Finding a voice: where creativity meets wellbeing
This Creativity and Wellbeing week. Adam Annand, Speech Bubbles CEO, got together with Alix Lewer, Include.org CEO and Louise Pendry, Bounce Theatre’s Artistic Director to talk about the work we have been doing to develop delivering the Speech Bubbles programme in SEND and alternative settings. Listen to the podcast here:
Please find below the transcript from this Podcast:
Adam Power-Annand
Hello everybody and welcome to this first speech bubbles podcast. This one is for creativity and wellbeing week, which is led by the Cultural Health and Wellbeing Alliance and London Arts and Health. Creative and and Wellbeing Week has been running for many years now and this year's theme is New Horizons. And they're talking about curiosity and listening within the creative health sector. So hopefully you'll find that's really what we're gonna focus on here.
Speech Bubbles first. So speech bubbles is a drama communication project that works in primary schools predominantly and has been running since 2009. And it's a drama practitioner going to the school and working with children who are missing out on age expected speaking and listening targets and need support with their communication and their wellbeing and their social interaction. And throughout that time we've worked in special education, but only in very few settings with a couple of really experienced practitioners.
And what we wanted to do is to be able to expand that work and work in more special ed settings. So we did a little bit of a trial this term and we worked with some wonderful people and we looked at what we've been doing and then we launched in some new schools. So we're going to meet a couple of the people who have been working on that with us. And first of all, a little bit about myself. I'm Adam and I'm the CEO of Speech Bubble. I've been leading it since 2009.
So who have we got on our podcast today? We've got Alix Lewer from include.org and Louise Pendry from Bounce Theatre. Alix, going to let them introduce themselves. So first of all, over to you, Alix, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and your work with Include? And then we'll talk a little bit more about what you're doing here with Speech Bubbles.
Alix Lewer
Sure, thanks Adam. Hello, I'm Alix Lewer. I'm a speech and language therapist by background and a safeguarding adults lead. And I left the NHS in 2016 to set up a charity called include.org or the include project because it turns out you can't register a charity with a dot in the title. Our aim is to reduce the isolation or break down barriers or make sure that everyone is included who has understanding and speaking difficulties. And that's communication needs in the broadest sense. So it might be people who struggle to understand language, who struggle to express themselves or struggle with the social rules that come around language and communication. We work mainly with people with learning disabilities and autism, a little bit with people with dementia. But we feel that really the grounds of good and inclusive communication are very much the same, whatever the cause of the communication disability. And we provide community activities and training and on this occasion consultation. We’re excited to be working as consultants with speech bubbles on this occasion. It's been a big learning curve for me and yeah, really excited to be part of it.
Adam Power-Annand
Fantastic, Alix. We came across each other because Alix had done a course for the School for Social Entrepreneurs that I had done years ago. We were having a chat about social entrepreneurship and I needed a consultant, speech and language therapist. We said, actually, there's a lot of compatibility in the way we talk about the work and about people. That's how come Alix ended up being our consultant on this. Thanks very much, Alix.
Alix Lewer
Thank you.
Adam Power-Annand
And over to Louise from Bounce Theatre. Tell us a bit about Bounce and then your connection with speech bubbles.
Louise Pendry
Thank you. So Bounce is a community interest company. We have been going for 18 years now and our work is predominantly with children and young people. We devise original theatre in community settings and in schools and education. We do lot of intergenerational heritage projects around community storytelling. We became a partner in Speech Bubbles three years ago now, which is really cool. And I think that was driven professionally by watching what happened during the pandemic and the stories that were coming out about children's speech and language needs in the classroom. And it was also driven personally by having a little boy with speech and language needs. So it's been a pleasure to be part of it so far.
