roles and avoid being labelled gay or lesbian.

Anyone who’s been into a school recently will know that this is an issue that affects the wellbeing of all young people, whether implicitly or explicitly.

Since its conception, DRM has delivered their workshops to over 5,000 pupils and the results speak for themselves. Over 90% of young people indicated that they would treat LGBT people better and use the word ‘gay’ as a derogatory term less in the future. Teachers and pupils that have attended the workshops have seen a significant shift in attitudes and behaviour in their schools and would urge other schools to seek their help. ‘Fabulous - should be part of the national curriculum! This workshop should be offered to all year groups', enthused one teacher who attended a recent workshop. I know I agree. I am proud to be a Diversity Role Model. The biggest payment is knowing that you’re making a difference. 

The next academic year will see DRM delivering workshops across the country, as well as continuing to work across the capital. For more information on the workshops and to enquire about booking, contact info@diversityrolemodels.org

Feedback

Everyone needs a little confidence boost sometimes. I certainly needed one this week - not due to work, just life-stress. And this fitted the bill perfectly:

I come for the educating, I stay for the compliments!

These general feelings of self-worth were also aided by the fact that two of my recovering addicts group on Monday skipped their one-to-ones to come to my session, feeling it would be more beneficial. I love my sessions at CRI (Crime Reduction Initiatives) - the adults in recovery are so insightful; I learn so much from them, and always appreciate their honesty, humour and integrity. I also laugh so much at some of their stories. And when they finish a session by saying:

 'I didn't want to come today, cos I thought it was going to be shit and not for me, but actually...it was alright, y'know'

 'This is the first time I've made eye contact with anyone in the group and I've been here two weeks'

 'I haven't laughed this much in ages; it's great just to be a kid again, or maybe for the first time, cos I never got to be a kid much when I was one'

 or

 'I'm going to play this game with my little boy on his next visit - I think he'd like it'

there is no feeling like it. What can I say, I'm a junkie for this shit. I need it. I love it. I want more. So I keep doing my workshops, and yes, sometimes people walk out or don't turn up, but when they do, my god they can astound me. 

Equilibrium

Check out my first article for Equilibrium Magazine for Wellbeing on EPIDEMIC, a piece of community theatre by Old Vic New Voices:

http://issuu.com/antz333/docs/equilibrium_magazine?mode=window&viewMode=doublePage

Turn to page 18!

Or, alternatively, you can read it by going to:

http://www.equilibriummag.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/epidemic-piece-of-community-theatre.html

'I salute your wrangling of the sex mad future of this country', or: What do you do for a living?

So, what do you do for a living? The ultimate dinner party question. One which I imagine one in five of the under 25 year olds of this country dread being asked. Let's not be so snobbish as to assume that just because they are unemployed they don't go to dinner parties. Or perhaps they're asked it over the sticky plastic table top of Maccy-D. Or it's shouted over the vibrations of heavy synth. Whichever. Stuck in the neo-libralist spiral of the free-market and omnipresent media, where worth is measured by economic contribution and the stock-piling of possessions (if you'll excuse my ranty lefty rhetoric), many adults (and thus god help the 'young adult') feel that they are defined by their job. Don't have a job, enjoy a liminal identity and the pity or judgement of the questioner. Miss Fox wrote a little bit about this a while ago; as she said: I read an interesting article in Stylist magazine about how people who lose their jobs can feel like they’ve lost their identity. That’s sort of how I’m feeling – almost like a non-person. My generation was told that we could do or have anything if we worked hard enough for it, and now, of course, there are many of us in the situation where we have put in the time and effort, and taken on huge debts, only to find out that we’ve been rather misled. Or fucked-in-the-ear, as I prefer. 

As Paul Mason puts it: 'the human expression of a broken economic model'. No wonder the Common People feel Gideon wants to make 'an unemployment figure of you!'

'I'm a Thatcherite; I'm out of control!' 

Ooops, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent again. Tangents are one of my favourite things, as you may have spotted. And parentheses. And puns. I'm a good-time-girl, what can I say?

Anyway, back to the opener - the uber-key question: WHAT DO YOU DO? Recently when people have asked me this, I have found myself making a quick decision regarding whether they a) actually want to know, b) might be remotely interested, and c) I can be bothered to explain (and since I love talking about my work, 'c' is time-related practicality rather than an apathy issue). The real question is: Do I just say, 'Drama teacher'? I do, sometimes. It's not a lie; I am a Drama teacher. I just have about nine other jobs too. So, I've experimented a bit.... My most common - and reasonably thorough - is: 'I teach Drama and creative writing to hard-to-reach community groups, and also do sort-of PSHE-ish education stuff, about health and sex and that, in schools'. The 2012 version of my standard, 'in prisons and shit' of 2010 whenever I was trying to explain what I was doing with my life and my degree. 

