http://www.changingrelations.co.uk/contact-us/

Changing Relations, Studio 18, Ushaw Historic House, Chapel and Gardens, Durham (2026)

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Studio 18, Ushaw Historic House, Chapel And Gardens

04/05/2026

Just want to take a moment to shout out to our gorgeously fabulous facilitation team - - beautifully captured for us here by the lovely .

These lasses have worked SO hard over the last academic year, consulting with our partner schools, carefully considering how to achieve learning on some really sensitive themes in a way that is fun and engaging. They're brought all their creativity and reflective thinking to the table to develop beautifully layered, iterative schemes of work that gradually build up children and young people's social emotional skills and insight. The timeline was super tight and the pilot delivery has been intense.

Particularly massive shout out to Sarah who has taken the lead on our education programme development, tirelessly pulling all the threads together behind-the-scenes, which she will in the next months be collating into educator toolkits to support the next phase of our A is for Amy / Sometimes it Hurts programme delivery, whereby we hand over to school and youth group partners to deliver what we have developed for themselves.

Can't wait to see it all come together.

Lasses you should all be very proud 💖 💖 💖

29/04/2026

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I know we've already done an "oooh we won an award" post.

But look - it came with a trophy!!!

Here we are with our lush Primary School partners at St John's School in Benwell, reviewing the last term of pilot delivery of our Sometimes it Hurts programme with their KS2 children as well as our partners at Copeland Road Primary School in West Auckland and Edmondsley Primary Academy near Chester-le-Street.

It was so moving to hear about the children's development of a really nuanced and complex insight into emotions, including how it can be possible to feel conflicting feelings at once and the strategies they can use to soothe themselves and support their friends.

And to feel how much our partner teachers appreciated what we had shared with them and how keen they are to continue implementing this content in the next phase of development where it will be on them to deliver in place of our wonderful creative facilitators and .

Very proud.

But also slightly embarrassed that everyone told me I had to do a pose with the trophy as if I was holding the FA Cup 😆

Thanks so much to the North East Museums & North East and North Cumbria Child Health and Wellbeing Network teams for our lovely Chris Drinkwater award trophy! We are very chuffed.

27/04/2026

Did you know that it's the International Day for Health and Safety in the Workplace tomorrow?

We just thought we'd drop in to flag our upcoming Invisible Visible Management Workshop which aims to help you reimagine disability and create a workplace culture that enables all of your staff to thrive.

The workshop is based around Invisible Visible - a digital exhibition we supported artist Hope Caitlin to develop that explores disability and the barriers to workplace inclusion.

Our Management workshop will use Hope's beautiful artwork as a creative way to explore our understanding of disability in the workplace, considering the challenges faced by those with experience of disability but also the unique contribution they are able to make.

We aim to:

🫶 Foster a deeper understanding between professional leaders and disabled employees, creating a space of safe and inclusive communication
🫶 Enable you to recognise the often invisible barriers that prevent your disabled employees from thriving
🫶 Identify actionable steps to improve work life balance as it pertains to disability and chronic illness

Thanks so much to for hosting this in-person workshop -

🏛️ in the lovely Learning Centre attached to the Palace Green Library
🕰️ on Tuesday 2nd June from 12pm - 2pm

We just have 4 places left so don't miss out!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/invisible-visible-management-workshop-tickets-1985058992884

If you would be interested in a webinar iteration of this workshop please drop us a DM and we'll make a plan to schedule something together online as an alternative option where this feels more convenient / accessible 🙏

24/04/2026

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After years of seeing disinvestment in the arts across our education system - not seen as the best choice to lead young people into the careers we supposedly want within our economy - I was cautiously optimistic to read this article citing Alan Milburn's current review into young people and work -

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/apr/20/exam-obsessed-school-system-unprepared-work-alan-milburn

This bit in particular jumped out at me -

"He also argued that in a fast-changing labour market, schools needed to do more to equip young people with “communication and collaboration skills, agility and creativity” alongside formal qualifications."

Creativity you say?!?

I would so love for our education system to fall back in love with arts subjects.

Whether or not they lead to a career in the culture sector...

(side note - this is a sector that makes a valid contribution to our economy 😊)
.. there are some really important skills for life (and work) that are developed through art, music, drama, creative writing, design...

They allow us to use our brain in different ways. To take an explorative approach that is useful for problem-solving. To see things from different perspectives, which enables ideas for new approaches to entrenched problems.

At Changing Relations we love to use the arts as the tool for exploring tricky topics because it feels less didactic, that we're not telling people how to think on subjects they tend to have strong feelings about.