Adam Power-Annand
Great, thanks. So just a little bit on that. Being a speech bubbles partner organization - the project that we run has got a clear structure and shape to it and clear reporting guidance and all those kinds of things. And as well as speech bubbles running ourselves in South London and in East London, we work with a range of theatre partners across London, up in Greater Manchester, Kent, Hertfordshire, out in the Southwest in Bristol and Cornwall. And those theatre partners all work with us and they deliver the project in schools local to them. it really is a programme that has theatre making at the heart of it. And so it wasn't difficult to go around the country and find partners who had wonderful practitioners who could deliver the Speech Bubbles project in schools local to them. that's how come Bounce are a partner on the project. So that's a bit about you. then, can you just say about the Special Ed project?
Alix Lewer
My role has been to go into the schools and to observe the sessions as they're happening and listening to you describing speech bubbles is great because I'm a firm believer in creativity as a source of support for communication needs. One of the projects we run uses music as a way of helping to learn signs and various other communication needs and I feel really, really strongly that there needs to be more creativity in schools and that opportunity would really, really be facilitating the communication needs of so many kids, as Louise you said, who've really struggled since the pandemic, but before as well, if we're honest, and have really lacked in support. So it's been a really lovely treat actually for me to get out of my office and my day to day and to go and visit the schools and to see the practitioners doing what they do. And just to see the kids having these really rare opportunities to have their voices heard and to be able to explore their own stories. We know that narrative is incredibly important for a sense of self-identity and for people with communication needs of all sorts. Not having the opportunity to tell your story and to feel that people are listening to you really can impact on your self-esteem and your ability to achieve. So yeah, it's just been this wonderful chance to go into the schools, different schools, different practitioners and watch some really creative, skilled and amazing people at work with some fantastic kids.
Adam Power-Annand
Thanks Alix. And one of things you've been doing is we've been convening the practitioners who working in special ed and talking about what they're doing and sharing their practice. And one of your early recommendations was that perhaps all of our special ed practitioners should get some basic Makaton skills. And so we've done that. And all the practitioners currently working in special ed have all done a Makaton level one course. We've implemented that straight away. So thanks very much for that. That's been really brilliant.
Louise, could you just say a little bit about yourself and how Bounce is supporting the special ed project?
Louise
Yeah, so I am working in a base school in Wandsworth as part of the special ed project, working with two groups of brilliant children. One group is more vocally confident, I think, and we are telling stories. The other group are minimal talkers, but ate becoming emerging talkers, I would say, with our fidget tails. So it's kind of like developing two different approaches in response to how the children present, but it's probably a highlight of my week actually. Really lovely.
Adam Power-Annand
Right. And you mentioned fidget tales, I'm sure that will come into the next bit of the conversation. So at the heart of speech bubbles is collecting children's stories and acting them out in small groups. And of course that has different challenges when we're working with children in special education settings, special educational needs learners. And Louise is finding wonderful ways of still making sure that at the heart of her work is the stories that children want to tell and giving them some sense of ownership. I'm sure that will come up in the next bit. I want to push us on with the, with the kind of themes of creativity and wellbeing week this year. So the first theme that is being posed is about curiosity. It'd be really nice to hear Alix, what you're seeing, what's the connection and what do you see as the role of curiosity when you're looking at speech bubbles, both in relation to the adults involved and to the children.
Alix Lewer
So think this relates back to people being able to tell their own story because unless you have a listener, a communication partner who is curious and who is willing to take time and to give you time to explore your own ways of telling your story, then your communication doesn't really go anywhere. So I think curiosity is absolutely at the heart. You've got to, as a speech bubbles practitioner, you've got to be interested in, what does this child got to say? What is it that they're going to bring to this? How's this one going to interact with this one? Where's that going to go? It's just a...mean, curiosity, think, is just fundamental to all creativity and all communication, because unless you're interested in finding out more and taking things to the next step, then, yeah, you might as well not bother. So I think it's fundamental to communication itself, and I think it's fundamental to the speech bubbles model in that any storytelling has got to have curiosity at its start. And any effective story is going to evoke curiosity in the listener and in the audience, because you want to know what's going to happen next. In some of the sessions that I've been in, I've generally going, well, what is going to happen next? Where are we going to go? What's going to happen? Where's this ‘bus’ going to go? There's just so many questions that come out of the sessions as a whole, but of just facilitating that opportunity for someone who might not have the chance to share their voice that often. And just seeing where that goes is just beautiful. It's a really beautiful thing. Yeah, sorry, I can go on.
