Impact case study database

The Expressive Writing Project (EWP) has shaped the practices of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governments, and private sector bodies supporting trauma survivors after conflicts and disasters in the UK and Middle East; supported by funding of over GBP88,000 from the UK government, AHRC, and the private sector. It provides an alternative toolkit for supporting vulnerable groups, notably female survivors of gender-based violence, when traditional mental health tools are not available or are hard to access by those most in need. Jensen’s EWP has reached an estimated total of 259 professionals and at least 23,096 survivors in some of the world’s most unstable and/or dangerous regions. Equally significantly, the EWP has developed in collaboration with local experts and those survivors who have used the EWP. They have embedded further knowledge and expertise into the EWP. In turn, the testimonies of these women, often from minority and/or marginalised groups within their home context, have gone on to shape local and international agencies’ and NGO’s responses to trauma and gender-based violence in war and displaced communities.

Iraq

In 2016, Jensen and Campbell collaborated with UK-based social enterprise ‘The Stabilisation and Recovery Network (TSRN)’ to develop an applied research project, funded by GBP9,952 from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), to test the efficacy of the FCO’s International Protocol on Documentation of Crimes of Sexual Violence in Conflict (2014). The project involved working with INMAA, a women’s legal aid charity in Northern Iraq for women survivors of sexual violence amidst continued conflict and instability in the region. The project delivered bespoke EW training to their social workers. A central principle governing EW methodology is to allow for the disclosure of strong emotions in a slow, safe, and detached form, making it a less harmful way of gathering testimony from those who have been traumatised. The FCO’s existing interview protocols, on the other hand, were mainly driven by the legal aims of procuring consistent narratives for statistical evidence. Jensen’s research suggested that this approach might unwittingly re-traumatise survivors .

The project thus adapted those protocols to incorporate EW methodology and trained interviewers to provide active emotional support to survivors in interviews. The project provided 12 INMAA staff with tools and techniques to gauge the emotional impact of their clients’ rights violations, enabling survivors to produce a narrative that enhanced their sense of agency and detachment, benefitting their recovery. Jensen and Campbell then created The Expressive Life Writing Handbook, and this new interview protocol has been deployed in 20 workshops with INMAA’s mobile human rights team; they have since interviewed a total of 400 women survivors across Kirkuk governate [S1]. The programme director of INMAA writes that the project ‘ enabled the INMAA team to reflect on and improve their working practices especially with respect to the interface with victims/clients,’ and that the training ‘…has changed the way we work with victims,’ enabling them to help ‘…these victims to tell their stories’ [S2].

The value of Jensen’s and Campbell’s research was recognised by the award of an additional GDP2,400 from the FCO Human Rights Fund (November 2016) to bolster humanitarian support for Iraqi women stigmatised by their experiences of sexual violence. In collaboration with TSRN, 100 faith leaders and rights defenders were introduced to the EW Methodology and 15 trained via The Stigma Project [S3]. One of those participants, a strategic security expert and researcher at Baghdad University, cascaded that training to additional two further rights defenders and facilitated EW workshops in 2017 with 36 women victims of sexual violence including “ women kidnapped by ISIS and survivors of domestic violence” in Baghdad [S4]. He concluded that EW methodology was “ very useful” for supporting those survivors “ especially in Iraq” where such help is sorely needed in the wake of devastating conflict [S4]. Jensen, Campbell and TSRN then received GBP7,400 (January 2017) from the UK Cabinet Office Countering Violent Extremism Programme for a collaborative research project with 20 policy makers from the seven Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries [S5]. This also resulted in the production of a ‘training’ video with Arabic subtitles. TSRN concluded that the project helped them reach their organisational goals ‘of building individual capacity for increasing resilience and well-being for groups at risk of radicalisation in the GCC and Iraq.’ [S5].

