16 January 2021

This weekend we had such an inspiring day with a wonderful group of therapists, counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists, who together explored the creative possibilities for online delivery of the Arts for the Blues model. 

We are so thankful to connect with everyone. 

Here are some of the creative outputs from the day! 

Who are you? How do you feel right now? Introducing ourselves using a whiteboard (beginning of workshop)

How do you feel now? (closing of workshop)

BURST, OFFER, OPEN, CORE BASE, SPARKLE

A poem by Scott Thurston, compiled from chat contributions during the Arts for the Blues training event

I. Beginnings

Stretched out we float, flow expansively:

A blooming ripple, roots open, spinning

Round and spiralling here, a dizzy star.

The whole centre is full. Slowly it’s pulled,

Swirling, bubbling, here! Wide dozzy dizzy

Butterflies landed, moulding fire symbolism.

We are rotating, within without, fluid

Drifting: absorbing slow, open sprinkles.

Let’s go changemakers!

We are fragments in a bubbling bucket:

warm, hopeful, bright, emerging smiles

absorbed in playful flourish.

II. Closings

My confidence grew as the day progressed.

Just what I would hope would happen over

the course of creativity and connection.

All that you need you have already, it might just be

in disguise. Bring the creative and the therapeutic

closer together, outside the box.

Fun and connection, re-resource and re-connect

with how I can use our creative skills on the line.

A community is taking shape, fertile.

Nourished and resourced by deeper understanding

of process and components, how to integrate into

who I am.

Re-connection

Real connection

to the value of

creativity

Creating a group ‘story’, one example of a creative activity with therapeutic underpinning that could be delivered online.  Here we used a whiteboard on Zoom to create an island, exploring opportunities, challenges and relationships using imagery, symbolism and metaphor (key ingredient:processing at a deeper level).

Using wordclouds to encourage active enagagement

We ended with a wonderful group movement and sound sequence led by Supritha, a dance movement therapist and Bharatanatyam dancer, who made four distinct sounds which we each connected to an individual movement. From these four movements we created our own sequence that we played with through sound and shared as a group, connecting us to each other through sound and movement. What a fabulous way to end the day!