Project Focus
Reflective writing and peer connection to support emotional recovery
Supporting Themes
Co-production, identity, reflective practice, community voice
About the Project
This project offered a co-created space for global majority women to explore their wellbeing through reflective journaling, creative writing, discussion, and group zine-making. Delivered by a facilitation team combining lived experience, therapeutic knowledge and creative practice, the sessions supported gentle, authentic expression and enabled participants to explore difficult experiences in a safe, validating environment. Many described feeling “less alone,” “more heard,” and “more confident” in their ability to manage their emotions. The final zine became a powerful collective output, enabling participants to share their stories on their own terms and rebuild trust in their voices.
The programme engaged forty adult participants across three cohorts, with children and young people involved in some sessions. Sessions were described as calming, creative, and emotionally safe by 100% of those who fed back.
The project enabled participants to explore their stories in a way that honoured emotional pacing, creative autonomy, and peer support. The combination of lived experience, flexible methods and tangible outputs reduced the pressure often felt in traditional support settings, and enabled participants to see themselves as narrators of their own recovery journeys rather than service users.
100% of those who completed monitoring forms reported feeling more relaxed, with strong themes of emotional relief, self-expression, and peer connection noted throughout.
A woman in her early 40s, referred through a local women’s group, joined Talk Changes after describing herself as “not coping” and feeling disconnected from her identity. She had experienced long-term emotional distress and domestic abuse, and felt that traditional services “weren’t for people like me.”
Initially quiet and reserved, she gradually opened up through visual and written work, including collage, photography, and reflective journaling. She said:
“I didn’t have to talk if I didn’t want to. But somehow, the stories came out anyway.”
She later described the group as emotionally safe, noting that “everyone had lived experience,” and that this made her feel understood without explanation.
By the end of the programme, she had contributed a visual narrative to the zine and agreed to its anonymous exhibition. This step, she said, felt like “reclaiming something that was always mine.”
This project demonstrates how reflective creative practice, co-facilitated with cultural and emotional relevance, can support trauma recovery by building confidence, visibility and self-worth outside of clinical structures.
