MB News June 23

MB NEWS
No.2
Celebrating all that's brilliant about The Mulberry Bush June 2023
There's certainly enough
to be getting on with!
Making Music
Welcome to the second edition of MB News. June
has been incredible busy, across the charity.
There's been a trip to Germany, a visit from
Oxford Philharmonic, prize winners, fried pizza
and the Archivists are becoming more
"sociable"!
You'll also notice that it's a few pages longer
than the first edition and that down to you!
Thanks VERY much to all that sent their stories.
I'm sure you'll all agree, there's a HUGE amount
going on. Enjoy reading!
The Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra came to the School for
four days (Tues 13th- Fri 16th) in June to work with the
children. The week culminated in a performance on the
Friday and it was brilliant to see how engaged the children
were. (Thanks to Stuart Harragan for the photos.)

The opening of 'Ein Platz fur Kinder'
In June 2023 the Mulberry Bush was invited to the
opening of a new residential school in Chiemsee,
Germany and Dr Caryn Onions and Adam Clarke
were delighted to represent the Mulberry Bush.
Ein Platz fur Kinder (EPFK) was founded by Johanna
Ruoff and John Diamond first visited Chiemsee in
November 2018. The team from EPFK designed their
new residential school on the model of Mulberry
Bush where Education and Group Living are
integrated. This is the first residential school of its
kind in Germany and the German government
donated 1.75 million Euros to this unique project.
Chiemsee is a beautiful lake in Bavaria. The building
used to be a convent. and was empty for 30 years as
the nuns wanted it to be used for a social project. The
conversion has sympathetically incorporated many
of the original features of the convent whilst
including design features familiar at the Mulberry
Bush for the integrated work of care and education
with traumatised young children.
EPFK also has children’s homes in Halle and
Hamburg and we are hoping to develop a Community
of Practice model between the Mulberry Bush and
EPFK. There may also be the possibility of research
collaboration.
The Archivists are becoming more sociable!
The archives have landed on Instagram and
Twitter because they’re #downwiththecoolcats.
Debs and Gareth will be managing the channels
and will be showcasing the weird and the
wonderful aspects of their work with their usual
humour and grace. You can find them by
searching for their social handle @T_C_Archives.

In a very busy organisation, it's
sometimes possible to overlook
the amazing work of the
unsung heroes of The Mulberry
Bush. So here's a shout out to
our Auxiliary Teams -
Housekeeping, Laundry and
Kitchen staff. Thanks for
EVERYTHING you do!
TC Elders Annual Spring Event
The TC Elders annual spring event 16th-18th May this year
was an opportunity for old friends and colleagues to
gather, reminisce and reflect on their role within the
sector.
MB3 was basked in sunshine, and we welcomed Rich
Rollinson, Rex Haigh, Vicky Gavin, Barbara Rawlings and
David Jones. Our focus for the event was to further
develop ideas around a Coffee Table Book which would be
an A-Z of Therapeutic Communities and promote TC ideas
and thinking to new audiences. At The Consortium of
Therapeutic Communities (TCTC) conference last
September, Vicky and Marya Hemmings asked delegates
to draw their, or their TC’s journey, from “birth” to now.
We looked at these drawings and were excited by the
ways people chose to represent their TCs, a couple, one
from Greece and the other from Japan are shown here.
The book will be a collection of
drawings, photographs, articles,
poems etc that can be easily read and
understood by a general audience as
well as new and experienced
professionals. The Elders are looking
to shine a light on different aspects
of Therapeutic Communities and
illuminate the centrality of
Community and Relationships for
well-being and good Mental Health.
Our “resident artist” Vicky Gavin
gave us a glimpse of how this might
look.
We left full of ideas and
commitments to work on a few
letters of the alphabet, but no one
seemed keen to take “X”. Any
suggestions will be welcome, just
write
to
tcelders@mulberrybush.org.uk with
your thoughts.

'Rahul Moodgal Prize' winner announced!
We’re delighted to announce that this year’s annual
‘Rahul Moodgal prize for Therapeutic Child Care’ is
awarded to Nikki Arnold for her “Action Research
Project into the Impact of Additional Aerobic Physical
Activity for Regulation and Challenging Behaviours in a
Primary School Setting”. We offer huge congratulations
to Nikki, who works as a Teaching Assistant in a school
in Hampshire.
Now in its 9th year, the Rahul Moodgal prize is sponsored by Rahul who is a patron and
generous supporter of the Mulberry Bush. The prize of £251, which is awarded to a student of
our Foundation Degree (FdA) in Therapeutic Work with Children and Young People,
recognises a contribution to the therapeutic care and education sector and will be shared
with other settings.We hope to publish Nikki’s paper in the Therapeutic Care Journal in the
near future.
The standard of work this year was incredibly high and the judging panel was extended to
include FdA tutors, the Mulberry Bush reading group, Mulberry Bush Leadership Team and
colleagues from the University of the West of England (UWE).
Second Nurture Project
Laura and Katrina have launched the second
Nurture Project with 4 schools across
Oxfordshire. Three primaries and one
secondary (West Witney Primary, Wood Farm
primary, Watchfield Primary and Faringdon
Community College). The research project
will last over 2 years and will look at
developing a whole school apprach to Nurture
and support social, emotional and mental
health needs in schools. The project schools
will receive training and supervision from
Mulberry Bush Outreach and training from
Nurture UK.
Leadership Course
This year’s Leadership for an Emotionally
Aware Environment online course ended
last week. Ray has been supported by Jade
Jeffries (a former teacher here at the
Bush), and they've worked with senior
leaders from a partnership of six special
schools, including the CEO of the Trust.
The group has been very engaged and
reflective, and used part of our seventh
(and final) session to think about taking
things forward to widen their trauma
informed practice. As leaders they
recognised the need to develop staff
support and wellbeing and have put that in
their development plans for the individual
schools and the trust. It was good to see
them collaborating and sharing a vision
and reflecting together on the learning
from the course.