Adam Power-Annand
No, that's great. And I think, think probably your, your presence in the room of the person who's interested is really kind of keen to know what's going to happen next. That gives a kind of validity, doesn't it? To, to the storyteller and to the children when they're playing and there's this adult who's coming and they really want to know and they're curious and that gives a validity and it gives those children a reason to, communicate. Um, because this adult was interested. Yeah. Lovely.
Thank you. Louise, do you want to talk a little bit about curiosity? I've seen your work. I've seen how curiosity plays out. I haven't seen your work in special ed to be honest. So be interested to know how you think it connects with that particular work you're doing at Riversdale.
Louise
Yeah, I think when Alix was talking then, it made me think of being in the second session at Riversdale. And it was it's me that has been curious. And I think it's curiosity in how, how do you get all of those children with different needs and different sensory profiles and different language needs exist together in one space without forcing anything on them. So not like trying to adapt them to tell a story, but understand where their story is at. And actually, that initially was without trying to talk, we found stories. And I think we've kind of grown from there. I remember being in one of the first sessions once I brought the fidgets in and like copying one of the boys movements. And as soon as I started to copy him, he started looking and we were both like flying fidgets in space. And you think, actually, that is a story. Like, and that is that is where their storytelling skills are at. And it's about accepting that and not trying to put anything else on top of it, but build like a group dynamic. And now they all come and sit and wait for their fidget and we kind of fidget tale. That's really cool.
Adam Power-Annand
I'm going to ask for the purpose of the curiosity of our listeners. Could you say a little bit more about what fidgets are? Because I think there might be people listening who have no idea what we're talking about.
Louise Pendry
Is it like a stringy toy? And I found some that have got faces on. So they treat them like a pet. They're like little fur, like rubber strings, but they've got little bits on them and little eyes and they all name them every week. So they've all got a pet fidget that they take on a tale.
Adam Power-Annand
Right. Thank you. Thank you. That's really great. I think we've started to cover this next bit anyway, which is about listening. So what does listening look and feel like in this context? Louise, shall we start with you this time and then we'll move over to Alix.
Louise
I think it's like listening and accepting silence as an act of listening. that actually that the storytelling is present without the children saying anything and then it's kind of listening to what is going on in the session and being responsive to that. So identifying actually once they started flying the fidgets around. I could show a picture and I brought in the speech bubble postcards or use those where you could choose like a setting for the story. So like then we started to point and we chose where the fidgets were flying to. And then as that went on, I started to ask more questions about like how the fidgets were feeling. And I think it's kind of not, it's like responding to the children rather than sort of as sort of something on them. Yeah, I don't know if I've explained it very well, but that's how it feels in the session. And actually each week they're taking more and more ownership of the story and are starting to need less prompts and adding characters like lions and making sounds like lions. And every week the fidget ends up in McDonald's and KFC.
Adam Power-Annand
So just, just again, for our listeners, so the postcards are just a series of very simple line drawings that have settings. So there's a park, there's an under the sea, there's a beach. There's just, I think there's just a few settings like that. There's the woods and we use them in the work in mainstream education. When, because we sit, we just sit and ask a child to tell a story and say, what's your story? And most children will be able to come up with a story and then, and they'll just tell a story and then we write it down. And then sometimes when the children maybe don't feel like they've got something they want to start with, we just show this set of cards. Say, well, maybe it could happen in one of these places. So these are kind of backup resources and they're being used across this project as well, which is really great. Thanks, Louise. Alix, I mean, you've been listening, you've been out there listening and watching and seeing and hearing. Yeah. So what does it mean to you in this context?
Alix Lewer
I'm just listening and smiling inside because there's so much that aligns between speech bubbles and Include and what we aim to do. So Include was set up to promote inclusive communication and inclusive communication means not just respecting words as the only form of communication, but recognising all of the ways that we communicate our bodies, our faces, our intonation, know, pictures, signs, symbols, all of these things.