My 'PSHE-ish' repertoire (Personal, Social, Health Education, for those of you who have avoided schools ever since you legally could) has expanded recently, as I have delivered my first sessions for Cragrats and Family Lives. Enterprise education in Sutton Coldfield (with a delightful night at the North Birmingham Premier Inn and many hours worth of a car full of actors in their late 20s singing 80's power ballads) with the former, and South Croydon far too early in the morning, with a room full of 12 year olds discussing sexting with the latter. Leading a friend to grace me with the compliment found in the title of this post. 

I'm glad it's the weekend, to tell the truth. And that rarely happens (pop psychology explanation of my historic fear of weekends must be saved for another occasion - I need my beauty sleep now). But it turns out freelancing my arse off round London can be bloody tiring. Especially when it involves throwing juggling balls at drug addicts, telling teenage boys how smoking will effect their erections, and pretending to be a penguin with young refugees. What do you do??! Ummm... I'm a Drama teacher...sort of....

3FF 15th Anniversary

BBC report on the Three Faith Forum's (3FF's) 15th anniversary:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01jqb8h

Start listening at 07.17 to hear a bot more about what one of the organisations I work for does in schools, including a little bit from Andrew Cobson, chief exec of the British Humanist Association, who reinforces how important it is to be fully inclusive of people with non-religious beliefs in interfaith dialogue (and how well 3FF does this).

Enjoy!

Oh, and here's me on the day, with the BEST class I think I've ever taught for the 3FF - they were so good! And one boy (HILARIOUS) was obviously secretly trying to out-do another boy in the class by using long words and echoing some of my speech patterns, to try and look clever, and he said: 'I find her talk very voluptuous'. I have no idea what he was trying to say, but it was TOO FUNNY. 'Gifted and talented' and precocious, apparently... Voluptuous. He wasn't even trying to be sexually intimidating (which I did experience in a different boys Catholic school). The teacher and I had a private giggle at the end of the class.  Mrs Malaprop o'clock.

Continuing my education...#2

It feels like a long time since my November post where I quietly lamented the end of my full-time education. Well, I suppose it actually feels like about seven months. Approximately. Despite June currently disguising itself as March.

Paulo Friere - Brazilian educator and theorist 

I can, however, sleep a little easy in the knowledge (knowledge, yay KNOWLEDGE!) that I have done some educationing; for work I've obviously done some educating - when I have been the educator - but I have also been the educatee, engaging in learning of my own. Now, I'm with Paulo Friere on not being a passive vessel and all that (which makes a link to his wikipedia page have a beautiful sort of irony, dontcha think?), but sometimes passive is about all I can muster. Particularly after a hard day of throwing juggling balls at drug addicts. So, please forgive me if I admit I've been doing some knowledge-receiving on my back. No, that is not any form of sexual allusion. The beast with two backs can stay well out of it. No, no, no.

F.M. Alexander

Basically, I have been learning the Alexander Technique a bit recently, and have thus been doing some lying down homework, where I let my spine chillax. Anyway, apparently the spine takes 17 minutes to properly elongate and spread out and stuff (you can tell I'm quite the scientist, can't you?), SO I've seen this as a splendid opportunity to use the time to expand my spine AND my horizons. I have thus been trying to listen to one TED talk a day, during this time. Now, if you're not familiar with the fucking brilliance that are TED talks, TED (technology, entertainment, design) is a nonprofit devoted to 'Ideas Worth Spreading', and basically consists of all manner of people giving short lectures on all manner of things (a bit like the School of Life, who do wicked sermons - and which is also brilliant and should be checked out if your world has not yet been improved by it). TED do two conferences a year, which are uber expensive to attend; however the best of the lectures are then broadcast online for the world to see. They describe themselves thus:

TED is best thought of as a global community. It's a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.

Yesterday, whilst I was doing the washing up (a ridiculous task in itself, as our kitchen sink has been broken for about two months - but you don't want to hear all about that; you are best kept out of my silent, inexorable rage against our landlady), I listened to Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?  It's not my favourite TED talk so far, but it does fit in very, very nicely with the theme of the article I recently wrote on story and well-being/identity (see 'Once upon a Friday'). So here's a bit of Baggini for you. And I urge you to check out some more of the TED talks. You'll well impress people at dinner parties....

