This year’s conference organiser, DCF’s Olivia Storey, reflects on the conference from February and shares some of the feedback received from conference attendees.
After three years of the DCF conference being online, we were able to take a blended approach and return to campus this year for our February 2023 conference titled ‘Healing the hurt, restoring the hope’. In addition to the thought-provoking keynote presentations on the day, attendees had access to the conference Microsoft Teams channel. This contained pre-recorded presentations about home schooling during Covid lockdowns, diverse voices in education and our need to connect with nature. Attendees stated in the conference evaluation that these presentations were useful in relation to their own practice, research and course modules.
There was a real buzz throughout the day, which began with the inspiring Elena Lengthorn, who delivered a powerful message concerning the climate and ecological emergency in education. With an abundance of insightful information, attendees fed back that despite the challenging topic, they felt the “subject was important”, their “thinking had been changed” and that they “felt inspired to make a difference”. Elena finished her keynote message by providing the audience with an opportunity to contribute to the string of hope. The audience engaged fully in this making beautiful origami butterflies containing their hopes for the world, community, and self (the string of hope is now displayed at St Johns campus). Following Elena, we were then joined by Nicola Watson who delivered another engaging and motivating presentation. Nicola focused on how we may foster a connection with nature, for and with children. Providing some shocking facts, such as the sad decline of wild animals globally, Nicola suggested we share knowledge with compassion, courage and confidence in a hopeful way. Again much positive feedback was received, with one student stating, “Listening to Nicola has given me inspiration to go back to my setting and make use of our natural areas”.
Following the morning keynote presentations, workshops were held and critically reflective discussions occurred regarding the presentations. At lunch time conference attendees were able to purchase the tasty vegan lunch option. Students also took part in the sustainable swap shop, where items were rehomed and repurposed, and were able to get a bargain at the Letterpress project’s second hand book stall (run by Karen Argent, a previous student from the DCF department).
The final part of the conference involved two moving keynote presentations. Erica Strudley-Brown explored the value and impact of narrative research, focusing on the experience of a family from Ukraine and trauma-informed practice. The impact of Erica’s influential ideas, expertise and the significance of hope in her approach was evident in the feedback received in the conference evaluations. Denisse Levermore then shared her presentation about the critical issue of children and young people’s mental health (during the pandemic and beyond). This concluded the day by providing the audience with feelings of hopefulness, and aspirations and desires for their own practice. As with the previous keynote speakers I received encouraging feedback, with one student saying it had helped them to decide what they would like to do next in their career, and they would like to go onto the CAMHS top-up degree.
Reflecting on this day, we are all so proud of all of those involved in this successful event and are looking forward to next year’s DCF conference.