But we also know that the very act of developing a young person's creative muscle is valuable to their ability to think in a workplace context where reproducing knowledge is just not enough.

More arting please!!!!!

22/04/2026

Come and join us!!!

This is just a little reminder of the deadline for submitting applications to join our Board as a Non-Exec Director with a view to becoming a Trustee as we transition to charitable status.

Please send a written application...

🕰️ by midnight on Mon 4 May

📧 to lisa@changingrelations.co.uk
..telling us why you are interested in joining our Board, outlining the key skills, understanding, and experience you could bring to our organisation in no more than 600 words.

The rest of the blurb is here - https://changingrelations.co.uk/board-recruitment-2026/

Credit to for the lovely illustrations showing our current Board who will be sifting through everything that comes our way 😄

Looking forward to hearing from you folks!

20/04/2026

Kate here...

In the coming weeks we have reflection days with the educators (teachers, youth workers, pastoral staff, creative facilitators) that we have been working with on our A is for Amy – Sometimes it Hurts project.

I am trying to prepare these days to make sure that we can learn the absolute most we can from them. Prepping for things like this feels like it shouldn’t be all that time consuming, but it really is. I realise that I am trying to distil a huge amount of information that sits in my head into a format that will facilitate discussion. It’s so important that we all think about the good and the bad…and the things which are just OK too.

I’m also speaking to some of the children and young people about their assessment of the programme so that their perspective can be woven in too (on top of the observations that have been made along the way of their engagement and the things they have said). If I’m honest – these conversations are some of my favourites because they really know how to tell it how it is! 🙃

The careful consideration, the different perspectives – this is what makes sure that we can create an education programme that really meets the needs of the children and young people participating in it and the educators who will deliver it.

[Image shows one of my favourite reflections, it's an art work at Baltic in Gateshead and it makes me smile every time I visit. The mirror is placed at the bottom of their stairwell and the further you go up the more endless the stairs look in the mirror]

17/04/2026

It was a real pleasure to attend the conference at the fabulous Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art yesterday, together with the awesome girls from Creative Youth Opportunities who have been involved in our A is for Amy coproduction (and who were VERY pleased with our fancy waffle breakfast on arrival!).

Conference compere Dr Jordan Mullard did an amazing job at integrating young people's voices at every step of the way, respecting the principle that "if a policy is going to affect us - include us".

We heard from some brilliant young people from XP Gateshead who had conducted detailed research to inform a set of powerful socio-political critiques, including the wonderful line - "deprivation is the thief of a healthy life" - that really echoed the perspective Alice Wiseman MBE had shared in setting the Public Health framework for the day - "Why treat people and send them back to the conditions that made them sick?"

We were so proud of the girls contributing to a Youth Panel on the stage in front of the whole conference, as well as co-delivering our workshop on what adults need to understand in order to support young people affected by Teenage Relationship Abuse.

Kate Gorman did sterling work as she stood by our posters explaining our A is for Amy and Weaving Stories projects to fellow delegates.

And it was lovely to be able to reconnect with Dr Janelle Rabe in her new Public Health role, given she played such a crucial role in the Weaving Stories project we were representing.

Well dones and thank yous all round 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

Gateshead Council Newcastle University

10/04/2026

The next workshop in the Invisible Visible series we have developed together with artist Hope Caitlin is open to book folks.

Invisible Visible is a digital exhibition exploring disability and the barriers to workplace inclusion, featuring conceptual photography and illustrations inspired by seven anonymous first-hand accounts of what it is like to be disabled in the workplace.

Take a look here - https://stories.durham.ac.uk/invisible-visible/

Our workshop will use the Invisible Visible artwork as a creative way to explore our understanding of disability in the workplace, considering the challenges faced by those with experience of disability but also the unique contribution they are able to make.

The focus this time is on those in a Management position and aims to help you reimagine disability and create a workplace culture that enables all of your staff to thrive.

Huge thanks to for hosting this in-person workshop -

🏛️ in the lovely Learning Centre attached to the Palace Green Library

🕰️ on Tuesday 2nd June from 12 - 2pm

Book your place and you will be the lucky recipient of a gorgeous (FREE!!) workbook filled with Hope's artwork, our participants' lived experience testimony and plenty of space to note your reflections.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/invisible-visible-management-workshop-tickets-1985058992884

08/04/2026

We're so excited about getting to feature our fabulous projects A is for Amy and Weaving Stories at the conference next week.

Look at these lovely posters has designed for us!!!

will be standing by them ready to chat whilst co-presents a workshop on A is for Amy with the fab girls.

So if you're there, make sure to come and say hello!