She works hard for the money

I work hard for the money....If only I had more...(don't worry I'm not begging your sympathy, donations and food parcels. Although I'm a polite young lady and would never turn them away. Please email for my address.)  

However, mumble-grumbling aside, I am feeling very lucky at the moment regarding work (amount of and quality of), and am still slightly reeling over my good fortune to be working with the groups and colleagues that I do.

'Who are they all?' I hear you ask, with an expression as eager as....my face looks a lot of the time. I'm a very eager person. Well, I shall reply by giving you The Break-Down. I tested my Dad on all my 8 (or something) jobs recently and he did pretty well, considering I can only remember all of them if I use my fingers. Don't worry, I won't be testing you, dear reader (to go a bit Charlotte Bronte), with some bizarre interactive blog-post version of Kim's Game. Although I would if I had the technical prowess.

So, in no particular order, these are Kate's jobs, clearly listed for your perusal:

Attic Theatre Company - jointly running weekly Drama workshops as part of Many Voices, one of Attic's outreach projects, working with young refugees/unaccompanied minors.

Crime Reduction Initiatives (C.R.I.) Abstinence and Aftercare, Munster Road - Creative writing and Drama, each once a month, working with men and women who are at different stages of recovery from substance misuse.


CoolTan Arts - Poetry Tutor for women who experience mental distress, for a community arts organisation who believe mental well-being is enhanced by the power of creativity.

Prendergast Vale College - Yr. 7 Drama teacher at a new comprehensive, co-ed. school in Lewisham, teaching a weekly Drama class.

Three Faiths Forum - inter-faith/inter-cultural facilitation in schools, both Drama-based for their School Linking programme, and as a facilitator for their Education team, delivering workshops/presentations in schools.

QUIT - Youth Presenter/Advisor for Quit Because, their youth programme, delivering smoking awareness workshops in schools and other youth settings.

Teen Boundaries, part of Family Lives - Outreach Worker, running workshops about sexualised bullying, sexual violence, the objectification of different genders, and other important issues like that. This is a new job I will be starting after Easter and I'm really excited, as I strongly believe that sex education in schools needs to develop its focus on emotional education and the complexities of sexual relationships (with any gender).

Diversity Role Models - 'Role Model'/speaker for DRM, working in schools to combat homophobic bullying by presenting 'real life' people to talk to them, of a spectrum of sexual identities. I've written about them on here a couple of times, so scroll to earlier blog posts if you are interested.

Ummm.... Is that it? Have I forgotten any? I'm on Cragrat's books as a freelancer, but haven't had any work yet. Oooh, and I'm sort of setting up a theatre company with my good friend Madelaine, but more on that soon (suspense, suspense)...


*I should put a little disclaimer to say that the title of this post is only referencing the fact that I'm working pretty damn hard, rather than any allusion to prostitution (haven't had to go down that road yet) which the song always seems to suggest to me.

At the end of the day...it was NOT miserable

Too many blog posts to write, too little time... I keep thinking of things I want to write about (and even vaguely composing them in my head on the tube), but so few of them seem to happen; my life has been pretty mental recently - lots of new things to relate on here job-wise...I should probably write a blog post about them!

But I really do want to mention my exciting day last Sunday (not updating chronologically, but hey, as my students would say: 'And what?').

I think it will take me a very long time to forget Sunday 11th March 2012. Firstly, I got to spend a beautiful day on the wonderful Annie McKean's narrow boat (she even let me drive a little bit!), with friends and family, on a gorgeous spring day. The kind where, as Philip Larkin would say, 'The trees are coming into leaf/ Like something almost being said'. THEN we went to HMP Erlstoke to see Les Miserable, a Pimlico Opera production, with professionals and prisoners.

It was seeing West Side Story by Pimlico Opera in HMP Winchester, when I was 14 years old, that triggered the epiphany moment where I realised what I wanted to do with my life. As the men stood there singing:

There's a place for us

Somewhere a place for us

Peace and quiet and open air

Wait for us 

Somewhere.

There's a time for us

Somewhere a time for us

Time together with time spare

Time to learn, time to care

Some day!

 ...etc!

I remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck; feeling shocked and sad and proud and filled with hope. I thought: the arts AND social justice - my two favourite things!

