Wash My Mind, Heal My Heart

A Response Ability Theatre and CHAMPIONS co-production

Directed and facilitated by Nell Hardy

Creative welfare support by Sahar Beg

Camera operated by Bahja Mahamed

Created and performed by participants of the PSP REFUGEE project. We thank these mothers for their stories, spirit, creativity and courage.

The PSP REFUGEE project was supported and part funded by the NIHR ARC North Thames and by Lifelines International.

Project co-leads: Prof Monica Lakhanpaul and Dr Nadzeya Svirydzenka

Lead researcher: Dr Beth Eveleigh

With thanks to the wider PSP REFUGEE project team.

We extend our thanks also to University College London, De Montfort University, Happy Baby Community, Shared Health Foundation, and Old Diorama Arts Centre.

What would make your life that little bit better right now?

How about in a few months’ time?

How about in a few years’ time?

These are the questions that led a group of Arabic- and Kurdish-speaking mums of under 5s to the couplet that went on to represent findings from several months of research:

Wash my mind, heal my heart,

Now my story here can start.

These mums were co-creating, with researchers, a culturally sensitive parenting support programme for migrant and asylum-seeking families in temporary accommodation with children under the age of 5. The project is a continuation of CHAMPIONS, a wider research project dedicated to finding out how to give early years children in temporary accommodation the best start in life, using the SHE framework: Safe, Healthy and Educated. You may remember our previous collaboration with them on Milestones, our semi-verbatim play based on interview transcripts from their first stage of research.

All too often, the needs of the parents are overlooked when considering the wellbeing and development of the child. The interviews behind Milestones showed us just how destructive this can be, both to the family and to societal attitudes towards some of our most disadvantaged people. With migrant and asylum-seeking families, there are additional layers to consider: both the impact of traumatic experiences escaping violence in their home countries, and the need to hold onto and pass down all the treasured aspects of their culture to their children in a new context.

The ethical considerations in a project of this nature are huge. Some traditional research methods in which interviewees meet researchers only a couple of times, on their own, would be irresponsible in a context with such active power dynamics, where the interviewee is being asked to pour her heart out, and then expected to be well enough to go straight back to caring for her family in extremely challenging conditions. Add to that the language barriers and the challenges trauma brings to linear memory and identification of needs, and it is clear that this project needed a different approach.

At RAT, we firmly believe that each stage of creating a play needs directly to benefit the people the play is representing. So we were delighted when CHAMPIONS asked us to employ the same philosophy to the process behind their PSP REFUGEE project, by ingraining a series of workshops before and after the interviews into the process. The mothers gained a community by meeting each other and having time away from childcare commitments (their children were being looked after in an adjacent room during sessions), to express themselves honestly and fully. With drama, music, visual art and dance, multiple expressive capacities that didn't rely on shared spoken language engaged all of their senses, to find expression of their wants and needs in a cathartic, joyful, beautiful way.

Rather than leaping into the real-world issues that dominate the mothers’ everyday lives, we framed our exploration around storytelling, and identifying the fairytale-esque ideal settings in which they would want to be raising their children. Bring in that level of fiction, and you take away the distressing “if only” aspect of identifying what is preventing you from giving your child the life you want them to have. But you still identify what you really need to know: the essence of what they need and value.

“Wash my mind” was a response to “What would make your life that little bit better right now?” This was a reference to clearing their minds of all the huge worries that dominate their lives, such as having a secure permanent home and leave to remain. “Heal my heart” was a response to what might improve things in the longer term. This was a recognition that they will only be able to process the trauma they have experienced properly when they have a basic level of practical stability in their lives - and that doing so would allow them to show up fully and joyfully for their kids.

Some of the mums are still working with the researchers on the full analysis of all findings to co-create the framework, and we look forward to sharing that with you when we can. We will also link you to academic papers on the process when they are published - which we hope will go some way to providing the evidence needed to convince more research funders to invest in trauma-conscious arts collaborations.

"It was a good experience for all women to act like one body. All collaborate with each other, and without speaking any words they got together and did the same actions, it was brilliant."

"When we come, we feel very happy, and we are doing something very important."

"It’s good for all the mums to come out from their homes and they’re all in the same situation, they all left their country, and sharing their experience together, and they become friends, chatting together, it makes them do some relaxation and meet new people, build self-confidence for us."

"For me, in the home with my daughter and my husband, all the time I’m feeling nervous, but when I come to this, I’m really relaxing my mind, and with my daughter, my mind is changing, and everything is really changing for me. Because I saw so many Kurdish women, and women from my country."

If you are involved with a research project that involves people with or at risk of post-traumatic stress, and are interested in working with us to make the project as ethical, mutually beneficial, authentic and persuasive as it can be, please reach out to us on info@responseabilitytheatre.com.