WEEK ONE: WELCOME SESSION

In this welcoming first session we will look at the basics of using plant medicine – things you might have in your kitchen or easily to hand. We will introduce preparation methods, contraindications, dosages & remedies for common ailments.

(Facilitated by Sapna Agarwal & Lisa Fannen).

WEEK TWO: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOMATICS, THE RESILIENCE TOOLKIT AND LIBERATORY WAYS OF BEING

An Introduction to Somatics, the Resilience Toolkit and Liberatory Ways Of Being.

Camille Sapara Barton (they/she) author of Tending Grief will facilitate this BIPOC only session around somatics and racial justice. More information soon.

Camille Sapara Barton is a writer, consultant, embodiment facilitator and movement artist that supports organisations to flow through transitions. Their work creates relational wellbeing by increasing connection to the body, care practices, grief and imagination. Camille supports teams, as well as individuals, to reduce stress and enhance resilience, while navigating change. They also offer trauma informed facilitation and consultancy to support cultural workers, funders and those working with socially engaged topics. Camille is the author of Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community (2024). Based in Amsterdam, they designed and directed MA Ecologies of Transformation (2021 – 2023) which explored how embodiment and socially engaged art making can create change through the body, into the wider world.

WEEK TWO: WHITE RESILIENCE: EMBODIED ANTI-RACISM

The session – aimed specifically at white people – will be run by Tripod. We will explore and address whiteness, embodied responses to racial tension and somatic techniques to build resilience for practicing anti-racist action. It will be a space to learn and transform together and look at further anti-racist resources and work.

WEEK THREE: WE TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER

This workshop, co-facilitated by River McAskill, River Molloy and Zinzi Buchanan, offers body-focused exercises and creative practices for a trans-exclusive space, situated within the present local and global climate. We will bring an array of offerings related to the question: how can we take care of ourselves and one another, when we can’t trust state systems to take care of us? Come as you are and bring anything that adds to your comfort.

WEEK THREE: GENDER IN THE BODY

An introduction to gender and embodiment for cisgender folk (i.e. those whose experience aligns with their assigned gender). This will look at the ways our embodied experiences are shaped by our gender, and explore what it means to support trans siblings in practice. This session will be led by Tripod.

WEEK FOUR: HERBS TO SUPPORT PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL HEALTH

In this session we’ll explore the use of herbs to support psycho-emotional health*, especially focusing on considering ‘nervines’; herbs that support rest, relaxation, that soothe, ground, vitalise and nourish. We’ll also be looking at personal constitutions and plant energetics. And we’ll briefly touch on the use of entheogens (psychoactive substances such as magic mushrooms) as medicine.
*psycho-emotional health is one way of giving more holistic language to experiences of stress, distress or variable consciousness that often get called ‘mental health’, which will be explored more in the following sessions.

(Facilitated by Sapna Agarwal & Lisa Fannen)

WEEK FIVE: MENTAL HEALTH/ MOVING BEYOND

We’ll look at the language and politics of what gets ‘mental health’ and consider more holistic understandings of experiences that honour the connection between mind/body/soul, and that acknowledge social and political context. (Facilitated by Sapna Agarwal & Lisa Fannen)

WEEK SIX: DECOLONISING ‘GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH’

We’ll be looking at decolonising ‘global mental health’. We’ll look at the concepts of decoloniality, of things being ‘culture bound’, and at hermeneutical injustice* as ways to examine dominator knowledge systems, and the institution of psych/iatry.

*Hermeneutical injustice – occurs when someone’s experiences are not well understood — by themselves or by others — because these experiences do not fit any concepts known to them (or known to others), due to the historic exclusion of some groups of people from activities, such as scholarship and journalism, that shape the language people use to make sense of their experiences. (Facilitated by Sapna Agarwal & Lisa Fannen)

WEEK SEVEN: REFRAMING TRAUMA

We’ll be looking at reframing trauma, how we might understand trauma in the bodymindsoul, taking a look at the physiology of trauma, forms of trauma, and at ways to mitigate and heal trauma. (Facilitated by Lisa Fannen & Sapna Agarwal).

WEEK EIGHT: PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL HEALTH – EXPLORING EXPERIENCES

We’ll look more at psycho-emotional health – exploring experiences as opposed to diagnoses. And exploring collective care and collective healing. (Facilitated by Sapna Agarwal & Lisa Fannen).

WEEK NINE: CLOSING SESSION

This closing session will be a space for reflection and feedback. We can discuss ways we can share what we’ve learned and explored with our wider communities. We can talk about if we want to do more sessions and /or projects together. (Facilitated by Lisa Fannen & Sapna Agarwal).