05/04/2026

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After my week supporting the lovely people in the pic to deliver forced marriage-themed workshops in Teesside, I want to highlight that, in our Board recruitment, it is really important to us that we bring in a wider variety of perspectives to support the development of our work.

Why?

This week highlighted the layers of experience women from racially minoritised cultures are navigating - imagine you have left an abusive husband then, when you go out, you are racially harassed by men in the street in front of your children - the sense of threat & lack of safety ANYWHERE.

We had already recognised the need to diversify the voices around the table, to support us notice our blind spots about the stories that need to be told & perspectives that need to be represented in our work.

This amplified my sense of its importance.

At a recent event, I was struck by the articulation - it's not enough not to be racist - to reduce the racism living & breathing in our society, we must be proactively anti-racist.

Anti-racist practice is an active area of our evolution & we would truly welcome applications to our board from people from a range of cultural backgrounds.

✨ Please look at our recruitment document - https://changingrelations.co.uk/board-recruitment-2026/

✨ You're welcome to book an informal call with me if you'd like to understand more before applying. Email to check availability - lisa@changingrelations.co.uk

✨ The deadline for written applications is midnight on Mon 4 May. Please tell us why you're interested in joining our Board & outline the key skills, understanding & experience you could bring to our organisation in no more than 600 words. We’re interested in learning more about you & your wider knowledge & experience. Send to lisa@changingrelations.co.uk

✨ We will review all written applications & confirm whether you have been invited to our recruitment event by the end of the day Fri 15 May

✨ We will hold a recruitment event on Fri 19 June at 11am–3pm, lunch provided, with an informal gathering & individual interview

Please share with anyone you think would be a good fit for us!

03/04/2026

Here you can see our MD with the fabulous girls - Liv and Freyja - getting ready to co-facilitate a workshop on our toxic teen relationship-themed film, A is for Amy at the Brighter Futures conference being hosted over the Easter holidays by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and .

The girls were very clear that they wanted the focus of our workshop to be on what adults need to understand in order to be able to support young people who are affected by these kinds of traumatic experiences.

In the picture here we are painstakingly checking through the film to identify the clips the girls want to show to help illustrate the points they want to make.

Our favourite bit of the session was when we discussed how we were going to manage in the tight timeframe we have. We wanted to be sure the girls felt comfortable to facilitate their segment and were tickled pink by Freyja's finger-wagging as she told us she would be very clear with the grown ups they were only allowed to say 1 thing each 😆 🤩

It is absolutely fabulous to see a conference focused on young people's health and wellbeing that has young people at its core, shaping the issues we should be talking about to set policy and develop projects that support them. And the girls are relishing the opportunity for their voices to be heard.

Massive kudos to for weaving this depth of coproduction into an academic conference. We are delighted to be involved.

And if anyone fancies taking a little peak at the brand new trailer for A is for Amy that lovely has magicked up for us, it is here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Rsvi6hB_o&feature=youtu.be

01/04/2026

For the past few months we have been supporting to develop workshops based around their forced marriage-themed play Firestorm which had premiered at Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre (Creative Hartlepool) before Christmas.

Transformers brought together organisations supporting minoritised communities across Teesside ( Project CIC Purple Rose Stockton Connect360 ) who worked together to identify objectives & develop activities, based around clips of the play.

We agreed to highlight:

✒️ that forced marriage is not promoted by religion but is a cultural practice

✒️ the similarities between forced marriage & domestic abuse

✒️ the punishments associated with both

✒️ the support available nationally & across Teesside

✒️ the barriers that get in the way of people from different cultures accessing support if they are experiencing this

We went on to deliver the co-designed workshops to the 3 community groups, ending with a session sharing what we had done with who had funded the work.

Here are some of the comments we received -

💖 "Proud this work exists & at the multi cultural approach."

💖 "I am sat in a room filled with love & acceptance & that feeling needs to be taken further into the world."

💖 "It's a wonderful initiative. Hope to have more of this."

💖 "I want to come again & learn more."

💖 "I am happy to learn new information. I want to stand up for my right. I want to speak out when I am not happy."

💖 "I am very happy seeing different communities coming together & talking to each other."

💖 "Feeling happy because I am exposed to some laws I know nothing about before now. I am a woman whose voice must be heard. I can not be silenced and ignored."

It was an intense & powerful week. Alongside the lovely comments & sense that we had empowered community members with important information, there were also distressing stories of the racism some of our participants experience daily, often in front of their children, leaving them frightened & anxious.

In light of this, it was brilliant to see the will of the police & community organisations in Hartlepool to come together & create a more inclusive town.

Changing Relations

04/05/2026

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27/04/2026

24/04/2026

22/04/2026

20/04/2026

17/04/2026

10/04/2026

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