Tag: interview

>VRH Interview with Julie Nixon

Mechanical Dolphin

>Our third and final VRH blog arrives!

The tough economic climate, and forthcoming budget cuts, affect companies, charities and public sector bodies alike. UK readers may have seen Karl Wilding from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations on the television recently, talking about the NCVO’s concerns over the impact of cuts in public sector funding of charities.

Charities like Volunteer Reading Help provide an effective means of supporting children who are struggling with their literacy skills. Just a small gift of three hours a week during school term-times can make such a huge impact on the life of an individual child – and VRH is going from strength to strength in 2010.

‘We’re so proud of increasing the number of children we help by 18% this year,’ Julie Nixon, Director of Services at VRH told Books and Adventures. ‘I foresee many opportunities to provide schools with vital 1-to-1 sessions for their children. We are a cheap alternative to many reading schemes which cost far more, and our intervention is also about the whole child.’

My visit to the Birmingham offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers earlier this month opened my eyes to the generosity of firms who work with voluntary sector organisations like VSO. In addition to donating funding and the time of their staff, Julie tells me that PwC also provides rooms to host VRH functions free of charge, giving the charity a vital inner-city base of operations.


Looking to the future, Julie tells Books and Adventures, ‘It would be great if companies would sponsor a local school’s VRH activities, our website, or some of our marketing materials. The support of firms like PwC is a tremendous help.’


To find out more about VRH and how you can get involved, see their website, here.

In additional news, I’m pleased to announce that on October 24th I’ll be running the Birmingham Half Marathon to raise sponsorship for the VRH activities at Herne Bay Infant School in Kent, my former base as a VRH Helper. More news nearer the date!

Volunteer Reading Help: Anne Loftus Interview

Mechanical Dolphin

On Thursday 1st July I will be speaking at the House of Commons reception of Volunteer Reading Help, the UK charity which supports children’s literacy development through one-to-one mentoring.

Today we’re joined by Anne Loftus, who wears two hats as a Volunteer Services Manager and as a Reading Helper in her own right. Anne is based in Kent and was responsible for training me as a Helper way back in the day!


How did you first get involved with VRH?
My involvement with VRH started in November 1993 when I was lucky enough to be taken on as a Volunteer Services Manager in Kent. My role involved recruiting and training volunteers who would then give individual help to children who were struggling with reading and in need of some 1:1 support. It is the best job in the world as you meet such wonderful, caring people who want to give something back to their local community and help children with their reading and confidence.


How long have you been working as a Reading Helper?
I have worked as a VSM for almost 17 years and became a Volunteer Reading Helper myself 4 years ago. I worked with a Looked After Child, Ryan, after school for just over a year and when he moved on to secondary school I worked with his younger brother, Tristan.


What were your first experiences of the programme like?
Although I had been training volunteers for many years it was very different becoming a volunteer myself. Ryan had a lot of problems and could be quite difficult at times. Without the knowledge of the VRH training I think I would have found him very difficult to cope with. Through playing games I was able to calm him down when necessary.


How have things changed at VRH in the intervening years?
The content of the training has not changed very much, although it has been updated regularly. Our volunteers have always been carefully selected; we still interview all volunteers, take up references and run an enhanced CRB check before training. Our main way of working – giving children choices, making the sessions fun and relaxed, putting no pressure on the child – this has not changed since VRH began in 1973.


What is your proudest achievement as a Helper?
My proudest achievement as a VRH Reading Helper is the day Tristan stood on the podium at the House of Commons last year and read his poem “I Like Lambourghinis”! I thought I would burst with pride!! I have worked with Tristan for 3 years now, following him to secondary school last autumn (his choice!) His confidence and reading ability has grown immensely.


How have you developed personally as a result of your involvement with VRH?
Working as a VRH Reading Helper is so rewarding and fulfilling. To see a child’s face light up when they see you and to share the very special time with a child – sometimes just chatting or reading the child a story. My own confidence has grown and meeting such wonderful people is a tonic.


Why should people volunteer their time with VRH?
If a person likes the company of children and enjoys reading, it is the most perfect form of volunteering. Plenty of patience and a sense of humour are quite important too. Just 3 hours per week and you can help to change a child’s life forever. The work is rewarding and great fun too. I truly believe that our volunteers get as much from the sessions as the children.