In November 2017, two representatives from the United Nations Development Program’s ‘Support for Integrated Reconciliation in Iraq (SIRI)’ Project requested training in EW from Jensen and Campbell. This training led to the collaborative development of training materials for a five-day EW course for 35 UNDP social workers from Baghdad, Wasit, Babil, and Diyala provinces [S6]. One participant went on to employ this EW methodology to interview 100 women survivors as part of her research into gender-based violence in Iraq [S7]. Jensen and Campbell’s research changed UNDP’s policy on the documentation of sexual violence; they have now incorporated training in EW methodology for social workers, resulting in the creation of a database of Iraqi women’s stories as a resource for researchers. UNDP’s representatives confirmed that EW ‘ is a key methodology in achieving community reconciliation in a post-conflict environment and increasing well-being for groups at risk’ [S6]. In April 2020, in response to increased domestic violence during the Covid-19 lockdown, UNDP experts drew on Jensen’s research and methodology to develop a social cohesion project that trained 75 social workers from NGOs across 15 governorates in Iraq, providing support by phone and online to victims of domestic violence. In all, these 75 social workers contacted 10 women a day across Iraq, reaching a total of 7,500 women using adapted EW techniques. The UNDP concluded that the EW toolkit of research and training techniques had a ‘ valuable impact… upon the practice and protocols of UNDP Iraq’s Integrated Reconciliation Project’ whose objective is to support victims of violence and women affected by conflict [S6].

Syrians in Lebanon

Since 2017, the EWP has expanded through a series of collaborative projects with Akkar Network for Development (AND), a women’s charity in Akkar, Lebanon, that works with up to 15,000 women annually [S8]. The collaboration was supported by GBP47,000 from the AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). In 2018, Jensen and Campbell trained 12 social workers and oversaw the deployment of their method with 16 Syrian women refugees living in two settlement camps in Lebanon [S8]. This work ‘ supported AND’s strategic aims of developing and implementing local development projects that support our communities in Akkar’ [S8]. In 2019, Jensen and Campbell oversaw these trained AND social workers as they cascaded EW training to 10 more gender-based violence and children’s support specialists from AND, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the International Rescue Committee. Since then, two additional AND social workers have run EW workshops with more than 60 participants from the camps. One participant noted that this methodology ‘… *helps social workers reach the stage of healing, and even overcoming trauma,*’ and that it ‘… became one of the tools we use to help women express themselves’ [S8]. A translated transcript of a video produced by AND details the personal impact of this program for individual survivors [S9].

Digital Impacts

In 2020, Jensen and Campbell’s research has had further impacts, stemming from the development of digital access to EW materials such as the UNDP’s web-based training of social workers during lockdown [S6]. In April 2020, Jensen and Campbell received GBP12,371 from the AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund to research and develop a range of EW digital technologies to support the well-being of human rights workers, and in June 2020, they received GBP10,000 of private sector funding from Viaro Energy, as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, to develop digital EW material in several languages free at the point of use for frontline health care workers [S10].

Since 2015, the Enemies Project has engaged, in total, around 22,000 participants, including over 400 performers, and audiences of 3,000 (live) and 18,000 (online). Fowler’s collaborative project has received commissions from organisations including The Hay Literary Festival and the Wellcome Collection, and has received funding from Arts Council England, The British Council, the UK National Lottery Fund, Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Creative Scotland, Arts Council Ireland, National Council for Culture and Arts, Mexico (Conaculta), and Arts Council Wales. Fowler’s role was to curate performances and events that involve multiple poets and artists working across an international field. Joining poetry with technology, Fowler’s exploitation of live streaming has benefited a wide range of participants and audience members who would be unable to attend events in person. His contribution has been to increase and expand the audience for poetry and to involve marginalised creative voices in public performance by reimagining the art form as one that is curated and collaborative. This innovative conceptualisation, and the activities that followed, helped reinvigorate poetic practice through interdisciplinary and transnational exchanges between participants and audience members on a global scale. This has led to important impacts on: (i) the development of models of inclusive and communal creative practice, (ii) the expansion of socially engaged creative production, and (ii) the transformation of poetic composition and performance.

Inclusive and communal creative practice

The Enemies Project has been an influential model of how poetic practice can be open to diverse voices. Supported by the Wellcome Collection, The Enemies Project’s Respites programme brought artistic enablement to people with disabilities and from low-income households in London. Through community outreach, Respites worked with benefits claimants, creating spaces of artistic and creative exploration for those without conventional access to such exploratory time and space. The project also collaborated with charities which support the visually and hearing impaired, leading to the publication of new works which would otherwise have remained unpublished [S1].