And they're also integral, because I think often when we think about listening, we think just about our ears. But actually, listening might mean watching, it might mean observing, it means respecting, it means actually taking on board what has gone out, whether that's a word, a sound, a movement, facial expression, any of those things. And I think you said that talk about it being active, you you need to be... You need to maintain that curiosity we talked about earlier and you need to be actually really observing with your whole self, your heart, your soul, your ears, your eyes, it's everything. So for me, listening doesn't just mean using my ears, which are a little bit faulty anyway, so it's better if I use everything anyway, but it means that inclusive communication act of being a communication partner and taking on board everything that the child or the communicator gives you. And then... you know, accepting that, accepting it when it's silence, accepting it when it's whatever it is, using those other tools, those, you know, the picture cards and everything to kind of mirror back what's happening. Okay, well, maybe this person has expressed something, but they don't seem quite sure. How can I scaffold that? How can I move that on and using that curiosity to then use the listening experience to then further the conversation and further the communication practice. So yeah, again, totally, totally fundamental to all successful communication and totally fundamental to the speech bubbles work.
Louise Pendry
I was just going say when you were talking there and it makes me think of that like presuming competence as well. So when you're in that session and the children aren't able to give you a story in a typical way that you'd expect it, that you assume competence and that you are listening in the room to where their storytelling is and you respect that and that is also like that's the authenticity of telling a story rather than trying to adapt them to tell a story in the way that you think a story should be told.
Alix Lewer
That's strengths-based approach, isn't it? Which has become much more recognised within health services, and again, not thinking about the problems, not a medical model of disability, but actually a social model, there's barriers here. But if you start from the strengths, and everybody's got strengths somewhere, and you listen and you kind of are curious, then you can just take it forwards, and that's how I think you see the kids blossom in this setting.
Louise Pendry
Yeah, definitely.
Adam Power-Annand
it's so central to what we do, isn't it? I think that just being the adult who's listening to the children in the room is one of the things that, you know, children are going to communicate. They've got to have, they've got to feel like there's a reason to communicate. mean, whatever, whatever else might be going on, there's got to be a reason to communicate. And one of things that we can offer is being a kind of interested listening adult who's going to, who's going to actually hear and like you say, kind of respond to what's offered and not expect a certain answer or a certain way of being, but we'll listen and respond to what, to what the children offer.
Thank you so much. It's been it's been lovely to hear. And so the next, the next steps for this project is we're seeing this term out, we're working in 1,2,3,4,5,6, seven special education settings. And at the end of this year, we'll all be coming together for an evaluation of that work, listening to all the practitioners who are doing the work, hearing what they've got to say about it. And the idea would be that what we'll do is we'll develop a training course. And there's 65 speech bubbles practitioners working this year across the country and many of them would like to adapt their practice and be able to work in special ed. So the aim is to take this learning, to listen to what Alix finds out and what comes back from your consultation, Alix, and then we'll devise a training course so that we can, so more of our practitioners who are interested can work in special ed and we can extend the programme into more special ed settings.
I think we should just say a big thank you to the Portal Trust who are funding this particular area of work across the schools in London. That's been really helpful to be able to move forward with this. Thank you very much. Quick, I'll say my goodbye and hand over to you to say your goodbye too, if that's the last thing you wanted to add. Alix, anything you wanted to add?
Alix Lewer
That's putting me on the spot. think so. I think the main thing is just to say what a joy it is to see inclusive communication being used in this way in schools and to see that recognition of the importance of creativity and communication within schools. I just really love to see it go even further and see it in even more places and see it really being adapted into as many settings as possible. So thank you for the opportunity.
Adam Power-Annand
Thanks Alix and Louise.
Louise Pendry
I think it's just the same thing. It's a real pleasure to have an opportunity to create that space for those children to be storytellers. Yeah, it's a real privilege.
Adam Power-Annand (20:11.649)
This has been our first attempt to do a podcast. If you're listening, I hope you enjoy it. Please do let us know. Thank you.