Welcome to our first newsletter of 2024. It’s been a busy start to the year and we’re proud to share some of our highlights.

Courses

Our first course of the year – Psychology for Change – started in the depths of winter and recently finished with the arrival of the vitality that is spring. A fitting and appropriate way for our group of graduates to finish, having felt a significant sense of shedding layers to make space for the new growth and change in their lives.

Our outcomes continue to be impressive. Our work encourages people to better understand their emotional responses to people and situations and equips them to find stability in unstable times. Given the challenging times we are living in right now, this is a reminder of our work being more important than ever.

In February, we ran our first one-day taster session of the year, for individuals waiting to start our longer courses. We introduced these last year to give people a chance to get a taste of our approach before committing to a course, as well as beginning to fire up the flames of learning.

Titled: ‘Patriarchy: What is it and what are the harms?’, the day is also our way of bringing feminism to men as well as women, offering a lens through which to deconstruct gender roles and understand the realities and impacts of living in a patriarchal society. A high level of expletives tends to accompany the many penny-drop moments throughout the day.

How one participant described our one-day course

We’re now getting ready to begin our first Feminism for Change course of the year, starting in April, and can’t wait to welcome a new group of incredible women.

Referral Partnership Meeting

The horrendous rain didn’t stop our partners from attending a partnership meeting we held in February where we presented information about our updated referral process, and the specific ways that it is designed to amplify individual choice and agency throughout.

Along with the incredible reputation our courses have, the changes made to the referral process have contributed to three quarters of our referrals now being self-referrals with the rest coming from our partnerships with services throughout London.

The highlight was hearing a few of our graduates speaking from the heart about their experiences of being on our courses. That said, being on our courses is just one part – the individuals deserve to be celebrated for taking what they learn into their worlds and transforming their lives.

We put on a good spread!

FfC Community Network

Last year we launched our FfC Community and are so pleased to share that this is developing beautifully. Started in July 2023, our FfC Community is our way of connecting graduates of all our courses together, to help nurture the building of positive social networks and keep the embers of critical thinking and authenticity alive and strong.

Along with our bimonthly community newsletters in which we share information on free courses, events, and online learning opportunities, we also have community outings each quarter.

Following from the success of our first outing in January to the National Portrait Gallery, we were donated tickets to a private community, women-only viewing of Women in Revolt! held at the Tate Modern.

Sharing a passion for the accessibility of art and the spaces it exists within, we are excited to develop a relationship with Tate to continue cultivating a way of bringing the learning from our courses out into the real world. 

You can read more about the reasons we value this in our recent blog ‘Cultural Capital and the Benefits of viewing Art’.

Thank you and farewell!

In March we also gave a fond farewell to Amberlee Green, who had worked with us for close to two years, in the role of Head of Impact & Comms. Amongst many other things, Amberlee led on the development of our first communications strategy, and supported the centralising of our data processes and systems. We are grateful for all she brought to the team and trainees and wish her the very best of luck in her next steps.