HMP Erlstoke

Skip forward ten years and I'm queuing to get into another prison (my fifth?) and I'm thinking: Les Mis AND Prison Theatre - my two favourite things! (Nearly - please forgive my rhetorical flourishes, Miss Fox, cheesecake and my family). I do have a particular attachment to Les Mis, not just because I love the music and I have strong memories of choreographing dances to 'At the End of the Day' with my sisters in our living room when I was little, but also because over last summer while I was writing my thesis and permanently had my head in a library, whenever I was feeling despairing or uninspired or angry with the librarians using 'Outdoor Voices' (I thought I was going to commit librarianicide), I used to plug my headphones in and listen to songs from the soundtrack on Youtube until I felt ready to work again. Many a day spent sitting in the sticky heat, staring at piles of pointless paper and listening to 'One Day More' VERY loudly....

Anyway, this isn't just a little Les Mis memory fest. No, no, no. I really want to talk about what went on inside HMP Erlstoke that beautiful spring evening, how powerful, affecting and inspiring it was.  As I said, I've seen a number of Pimlico productions before. They have a very different methodology to the other Prison Theatre companies I've worked with, namely Playing for Time and Clean Break, although I won't go into an in-depth discussion of the pros and cons of each now; you'll have to take me for a coffee (and a brownie, the brownie is obligatory) to hear my detailed analysis of the prisoner experience, the aesthetic merits and the complexities of process Vs product, if you want to get my fuller views on the subject. But I will just say that this year I was really pleased to see the prisoners were more integral to and integrated into the final production, with only the women and Jean Valjean and Javert played by professionals. The prisoners playing Marius, Gavroche and Thenardier stood out as particularly excellent. It was such a good choice of musical, as well, as there are obviously themes of justice, culpability and redemption throughout. Think: 'Look down/ Look down/ They've all forgotten you', 'Drink with me to days gone by/ To the life that used to be' and, evocatively, 'Who am I?'

Who were they?   Actors.       Artists.         Brave.

Les Mis in HMP Erlstoke - image from Pimlico Opera website

Losing my Diversity Role Models virginity

On Tuesday morning earlier this week, I volunteered for the first time for Diversity Role Models, a charity which I wrote about in an earlier blog post which aims to combat homophobic bullying in schools. I practised my little talk on the doddery Metropolitan line up to the school in Harrow that morning, and had made an effort to look quite feminine - both because I feel a bit more confident in schools sometimes with a bit of make-up on, and also because (with my particularly short hair at the moment) I wanted to try and counter any obvious (butch) stereotypes that the young people might have regarding what a 'lesbian' (or bisexual, or a woman who is in a relationship with another woman) looks like. I had decided to talk a bit about having a 'straight' identical twin, as in the training we had discussed how that might be a good discussion  point and something that the young people found interesting. Generally, it seems that our over-riding message was, 'Hey, we're just people, and being L, G, B, or T isn't the most interesting thing about us'. We might feel it is a huge part of our identity, we might not; we might think a label defines us, we might not. Most of all, it's just about who we love - and does that really need to provoke hate, abuse or fear?

It was an amazing morning and I was really impressed by the honest and self-awareness of the students (aged 12-13). Many students wrote on their feedback forms that the thing they had enjoyed the most was the refreshing honesty from adults, who were prepared to talk openly and confidently about their sexuality and answer their questions, and some wrote that their favourite thing was meeting a real life gay person for the first time. One student even wrote on his feedback sheet that the thing s/he enjoyed least was 'realising how much I use the word gay and feeling embarrassed and ashamed about it, as know it is offensive' - how honest and self-aware! And others wrote that the thing they enjoyed least was 'hearing about the boy Dominic who killed himself as it made me sad and angry'. It was interesting and moving reading them back, and confirmed to me how frighteningly important DRM's mission is.

I left feeling inspired. Buzzing. Full of thoughts and questions, ideas and emotions. I can't wait to go in again.


Post-script
Couple of other DRM things:
Check out this video on youtube by the L Project: It Gets Better, aiming to help raise awareness and monies for charities (including DRM) which work to prevent LGBT bullying among young people

Also go visit the Diversity Role Models' blog (I would particularly recommend the entry 'To Gay or Not to Gay?') and also the article on the Observer the other week about homophobic bullying and Dominic Crouch.

This is England...

He pointed out at the boys playing football on the school sports pitch in the drizzle.

'This is very nice.'

I assumed that since he had only been learning English for three and a half months, he probably hadn't mastered sarcasm yet.

'Ummm.... Yes...?'