For example, in Kingston Upon Thames, The Enemies Project has enriched the cultural climate and benefitted residents through the Museum of Futures, a local community space curated by The Community Brain CIC, giving the community access to the arts [S2]. An annual photopoetry exhibition and accompanying poetry events organised by Fowler since 2016 has connected professional artists and academics with developing local community artists, each year bringing together more than 30 writers to share practice and build a democratic artistic community. This initiative has brought the arts into the local community in such a way as to ‘normalise’ artistic practice and instil creativity as a feature of everyday experience. It has enriched local creative practice by bringing it into contact with international figures and advanced the reputations of younger poets and performers. Underlining the importance of Fowler’s contribution, the Director of The Community Brain has written that ‘ Steven’s research and creative practice have had an important impact on our community interest company’ [S3]. He continues to note that:

The exhibitions and events Steven has collaborated on at The Museum have consistently been amongst our most well-attended and highly regarded projects, and have contributed towards our reputation not just as a hosting venue, but crucially as a credible partner for local, regional, national and international creative and community endeavour. [S3]

Extending social engagement

In partnership with English PEN (the UK arm of an international NGO campaigning against threats to freedom of expression across the world) the project showed its ‘literary activism’ by gathering support for the organisation and drawing attention to the plight of writers threatened with persecution. For example, Fowler devised and curated English PEN’s first Modern Literature festival (#penfestuk) in 2016, an event that has continued annually under his leadership. In a letter to the University, English PEN’s programme manager commented that ‘ the volume of work produced for and performed at the festivals was, I believe, unprecedented. The depth of engagement has also been very moving.’ [S1, S4]

These events made audiences aware of the plight of these writers while also enriching culture with new creative works inspired by this body of writings. Embracing diversification and democratisation of poetic practice, The Enemies Project was able to expose these works to a worldwide audience. For instance, Adam Baron’s reading on two Turkish writers , Can Dündar and Erdem Gül , has been viewed more than 1000 times on Youtube [S5]. PEN’s Programme Manager reiterated the importance of Fowler’s work, stating that his ‘involvement with English PEN has highlighted the value of creating new work with writers at risk and its ability to bring awareness of and stand in solidarity with them’ [S4].

Transforming poetic practice

The Enemies Project has changed the landscape of contemporary poetic practice on an international scale, establishing a model of international, transdisciplinary collaboration involving non-Anglophone poets and cross-cultural creative collaboration. This addresses a significant diversity gap evident in the literary and publishing industries in the UK and internationally. The European Council of Literary Translator’s Associations estimates that only 3% of books published in the UK are in translation. Since 2016, the Enemies Project has engaged in collaborations with artists from Japan, Argentina, Sweden, and Portugal, and in interdisciplinary practice by pairing poets with folk musicians, graphic designers, and digital musicians.

A significant indicator of the project’s impact upon project participants is that they have gone onto use Fowler’s collaborative model in their own practice independently of Fowler’s involvement. Christodoulos Makris, for instance, highlights Fowler’s impact on poets in Mexico, Ireland and Norway as well as the influence of his ‘ innovative compositional modes’ and ‘ collaborative and cross-disciplinary practice’ on his own work [S6]. The practice has contributed to Makris’ success in extending The Enemies project, subsequently winning the 2020/21 Literature Project Award from the Arts Council Ireland [S7]. Since 2016, The Enemies Project has led to 133 events, exhibitions and tours involving 1,240 poets from 16 countries [S1]. Its involvement with the European Poetry Festival (an organisation sponsored by a range of national-cultural institutions enabling live and online events across the near continent) has seen its collaborative practices successfully adopted in poetry organisations and events across Europe, the Baltic and Scandinavia, including the camarade model [S1, S8].

The model has been further developed across the world in countries such as Mexico and Argentina, as well as being used in educational and supportive contexts to help young writers enhance their experience of writing and performance and gain access to wider audiences. Fostering non-traditional forms of artistic performance and presentation, the University Camarade project has, since 2016, paired young writers from nine universities in the UK (Kingston University, Oxford Brookes, Kent, Essex, York, Royal Holloway, Edge Hill University, York St John, and Glasgow) and provided opportunities to perform new work in live events and through online forums. The project also hosts live poetry events such as ‘Camaradefest’, where 50 pairs of poets read their work and promoted their publications over one day [S1]. The collaborative practice has led to the publication of 12 volumes of poetry by different poets [S1].