 |
| Twelve from Salt Lake City, Utah - plus Nick |
For me, it all kicked off at
Heathrow last Sunday, when I met nine of the twelve from Utah and accompanied
them on the good old slow but solid Piccadilly Line into central London. The
Canadians intending to come were mentioned in the previous post – Sherry Mumford,
Tracey Harvey, Brenda Plant and Isaac Hernandez. They had arrived the day
before were halved in number - originally four, but reduced to two by possible
post-concussion problems for Brenda, and Isaac by missing a connecting flight
because of delays caused by a Russian volcano. The other three from Utah are the
Grenny family, the original founders of the extraordinary project to make a
therapeutic village for people who had fallen
out of society: www.theothersidevillage.com
. They had also arrived on Saturday, and were comfortably settled in their Park
Lane hotel.
 |
| Tracey and Sherry from Vancouver |
Some of the Utahns are leaving later today, and some of them tomorrow. As I said in the last community meeting, I’m knackered.
This page is to acknowledge everybody who helped and participated – including our visitors in true ‘horizonalisation’, TC-style! Thank you, everybody.
British Columbia Addiction Recovery Association:
Sherry Mumford Tracey Harvey Isaac Hernandez (apols) Brenda Plant (apols)
The Other Side Academy and Village, Utah, USA:
Timothy Stay Joseph
Grenny Samuel Grenny Celia
Grenny
Dalita Stay David
Durocher Tiffany Blair Russell Pearson
Robbie Myrick Bryan Billmire Moe Egan William Bell
We had dinners with the visitors
on the Sunday and Monday, an all-day seminar on Monday for 25 people (including
people from TCTC, CofC and EE at RCPsych CCQI), the NHS and MoJ collaboration
for the Offender PD Programme, people with lived experience, researchers and
others);
·
Nick Benefield (OPDP & RP),
·
Peter Cockersell (CHT and homelessness sector),
·
Jaymie Darrell (Nottingham University),
·
Rex Haigh (Coordinator and RP),
·
Neelam Khawani-Connett (Expert-by-experience),
·
Heather Macey (Homestead project),
·
Chris Nicholson (TCTC - apols),
·
Barbara Rawlings (TC researcher),
·
Sarah Skett (OPDP NHS Lead - apols),
·
Bethan Thibaut (RCPsych),
·
John Turberville (Community of Communities),
·
Kirk Turner (OPDP HMPPS lead)
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday they
all went in various directions; Thursday was a full-on seminar day of
presentations, games, discussions and community meetings from all those involved
in various Thames Valley initiatives with sad acknowledgement of how much Steve
Pearce was behind it all, and how much he would have loved to be involved in
this day. There were 38 of us there in a basement room of Green Templeton
College – the local participants were:
·
Gill Attwood
(Uber-organiser)
·
Debbie Stirzacker (Uber-admin)
·
Mart (STARS)
·
Gill (STARS)
·
Kristina (STARS)
·
Fiona Blyth
(Educator)
·
Stuart Whitelaw
(TCEPT)
·
Lucy and Lauren
(from Response Women’s house – apols; Gill A stood in)
·
Adrian Childs plus
two XBXs (Elmore)
·
Dave Roberts
(Mulberry Bush Organisation)
·
Geoff Dennis
(Enabling Town Slough)
Four of us went to HMP Send on
Friday (the TC prison for women with both preparation and progression PIPEs). Now it is Saturday. Time
to stop.
Democratic
Therapeutic Communities:
organisations and events
The Confederation of
Therapeutic Communities (TCTC)
British professional
organisation with journal, annual conference, research group and other
activities. https://therapeuticcommunities.org/
Next conference: Birmingham,
UK. 25-27 September 2023
Contact: Chris Nicholson cnich@essex.ac.uk
(Chair)
International Network of
Democratic Therapeutic Communities (INDTC)
Small but growing network of
professionals involved in DTCs including UK, Italy, India, Portugal, Hungary,
Japan. Currently being hosted by Portugal.
https://indtc.org/ Regular online events; next conference:
Lisbon 2024
Contact: João G. Pereira joaogpereira@fundacaords.org (President)
Community of Communities
(CofC)
Quality improvement network with
annual peer review cycle and formal accreditation, run by the Royal College of
Psychiatrists Centre for Quality Improvement (CCQI).
Next conference: Annual Forum,
London, 6 June 2023
Contact: Bethan Thibaut bethan.thibaut@rcpsych.ac.uk (Programme
Manager)
Enabling Environments (EE)
Values-based award recognising
and accrediting relational practice over a three-year cycle, also run by the
Royal College of Psychiatrists CCQI.
Next conference: Annual Forum,
London, 27 September 2023
Contact: Bethan Thibaut bethan.thibaut@rcpsych.ac.uk (Programme
Manager)
Mulberry Bush Organisation
Runs international training,
organisational consultancy and a therapeutic community school with outreach
services. Specifically for DTCs, they run the British experiential ‘Living-Learning
Experiences’ (LLEs): https://mulberrybush.org.uk/eventstraining/the-living-learning-experience-lle/ and the ‘Therapeutic Communities and
Environments Practitioner Training’ (TCEPT): https://mulberrybush.org.uk/eventstraining/therapeutic-environments-practitioner-course-tcept/ in a
rural setting in Gloucestershire.
Next LLEs: 26-28 May 2023;
13-15 June 2023; 12-14 September 2023 (several per year)
Next TCEPT intake: late 2024
Contacts: Dave Roberts droberts@mulberrybush.org.uk.(training);
Sarah Paget spaget@mulberrybush.org.uk
(consultancy);
John Turberville jturberville@mulberrybush.org.uk (CEO).
International Network of
Living-Learning Experiences (INLLE)
A group of DTC practitioners
from across the world who can arrange the 3-day DTC experiential training in
partnership with interested organisations. http://inlle.org/
Next events: Belgrade: 19-21
August 2023; Vancouver: 13-20 Sept 2023 (2 LLEs)
Contact: Shama Parkhe spark0990@gmail.com
