Guest Blog - Jennifer Walmsley
Jennifer Walmsley
Co-Founder of BearFace Theatre Community Interest Company
BearFace Theatre Community Interest Company (CIC) was co-founded by myself and Kate Hadley. We aim to use creative action to affect positive social change and have been designing and developing community led arts-based activities in Hampshire and surrounding counties for the past 8 years. We strive to work collaboratively using the creative arts to lift the voices of those who feel unheard. We believe that the arts have the power to start conversations, open up debate, and give opportunities to learn from each other – hearing different perspectives.
People ask us why we do what we do. Our reply - because we believe in it! And because we believe in connection, compassion and empathy, laughter and joy. What we do know is that when people are given an opportunity to come together and use creative methods to play, explore and self-reflect it is a powerful, insightful and meaningful process, and we want to share that.
Our One Small Thing journey
We first became aware of One Small Thing from the work they were delivering across the prison estate, specifically at HMP Send where we had been working in the PIPE unit. Having been working in Women’s centres across the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight since 2017, we have an acute awareness of the necessity of female specific spaces. When we became aware of the plans for Hope Street, a pioneering residential community for women and their children in Southampton being developed by One Small Thing, our ears became planted firmly to the ground and we began further researching their work.
Trauma-Informed Network
The essence of BearFace Theatre’s work is embedded in connection and this is where we thrive. This can generally be tricky for us outside of the rooms; working in the arts in the criminal justice system in Hampshire can sometimes feel isolating even before lockdown! Being able to take part in One Small Thing’s online network meetings has given us a space to listen, learn and be heard. Just being in a space with other like-minded and trauma-informed curious people has been beneficial on many levels. I have found these sessions both supportive and inspiring; they are now part of our self-care routine and help us to gather motivation and insight from others so that we can continue our journey in becoming trauma-informed.
Trauma-Informed Training
After being able to drop into a few of the online networks that One Small Thing hosted, we signed up to the online Becoming Trauma-Informed Awareness Training which was both engaging and affirming. We hoped that this training would refresh our thought process and affirm our own practice - which it did. It also gave us a focussed space to reflect and explore other aspects of what we do and our delivery methods. It helped us to check in with the experiences of other organisations and enabled us to professionally gauge where we were on our own trauma-informed journey - both professionally and personally. It was also useful for us to have something to contrast and compare to, to support our ethical practice.
Working with Trauma Quality Mark
We continue to endeavour staying true to our core values and we are proud to be working towards the Silver Quality Mark within One Small Thing’s Working with Trauma Quality Mark. At BearFace, we understand that we are unique in our delivery style and we believe there are many ways in which individuals and organisations can be trauma-informed. However, in order to be part of the wider movement, we realise the benefits to also working alongside a set of standards which the One Small Thing Quality Mark provides. Our aim is to make sure that every element of our organisation and practice is trauma-informed. We hope that by working alongside robust academic research and a supportive infrastructure like One Small Thing, we will be supported to lead by example in becoming trauma-informed.
About BearFace Theatre
At BearFace Theatre we work with a wide variety of communities predominantly focussed on developing ‘forward looking’ work, creative action for social change. We work co-creatively with people with an intention to open up dialogue to create further opportunities for debate, conversation and connection. We specialise in working with men and women in both prison and on probation. To find out more, please visit our website
Further resources
BearFace Theatre research - http://www.bearfacetheatre.org/research/