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Helping young people believe in themselves through creative writing support and mentoring Gill Pawley – 07771 231563

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43222354 – kid holding pencil and drawing in notepad

By Gill Pawley on June 2, 2017 in

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43222354 – kid holding pencil and drawing in notepad

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📚Helping young people believe in themselves through creative writing support and mentoring 📝workshops 🚀1:1 support. 💌gill@Inkpots.org

Avatar Inkpots @Inkpots1·

We’re re-vamping our newsletter for parents and other family members. We’ll be sharing resources for community, helping build young people’s confidence and building our community. Do join us! Sign up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dtGZ65

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Avatar Inkpots @Inkpots1·

Sunrise at Tesco. A series.

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Delighted to be able to share that our Inkwell Project for disadvantaged young people has received some further sponsorship from #BurgessHillandDistrictLionsClub. There are high levels of anxiety among our young people and this means we can quickly and effectively offer support.

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Enjoying the lovely autumn sunshine today AND that some plans coming together. Savouring the moments #gratitude

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Avatar M. G. Leonard @MGLnrd·

Dear schools, we're putting on a special Adventures on Trains event for you in October at The Theatre Royal in Brighton! And our special guest is the amazing illustrator @elisaupsidedown Booking is through @booknookhove and they can send you the details.

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We’re re-vamping our regular newsletter for pare

We’re re-vamping our regular newsletter for parents and other family members so if you’re not already subscribed, now is a great time!
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We promise not to clutter your in-box but will be sharing creative resources, helping develop young people’s confidence and build up our lovely community.
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The link to sign up is in our bio or you can copy and paste this one too: http://eepurl.com/dtGZ65

Tuesdays are when our group for secondary age stud

Tuesdays are when our group for secondary age students meets (always a good day).
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Our Year 11s have been working in their personal statements in preparation for going to college or into work next year.
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We talked about the things which could be included and worked on an exercise to gather information on achievements all in one place - say on their phones or a Google doc.
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Considering we’ve been through a pandemic, their achievements are remarkable and include activities with Scouts, Duke of Edinburgh Award, football, playing in orchestras and involvement in theatre groups.
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Keeping a regular note of achievements helps to remind us of how well we can do - especially when the negative bias in our brains just likes to bring up the things that go wrong!

At the start of the summer, I made a promise to my

At the start of the summer, I made a promise to myself to post much more regularly on the grid here. Over the past year, it’s all been rather haphazard (pandemic maybe?). But our lovely intern @summer_raselma did a wonderful job in freshening up the posts during her time with us, so I wanted to continue her fine work.
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But I got to yesterday morning and the scheduled post felt totally wrong.
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It was to do with September having that lovely ‘back to school’ energy and how we can embrace that feeling.
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But the truth is that this year things feel very different here.
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There isn’t the usual feeling and I can’t quite put my finger on it but I get a sense from the young people I work with of holding back and feeling quite tentative about the coming months. Anxiety is high and worries to the fore.
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So I ditched the post. And spent some time thinking more about how we could support our young people in the (yet another) new phase for them.
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Lots of people talk about things returning to normal. Yet they’re not. Things are different and it’s important to acknowledge that and change things up so that the support offered here is what’s needed by our young people.
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Back to the schedule tomorrow!

I love early Autumn with the misty mornings, abund

I love early Autumn with the misty mornings, abundant hedgerows and permission to dig out big comfy jumpers.
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It’s also a good season for writers as the days start to shorten. This half term with our online groups we’re creating storyboards with an Autumn theme- gorgeous images, ideas and inspirations.

One of the absolute joys at Inkpots is sharing boo

One of the absolute joys at Inkpots is sharing books with young people. We have three pillars of support - one of which is to encourage reading as widely as possible. And not just story books - poetry, picture books, comics, graphic novels, non-fiction, blogs and so on.
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Then what is totally brilliant is when young people recommend books they have read and rave about. That’s what happened a few weeks ago when Rebecca recommended Poet X by @acevedowrites
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All the good feels when this happens!

September is such a time of change for many famili

September is such a time of change for many families. For those returning to school and college it means a whole host of new things anyway; this year there’s a whole of other layer of things to remember because of Covid.⁠
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It’s totally understandable if there’s some anxiety around it all – we’re nothing 'like ‘back to normal’. Us adults can’t always offer the reassurance we once could, when many decisions are out of our hands.⁠
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But what we can do is encourage young people to use their creativity to support their wellbeing – journaling, doodling, doing cartoons, writing stories, poetry, discovering new books and authors – and on and on. A glorious treasure chest to be opened up and explored. ⁠
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It's always brilliant to get feedback like this fr

It's always brilliant to get feedback like this from parents - and of course even better to know that the approach we use here has helped support a young person.⁠
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There are so many ways that creativity can help with wellbeing and I'm just in the process of putting together some blogs to outline ideas. (I'm also putting it out there for some accountability!)⁠
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If there's anything in particular you would like to see covered or would like some particular information about, do please leave a comment or DM me. Would really love to hear from you.