'England is very nice. No trouble. This....' - he gestured around him - '...very...quiet. No boom boom boom.' He made an internationally recognised hand signal.

'Gun fire?'

'Yes. I like England.'

At the end of the workshop he came up and shook my hand.

'I am very looking forward to next week, for Drama. I see you next week.'

'Yes. I'm looking forward to it too.'

And I am. Although there is a bit of trouble at the school, at the moment, and the young refugee boys are being targeted and victimised by some of the other students at the school, to such an extent that one of them had to be escorted home for his safety, and we had to end our workshop early so we could escort them back to the area of the school where they study until they are ready for timetabled classes, before lunch break so they were safe.

It makes me sad.

It's also interesting that these boys, who have arrived here from all across the world (predominantly Afghanistan, but also Poland, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, Romania, Pakistan, Albania....) start off so, so polite and respectful; they are, I think - and they do articulate this, best they can - so grateful to be here, to be safe and to be studying in a British school. But then, as they become more confident,and more importantly I think, as they see the behaviour of the students in the school around them - much less respectful and polite, feeling far less privileged to be getting an education - they start to emulate the attitude of the British boys. Picking up on their walks, their language, their ways of interacting. One of the teachers in the 'Link', where the young migrants study until they are ready to be thrust into the mainstream, said, with a sad sigh, they become 'British-ified'. He said, 'We want them to integrate, just not too much!'

Working in all the different contexts and community groups that I do has so many benefits and one of these is just gaining insights into different worlds I wouldn't normally enter; it raises so many issues: social, political, cultural, personal... It sounds a bit trite to summarise it like this, but it makes me think a lot. Miss Fox was right: my education is continuing all the time.

Diversity Role Models

At the end of conferences I am known to surreptitiously secrete the left-over teabags about my person. Or the occasional carton of orange juice. It's the way I roll. Intellectual stimulation, perhaps new networks created and friends made, and one of my 5-a-day for the rest of the week - who could ask for more? But a training event I attended last night truly surpassed all others, as I left with a bulging bag stuffed to the brim with left-overs: a bottle of wine, soft drinks, and a (Blue Peter-esque) tin foil tray, artfully folded to contain samosas, rice, pitta bread and fancy salads. The catering had been generously sponsored (as had the rather nice venue in Red Lion Square) by law firm Mishcon de Reya - so I'll raise a glass to them. I'm currently tucking into a stuffed vine-leaf as we speak (I type).

However - believe it or not - it was not the culinary delights of last night (and lunch time today) that inspired me to write this post. Far from it. Instead, I really wanted to say a little bit about Diversity Role Models, who were running the training.

DRM's mission is to combat homophobic bullying in schools by educating young people about differences in sexuality and gender identity. Their method is to communicate with students directly, using positive role models to counter negative stereotypes and educate young people about diversity. Last night I was training to be one of those role models. It feels a bit strange to say that, to be actively putting myself forward as a role model; I'm sure if many parents saw the messy state of my bedroom (I will get tidier, I promise) they'd baulk at the idea of me as a perfect role model. But at DMR we were assured that we're not set up as aspirational emblems; we do not need to be 'successful, attractive or brilliant', indeed if we all were I guess we'd fail at representing diversity. The point is that we are real people, who represent a broad spectrum of sexual identities (in fact, in my opinion, each and every person represents a different sexual identity, as how can such an intrinsic and personal thing be anything other than unique), and are happy to talk to young people about what it means to be L, G, B, T, straight, queer, or however we self-identify.

It was such an inspirational evening. And I don't say that lightly. I feel so, so passionately about this agenda: about tackling homophobia, prejudice, fear and intolerance. At a time where LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) young people are three times more likely to attempt suicide and two thirds of them suffer bullying at school, how is this not important?

The event was really thought-provoking as well. It made me cast a retrospective eye over my time at school: Had people come out? (only one in my year, and it didn't end well) What were the prevailing attitudes to homosexuality? (I did a survey for my Sociology coursework at sixth form on this topic and was surprised to find so many 'It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve' attitudes, in what I thought was quite a liberal area) What about casual homophobia embedded into everyday language? ('That's so gay', 'Don't be so gay!', 'Urghh, they should be re-named GAY Levels!' Poor excuse for a pun. Gay, gay, gay - you hear it everywhere, and not in the sense my grandma still uses it. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was about 11 and being quite upset. When did this become acceptable?). And what about LGBT role models? Sparse would be an under-statement. Some of the others there were quite shocked by my revelation that I know basically no gay women (with the obvious exception of my beautiful girlfriend, the fabulous Miss Fox!), and certainly no Older Wiser Lesbians (OWLs - a term Gem introduced me to a while back). We need diverse role models. Young people need to know that 'gay' isn't just an insult and doesn't just mean one type of person.

