Dean SpruceIn Plain Sight: Review and Photo Gallery
Back in February VOICES commissioned local arts-based companies, B Arts and Rideout, to coproduce a live promenade performance based on the real lived experiences of local people. The performance, which ran for eight evenings, explored the challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness, rough sleeping, mental ill-health and substance misuse. Audiences were provided with insight and understanding of the effects of long term and multiple traumas through following the journeys of two characters, Tash and Steve.
We would like to give huge thanks to B Arts and Rideout and to all involved in producing and managing the performances. This extends to the team that provided warm, fresh food for each performance and to VOICES staff and volunteers who invested additional time to co-design, deliver, and staff each evening.
As a result of the show VOICES have been invited to present learning opportunities within North Staffs Combined Health Care Trust and we are making plans to deliver a learning programme within Dovegate Prison.
Claire Ritchie, a national consultant in trauma-informed care and psychologically informed environments attended one of the performances and commented,
“I just couldn’t stop grinning. The trauma informed buskers! It was ingenious! Inspired! I knew I was going to enjoy the evening. If you’re… Continue Reading
Listening and Learning with the NHS
By Samantha Fairbanks, Learning and Evaluation, VOICES
Special thanks to Lee Dale, Expert Citizens
VOICES and Expert Citizens recently attended and helped to facilitate the ‘patient experience’ section of the monthly NHS board meeting. Each month a previous patient is invited to the meeting to give their honest experience of accessing NHS services, and this time around that came in the form of Expert Citizen Lee sharing his experience of accessing A&E during the period that he was experiencing homelessness.
Lee was asked to hold nothing back and be completely honest about his feelings around this, explaining how when he was homeless he tried to take him own life and that’s how he ended up in the A&E department. Lee felt that because his injuries were self-inflicted he was “shoved into a corner and forgotten about with nothing but a paper hat to be sick in”. He was then told at 11pm that he couldn’t leave until he signed a form saying he would attend a psychiatric appointment in Hanley the following morning at 9am. Lee signed this and left but did not attend the meeting the following morning.
The board asked Lee if the staff knew he was homeless at the time. Lee’s… Continue Reading
Valuing lived experience and busting the lifestyle choice myth
Photo: Andy Meakin congratulating Jason Smith on his speech and poetry performance
By Andy Meakin, VOICES Director
This year’s national Insight Conference and Awards from Expert Citizens was spectacular. From the moment our friend Bishop Geoff Annas opened proceedings, the event delivered one powerful message after another about lived experience as a vehicle for systems change.
Jason Smith told his story of reflection and redemption from a prison cell. Unable to free his body, Jason decided to free his mind. The walls and bars could not confine his search for wisdom which began in the pages of comic books, then travelled through reading philosophy, and ultimately to self-expression through writing and performing poetry. His journey of learning and growth is a humbling testimony. People can and do change when the tools and services are accessible.
Rideout, B-Arts, and Expert Citizens delivered a thought-provoking forum theatre based on real stories and experiences. This demonstrated the barriers that people too often experience to both accessing services and to moving on from homelessness in to accommodation then employment.
It would be difficult to overstate the powerful story told by Sammy Woodhouse of her experiences as a survivor of the child sexual exploitation scandal in Rotherham. Sammy chronicled in… Continue Reading