A few weeks ago, my inspirational friend @sarahphi

A few weeks ago, my inspirational friend @sarahphilpcoaching shared her founder's story. As always with Sarah's gently probing writing, it got me thinking about my own.⁠
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It's easy to explain how Inkpots has evolved over the past nine years. But this was much more about digging deeply into why it had happened in the first place.⁠
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Actually, I needed to go back many, many years into my own childhood.⁠
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I was bullied a lot - sometimes at school, but mainly at Guides. This was the 1970s when such behaviour wasn't recognised or dealt with by adults. But my life was a misery. I had no-one to turn to and the bullying went from bad to worse.⁠
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And it has stayed with me. I can join the dots, as Sarah would say, to see how that raging sense of unfairness I felt still drives me.⁠
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As you can imagine, bullying is simply not tolerated at Inkpots. Young people thrive when they feel safe and cared about; when they know that they will be taken seriously and that they and their precious work are respected.

This week is the start of one of favourite times o

This week is the start of one of favourite times of the year. We're promised a few warm sunny days this week too - one last hurrah for summer. And then we'll be into the cooler, misty days of Autumn. Candles, warm jumpers and hot chocolate!⁠
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But there's also such a 'back to school feel' this week too as our clubs return (another hurrah) and I can start putting some plans together based on some of the wonderful conversations I've had over the summer.⁠
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I've talked to young people (at length), parents, teachers, local community groups, potential funders, university lecturers and researchers. All with a view to helping develop Inkpots' services and programmes - making us as relevant as possible for young people in this rapidly changing world.⁠
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Hurrah for September and all of our plans!

Last weekend I visited @tate for the first time in

Last weekend I visited @tate for the first time in two years.
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There’s something about the scale of the building - the Turbine Hall for starters - which has me in awe. There’s always a display (or three) which takes my breath away; humbling me even.
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According to a study by the University of California, Berkeley, seeking out awe can reduce both mental stress and inflammation in the body.
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Sounds good to me! Is there anywhere/anything which leaves you awe-struck?
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Have an awesome weekend too!

As a huge fan of Autumn, I'm delighted to see 1 Se

As a huge fan of Autumn, I'm delighted to see 1 September - and feel a nip in the air.⁠
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Of course, it also marks the return to school over the coming days for many of our young people. Our own clubs return next week and it'll be brilliant to see everyone again and catch up on the summer's news.⁠
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But our thoughts will be those who are moving schools and for whom the start of a new term brings its own challenges.⁠
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We hope everyone has a smooth start to the start so that it provides a good foundation for the weeks and months to come.

One of the most popular visitors to our Inkpots’

One of the most popular visitors to our Inkpots’ groups has been @amywilsonbooks.⁠
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Amy’s books are always magical, mysterious and spellbinding - and her new book is no different.⁠
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‘Lightning Falls’ has a hallowed ghost, a rainbow bridge and a whole family of ghostly characters.⁠
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Read our review of Amy’s new book on our website - the link is in our bio.
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https://inkpots.org/lightning-falls-by-amy-wilson/

As we come to the end of the month, thoughts are b

As we come to the end of the month, thoughts are beginning to turn to the return to school. We know many young people who are also preparing for their first day at secondary school too.⁠
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We have a free handout for parents and young people which has a few ideas to make the transition go as smoothly as possible. We’ve kept it as practical as possible with some tips from young people who have already been through the process.⁠
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You can get hold of a copy via the link in our bio. Any probs with the link (or questions) please just DM.

We encourage our young writers to use all their se

We encourage our young writers to use all their senses in their writing. Visits away from home over the summer open up opportunities to soak up new experiences which can be used in stories.
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That might be smelling salty sea air, squelching in a muddy festival field or watching a burning sunset.
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All are rich experiences which can be squirrelled away for future use.
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We feel honoured that wonderful creatives are runn

We feel honoured that wonderful creatives are running masterclasses for young people here at Inkpots this summer.⁠
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The final session in the series is for young writers age 12 - 15 years and will be led by the truly inspirational @louisareid.⁠
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Louisa’s books in verse are so accessible, immersive and moving. They are hugely popular with our members but any young writer can join our session on Tuesday 31 August at 10.30am. We know it will be informative and inspirational.⁠
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Further details are on our website and the link is in our bio. Or pop a DM to us and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

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