Level 4 conclusion
This week saw the conclusion of the Level 4
Certificate in Therapeutic Child Care in Dorset.
Dorset Council were looking for an alternative to
the Level 3 Child Care as their essential
compulsory training. The course was conceived
by Dave Roberts and developed by Penny
Copping, delivered over the past academic year.
Penny travelled two weeks in three to Weymouth
to teach two cohorts at the residential home, and
facilitated three experiential residentials for the
cohorts.
The groups looked at the foundations to
Therapeutic Work and the underpinning theory.
They also looked at how that met with statutory
requirements, and were asked to examine their
own core sense of self.
Both Penny and the Dorset cohorts have worked
hard to make the Level 4 a huge success. Penny is
now preparing for cohort 2.
The School will be getting a new swing in
September thanks to Pre-Prep at Summer Fields
School in Oxford who have been fundraising for
us this year.
We are waiting for a further donation from
money raised at their school fete. The
fundraising team were there running the ‘Guess
The Name of the Teddy’ stall. George, in their
Year 3, won and the name of the Teddy was
Archibald (after one of the school’s founders).
3,2,1...BAKE!
Three of the children in Pegasus ran
a charity bake sale to raise money
for Give Racism the Red Card &
Oxford Hospitals Charity. They did
brilliantly and raised £100! The
Fundraising Manager from Oxford
Hospitals Charity came to visit in
May to thank the children and gave
them a certificate!

Greetings from MB3!
Hello from my new base in Toddington,
I’ve been here a week now, so not much to share yet but
watch this space. The lovely people here (thank you
Anthony, Deb, Debs and Gareth B.) have made me very
welcome. I’ll be sharing plans and ideas about this site as
we develop them, but I’m already talking to Luke about
how we encourage people to make more use of MB3 and
that includes all of you in the Charity. We need to hear
what you think MB3 can offer you and in particular how
we can use it to bring the charity (that’s staff, children
and stakeholders) together to strengthen the
connections between us. If you have ideas, please talk to
me – email, call or come and see us.
We do intend to start talking to local schools, charities and GP’s about using the meadow
here. It’s very early days and we’ll update you as we go. There is also some thinking about
making sure MB3 is a place for creativity and inclusivity as well as reflection, and we’ll be
developing ways to work on that.
Please get in touch if you have any ideas for MB3, or if you want to use the site. If you have
contacts you think I should be talking to, please point them my way or give me their details.
I’m missing the school, of course, and very much looking for reasons to keep in touch.
Blakes Kitchen backs 'Hands On'
We so thankful that our friends at Blake’s Kitchen,
Clanfield, are supporting our Hands On campaign.
Our fundraising team are certainly no strangers to Blake’s,
it’s a wonderful bakery and café, with the most fabulous
range of food and drink, all in a beautiful location.
So, we were delighted when Nicola Cooper, founder of
Blake’s, shared with us her recipe for Pizza Fritta. A slightly
different take on pizza which is a specialty around Naples.
You can try her recipe here:
Blakes Kitchen Pizza Fritta Recipe
Daniel Cooper, Manging Director at Blake’s said, “I can see
that you do some amazing work. We would of course love to
help with this initiative.”
We hope you enjoy making this delicious recipe and please
do share with us your creations!

Hellos
Renira Scott
Family Link Worker
Anorique Beukes
Therapeutic Care
Practitioner –
Pegasus
Katie Boyd
Agency TA
Education
WORKOUT
Are you looking to get fit?!
Exclusive offer to The Mulberry Bush staff:
Circuit training - FIRST SESSION FREE!
CONTACT: Gareth Jones, School
Maintainance Manager, on
gjones@mulberrybush.org.uk or 07812
071417
Stay Social...
facebook.com/mulberrybushcharity
Martin Attwood
Agency
Therapeutic Care
Practitioner
twitter.com/mulberrybushorg
linkedin.com/company/
the-mulberry-bush-organisation-ltd/
Upcoming events
Wednesday 12 July (afternoon) -
Sports Day
Wednesday 19 July (morning) -
Concert
Wednesday 26 July (all day) -
Aqua Day
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