There will be more on Volunteer Reading Help at this blog in the run-up to the Commons event.
If you’d like to get involved with VRH, or just find out more about their incredible work, go to http://vrh.org.uk/Page.aspx

Steve Killick Interview

Mechanical Dolphin

This week we’re lucky enough to have an interview with Steve Killick. Steve is a storyteller and clinical psychologist whose book Telling Tales, written with Taffy Thomas, is a great practical guide for people interested in education, storytelling and emotional literacy.

You can find out more about Steve and his wide-ranging work here.
What does storytelling do that stories in books can’t?
I think what is happening when a story is told and heard is very different than when it is read. When told the teller is able to engage the listeners by their creation of the story, they can bring many aspects of non-verbal communication in, such as tone-of-voice, gesture, facial expression these all provide stimuli for the imagination. Most importantly the storyteller can modulate the delivery depending on how the listeners are reacting. Reading stories are good for us but by telling a story we bring it into the social domain and increase the usefulness of the experience.

One reason for this is that we think in story terms anyway and often socially we are telling each other stories, the everyday kind, what’s happening to us, our successes and achievements. By listening to stories we understand a lot about people, our imagination is stimulated and we can think more flexibly and creatively and we also learn how to tell stories by listening, and that is an important social skill. Reading fiction can help to develop social and cognitive skills in children such as language and empathy. Hearing stories can help children not only become more interested in reading but also it directly develops important interpersonal skills particularly speaking and listening.

How does storytelling benefit us, as children and as adults?
I think storytelling is one of the most beneficial activities human being can engage in but the evidence to support such a claim is limited. We know stories can certainly develop language and other cognitive skills. Stories also just inform us about the world around us, our history (or hi ’story’), they tell us what is socially valued, what’s good, bad, moral and so on. Basically they tell us about life. They are powerful things and can be abused as well. As a psychologist, I am most interested in how stories develop social and emotional skills, to understand feeling, to get in touch with them and learn how to deal with them, they help with motivation and in getting on with others.
For children stories really help us develop the key skills of what we call emotional literacy. For adults they too are very important. Many people are drawn to stories in drama on TV or film or in reading fiction. Keith Oatley, a leading psychologist in the study of emotions, feels that is because they help us attune with emotions. Being involved in a story is like a work-out at the gym for our emotional mind. However, many adults have not had the experience of listening to a good story well told and dismiss it as something for children. They are missing a wonderful experience.
Do you need special training to become a storyteller?
As an art form storytelling is one that is relatively easy to learn. It is a natural capacity and can be developed through practise. It’s not about learning how to do voices or anything like that, more about finding a style that works for you. Much can be learned through listening and watching people tell stories especially skilled and professional tellers. If someone is really interested in storytelling and especially performance storytelling then doing some training is certainly recommended and many storytellers offer training. I think most people can learn the basics of storytelling easily and find ways to use them at home or work. To become a professional storyteller needs a lot of study and isn’t for everyone.

What does “happily ever after” really mean?
Great question. Its major function is to say simply that’s the end of the story – all the issues are now resolved and it is over. Like ‘Once upon a time’ which starts a story, the phrase marks out the boundaries of the story world. It is, of course, symbolic rather than literal. Jon Kabot-Zinn felt its really meaning was almost the opposite to ‘ever after’- rather it refers to happiness in the here and now, the present – and of course the present moment is the eternal moment. I liked that! I also think there is another symbolic meaning in fairy tales for often these stories are about growing up. When the hero or heroine marries and receives untold riches it is really saying they have had an experience which has taken them to maturity and they are now able to live as mature adults. This is why many fairy stories send optimistic messages, even the least favoured smallest child can grow up to succeed.

Do you have an all-time favourite story to hear, or tell?
I don’t know about an all-time favourite but certainly a story that has obsessed me for the last few years is the ancient Indian story of King Vikram and a corpse he is fated to carry. However, his burden is inhabited by a spirit who instructs him in wisdom in living through a series of tantalising riddling stories. I have been tracking down different version of this story for year. I also tell it and am trying to rewrite my own version and I’m always finding new things in it.