Any excuse for a picture of an owl...

Listening to the other role models there to be trained, and the stories they told, I felt privileged to be party to their honesty, humour and insight.


So, a little plug: if, like me, you think this is an important issue, check out the Diversity Role Models website, or even visit their charities trust page.

Gosh, I feel all impassioned and stuff... Maybe I should use the excess energy to go and tidy my room. Or fervently apply for jobs I don't really want and would be paid tuppence for.... Maybe I'll just have another samosa and quietly reflect on the state of the world.  
   

What is a 'cragrat' anyway?

So, the most recent edition to my 'freelance portfolio' (gosh, I do sound grown up, don't I? Well, I did turn 24 this week) is with Cragrats, who offered me a job last week.

Cragrats 'specialises in the design and delivery of high-impact experiential learning programmes', and I will be working as one of their tutors, going into schools to deliver Enterprise Education days. I had my training session this afternoon, and am now really looking forward to my first booking in a school.

And I discovered that a cragrat is someone who climbs mountains. So I've developed my vocabulary as well; I do like learning new words. Like 'apodyopsis' - the act of mentally undressing someone. Which I neither did nor learnt at my training today, but do think it is a rather lovely word.

You learn something new...

Creative Approaches to Well-Being - continuing my education in the big wide world

Last week was a bit of a mile-stone for me, as I went to collect my MA results. Although being very pleased with my fancy bit of paper which said I had got a distinction - and being amused that the woman on reception who made my alumni card put that my qualification was in 'MA Applied Theatre (Drama in the cumminty)' [fail!] - it was also a slightly sad moment, as I realised that (for now) I had reached the end of my full-time education. Moping about this to the beautiful Miss Fox, she helpfully reminded me that it marked the end of my formal education, but that I would always keep learning, keep the curiosity burning,* and continue to educate myself, out in the big wide world....

Now, a week has passed and I have been fortunate enough to have already had the opportunity to immerse myself in new ideas and information, new debates, and exciting new practice, as I was able to attend a two-day conference on 'Creative Approaches to Well-Being' entitled: Play's the Thing. Hosted by Escape Artists, this was a stimulating and creative couple of days of workshops, talks and panel debates, all exploring the topic of well-being and the contribution of creative practice and research.

I was able to attend this conference (despite my relative poverty) because I won a free pass after coming second in their 'Speed talk' competition, where they offered the opportunity to pitch an idea for a 5 minute talk, and those voted as most popular would be able to both deliver their short presentation and attend the rest of the conference. My talk was, quite predictably, on the topic of my MA thesis: the use of Drama to build the personal and social skills of young people in the transition between child & adolescent and adult mental health services. Definitely fitted the theme of creativity and well-being, but I think I under-estimated the challenge of condensing my 12,000-odd word thesis into a coherent 5 minute speech...

For me, highlights of the conference were:
 - Prof. Felicia Huppert's erudite keynote speech on well-being on an international and personal scale, including where the UK sits in the levels of well-being across Europe (not so good, we should definitely start looking to Denmark for tips! If nothing else they produced lego, The Killing and Sandi Toksvig...) and how positive mental states broaden and build cognitive processes
 - Ansuman Biswas' fantastic physical, vocal and mental warm-up (and for providing some amazing hugs) at the start of the conference, and Briony Greenhill's gorgeous group singing session to end it
 - Alex Fradera's improvisation workshop - stole some exercises I've already used with one of my Drama groups
 - Hearing more about international prison theatre
- And, of course, the opportunity to meet so many interesting, creative people who give a shit.

And here is me and my friend Natasha laughing....an honest example of creativity spawning well-being.
(Photograph by Christine Cellier)

So, I can safely say the well-being agenda is on my agenda. For anyone interested, I would certainly recommend Pat Kane's article in the Guardian, arguing that 'a real diversity of input is essential to thinking and feeling our way beyond the cyclical hysterics of capitalism' (although it would be even better if you could hear it in his lovely Scottish accent...).

My education can and shall continue beyond the university walls; it is a life-long process - and I'm prepared to approach it creatively...

*a couple of years ago my inebriated housemate identified 'curiosity', along with empathy and one particular aspect of my physical appearance, as one of my top qualities: