TGiving Children the Chance to be Children:

Giving children a change to be children:Memory, Identity and Holidays in the

Countryside Tea Tverin

Department of Geography Cornwall Campus

Sub-title in 24pt Calibri – Name of presenters

London Showcase Event, 23.04.2012, Church House Conference Centre

Outline:

* Introducing CHICKS * Research Aims * Care * Memory as an intervention * Social & Emotional tools * Conclusions

Outline: :

Country Holidays for Inner City Kids

Aim 1. How are happy memories created and sustained, creating a happy remembered place to return to at times of stress and anxiety?

Aim 2. What are the immediate and longitudinal effects, which extend months possibly years beyond the holiday, of these holidays on these young people?

Aim 3. What is the role of nature in creating a ‘therapeutic’ holiday experience?

RESEARCH AIMS

CREATING MEMORIES THROUGH CARE (1)

• Increasing number of children and young people in the UK with non-pleasant memories (Lepper, 2012).

• Hampl (1995, in Jones, 2005) “Remembering through the heart”.

• “Body boarding that was amazing. I loved like being on top of the wave and the supervisor got this amazing picture of me...I was on top of the wave and he was in front of me and it is an amazing photo cause there is the wave and then me”.

Personal interview with Ally, 14

CREATING MEMORIES THROUGH CARE (2)

• “Landscaping” (Wylie, 2007) entanglement of self, other and landscape.

• Constructing autobiography through storytelling (e.g. Leyshon & Bull, 2011).

• High adult to child ratio at CHICKS concept of care

• Care often top to bottom and impersonal

• Flat ontology of care

“...I expected them kind of to be more like teacher...but they were just happy and fair and you could get away with doing stuff but not like too much stupid stuff. I see you like you are really like at our level. Like if someone would have a problem they wouldn’t really hesitate to go and speak to one of you. Seeing more like friend rather than a figure of authority”.

Personal interview with Laura, 15

• Geographies of Love (Harrison, 2007, Wylie, 2009)

MEMORY AS AN INTERVENTION

• Memory and memories play a great role in the process of becoming (e.g. Lee, 2001, Jones, 2011)

• Jones (2011) memory as a trajectory where a host of different affective states overlap can one override the other?

• Flat ontology of care and geographies of love can produce pervasive positive emotional geographies this can be enhanced through the concept of fun (Harker, 2005) forgetting

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL TOOLS

TT: Feel different at CHICKS than in everyday life?Jake: Yeah cause you don’t know people but you get used to them and know

what they are doing and everything and you get your confidence up every day.

TT: What is it about CHICKS that builds your confidence?Jake: Everybody is welcoming you all the time and making you feel safe.

Everybody is nice to you yeah.Personal interview with Jake, 13

“People are easy to make laugh...Instead of like always thinking people hate you, you just join in”.

Personal interview with Dylan, 10

CONCLUSIONS:

Flat ontology of care

Emotional & Social tool

box

The concept of fun

Geographies of Love

Forgetting Landscaping

Memory as an

intervention

Thank you for listening – Any Questions?

• Research presented here was conducted during an ESRC Studentship under its Capacity Building Clusters Award (RES-187-24-0002) in partnership with CHICKS-Country Holidays for Inner City Kids

• For more information about this project and the work of the Centre for Sport, Leisure and Tourism research, see www.ex.ac.uk/slt/ourresearch/holidaysfordisadvantagedyoungpeople/

• PhD Researcher Tea Tverin, tmt204@exeter.ac.uk, 01326 253707