At the University of Kent, I designed and oversaw a collaborative Creative Writing project with students from the University of Kent and the Pilgrims Hospice charity. The project had two incentives: to increase student employability through professional development, offering them experience of applying their skills in a real-life environment; to enable terminally ill patients and their families to articulate their memories, reclaim their diagnostic stories, and the language used about their bodies.

I liaised with the charity to ensure students implemented feedback from the beneficiaries. I met with the students before and after each session to check their workshop plans and reflect on their sessions. The students completed reflective pieces of writing on their experiences of teaching, evaluating the ways their projects benefited the participants. I encourage students to think critically about the therapeutic value of creating ethical, respectful spaces for sharing and challenging the silence that surrounds the terminally ill. After the sessions, I held a sharing session for the participants to read their work and invited participants’ families to attend. The participants reported that they felt the project had helped them order and share their chaotic, unpredictable, disorientating, unfathomable experiences of terminal illness.

Building on this work, collaborating with an outreach colleague, I conceived of and co-taught a final-year module Reaching Out: Engaging Communities in Literature and Creative Writing. This module guided students in devising and implementing community-based projects, with an emphasis on diversity, inclusion, and building trust with participants. We explored the definitions of community, focusing on fostering intimacy and empathy, and used reflective practices to enhance understanding. Throughout, we provided ongoing guidance and feedback on project planning and development. We ensured participants considered all key elements of project management, including deliverability, alignment with partner and stakeholder values, risk identification, and effective evaluation. We emphasised qualitative recording of artistic projects and reflective writing to analyse and document their experiences for assessment.

Teaching CW in a health care environment requires specific skills beyond literary accomplishments, and these are often interpersonal skills that are difficult to teach, such as pastoral care, conflict resolution, creating a warm and welcoming environment, the ability to respond to emotional and psychological experiences of the group. During the initial stages of the project, I invited all the interested students to a session on the ethics of working with vulnerable subjects, and teaching Creative Writing in the community.  I invited the Hospice’s Occupation Health Therapist, Justine Robinson, to attend, along with all interested students. 

Justine was keen for students to know that the hospice is not a dark and dingy place, and advised them that patients might be too tired to contribute, or overwhelmed. She also warned the students they might have only one participant, or the patients might cry or breakdown with emotion. We talked about the health care environment as a sensitive area to work within and that facilitators need to use considerable judgement. Pairing students with terminal patients coming to terms with their illness, and all the terrifying changes terminal illness brings, is a risky venture. The students involved were on the cusp of being prepared for the activity. Creative Writing requires the facilitator to respond to the situation itself, rather than repeat verbatim what they have heard in a seminar setting. In this way students are unable to simply mimic a tutor, it requires them to engage with the workshop as it unfolds and transform their knowledge base and ideas into practice, knowing that it can take any direction on account of the chaotic nature of working with individuals. We thought it was appropriate that the patients attending were able to digress in ways that ordinarily might be destructive in a seminar setting, for example, relaying personal stories, or talking about their feelings and thoughts, so we advised the students not to be too prescriptive with their workshop plan, and to let the sessions take their own route. 

What is necessary, John Killick writes, is ‘an attitude of humility in the face of an individual’s struggle to communicate what is happening to them during complex and profound changes in their lives. The success relies upon the facilitator responding to the numerous routes the workshop may take and to be fluid and flexible with their approach. I suggested that student facilitators should draw upon and engage with reflections on their own research and writing practice where appropriate, to support the session, with material or by recounting their own processes and practices.  

It is worth noting the practicalities of the arrangements. Students were voluntary, and worked with their group for three consecutive weeks, in some cases in pairs of two, and in other cases, alone I felt three sessions was an appropriate amount for them to learn from their mistakes, grow in confidence, and modify their approach if necessary.  Justine was always present, so they were never left alone with the patients.

I attended the last sessions for both groups. Students were very capable, creating a warm, relaxed and friendly atmosphere. They cultivated a safe space and bonded with the participants. I encouraged students to keep reflective journals, to help them document and evaluate the effectiveness of the project, along with their process and the outcomes.

Students found assisting participants in their creative work a privilege, and engaging with their stories, memories and creative expressions provoked them to think of the human behind the illness. 

Alongside other colleagues, my work on this project won a Faculty of Humanities Teaching Awards at the University of Kent. For more on the project see: https://www.pilgrimshospices.org/news/pilgrims-hospices-writing-for-wellbeing/