Our Team
As a collaborative team, we want to make change.
We decided to work together to support the creation of an online open access resource to help both professionals and the wider public better understand what’s necessary to improve the experience of sharing trauma.
Molly Brown
Art Director, Animator, Designer (basically just responsible for all things creative!)
Molly Brown obtained the Arts Council England grant, (with wonderful help and co-operation from Professor Julie McGarry). She was seeking to create animations that would be viewed extensively, influence opinions and encourage a change of mindset.
Day to day, Molly runs See Speak Hear, an award winning company that specialises in animation, filmmaking and graphic design. Molly’s clients typically brief her to create animations for projects that have a set direction and output requirement and she is used to working within these constraints. This personal project however, has offered Molly a chance to be involved in the conception of the project. She has been challenged to be open minded about the possibilities, to project manage, and it has offered her the ability to help sculpt the direction of the animations from the outset.
Molly’s passion is utilising stop frame animation, especially for projects such as this that demand sensitivity and interpretation. She finds it a valuable tool to engage viewers and generating emotion. This project has offered Molly a chance to explore new techniques and styles in her animations that construct a narrative without preconceptions and fixed formats.
Through experience working with a number of charities and the NHS, Molly has worked with survivors of abuse and vulnerable people, including people with learning difficulties and disabilities. She believes there is a huge lack of understanding in society about mental health, disabilities, and the effects of all types of abuse and she hopes that this project will help to change perspectives and improve understanding on this topic as a whole.
Professor Julie McGarry
Lead Arts Based Academic Researcher for Disrupted Narratives
Professor in Nursing and Gender Based Violence at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Professor Julie McGarry is a registered nurse in adult and mental health fields of practice, a Yoga teacher and an established researcher with expertise and professional background in the field of safeguarding (adults and children), gender-based violence, intimate partner violence/domestic abuse and sexual harm with a focus towards survivors' experiences and the development of effective multi-agency responses.
Julie has led on a range of funded research initiatives, working with international, national and local agencies in her chosen field. Julie's work predominantly utilizes a qualitative approach to enquiry including personal narrative, participant led co-production and ethnography.
While traditional research approaches have a valued place, it is now accepted that there are limitations in their ability to fully appreciate the ‘complex nuances’ of social life. With a love of discovery, Julie has sought to explore creative methodological approaches in order to address this deficit and in so doing the quality of health care responses for survivors of harm through asking survivors themselves “what matters to you?”
Julie’s work is practice-focused, and she is passionate about research and the potential for research to both contribute to and lead in addressing real world priorities in health and wellbeing.
Dr Kathryn Hinsliff-Smith
Lead Arts Based Academic Researcher for Disrupted Narratives
Associate Professor, Dr Kathryn Hinsliff-Smith is Research Lead Leicester School of Nursing and Midwifery at De Montfort University
Kathryn’s primary role is that of developing research activity and collaboration. Her own distinct areas of research are around older people, domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and healthcare education. Most of her work is collaborative around older people and/or care homes. She works nationally and has international collaborations with colleagues at USP, UNESP in Brazil as well as links to South African research institutions.
In addition, a second strand of her research relates to gender based violence (GBV). She has published widely on aspects of DVA including published reviews and empirical studies on older women and survivor experiences including accessing healthcare. She has been commissioned to conduct service evaluations for the provision of DV services in the UK. During 2019 she was involved in a South African study in developing online materials to support the management and training for healthcare professionals as well as a systematic review on sexual violence in South Africa, this works continues.
More details about her work can be located here Kathryn Hinsliff-Smith (dmu.ac.uk)
Dawn Bowden
Arts Based Practitioner
Dawn has facilitated the workshops for this project and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work with the inspiring women who have shared so generously their time and experiences that have informed so vitally the Disrupted Narratives animations.
Originally a performer, Dawn has worked for the past 25 years as a Creative Facilitator and Trainer working mostly with learning disabled children and adults as well as other 'hard to reach' disadvantaged individuals or groups.
In 2005 Dawn joined the internationally renowned Bamboozle Theatre Company and is now one of their lead artists and a senior trainer, delivering the Bamboozle Approach to schools and artists across the country.
Dawn is a qualified Care Act Advocate and in 2016 she established Different Drum Advocacy through the Arts. DDAArts, a group of learning-disabled adults who meet every week to creatively explore and express the things that matter to them and the things that make them smile.
A non- judgemental space which enables time and space for individuals to communicate is key to all the work that Dawn does.
Juno Women’s Aid
Charity Partner
Juno Women’s Aid have been empowering women, children, and teens to live free from abuse in Nottingham for over 40 years. Juno Women’s Aid is the largest domestic abuse organisation in Nottingham and one of the largest in the UK.
Juno run a wide range of services including the 24-hour Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Freephone Domestic and Sexual Violence Helpline. This is where you can speak to their of their specialist trained female support workers 365 days a year.
In 2020-2021, they worked with 2,147 women, 375 children and young people, fostered 39 pets, and received over 17,000 calls on their Helpline. At any one time, they’re supporting 500-600 women and children in Nottinghamshire.
Women Survivors
Collaborating alongside JUNO Women’s Aid
In order to better understand the impact of domestic abuse on mental health, to illuminate the complexities of different and often competing narratives and ultimately to provide a platform to share the women’s voices, we worked with a group of women in a series of arts based workshops during 2023. We also worked with a specialist women's agency to co-create a trusted safe space for the women. Within the workshops together we created the two poems which ultimately form the basis of the animations.
The women shared their experiences which often challenged the dominant discourse and assumptions made by professionals and the public about domestic abuse and mental health. The project team is very grateful to the women sharing their time and their experiences within the workshop space. We hope the animations can provide an insight into their feelings and experiences that everybody can learn from and utilise as a tool to improve the experience of sharing trauma.
