Leapfrog Training – Zoë Grace Cozens

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I was in All Things Greener, the very excellent eco-friendly shop in Harleston, and got chatting to another customer. We started talking about work and she told me that she was working for a local council. When I told her that I had just trained MCA and DOLs (Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty, for those not in the know) in a Norfolk residential home she commented “Dry! Dry! Dry!”

I came home puzzled. How can enabling people to make choices and decisions, supporting them to gain greater understanding and direction in their lives, be dry? Isn’t it essential to all of us as human beings? When I, and the people in my life, make active and conscious choices we feel more alive, more embodied, more adult and more powerful. I want to still be doing that when I am 80 or 90 and to feel all those things!

In fact, I want this for all the people I work for, whether they have intellectual impairments, cognitive confusion or any other situation that requires them to need a little, or a lot of, help. I want staff to be enthusiastic about that, too! Following an extensive consultation, the House of Lords Select Committee on Mental Capacity came to the conclusion, in March 2014, that the Mental Capacity Act was either not understood or not applied in practice.

If we really want sensitive, compassionate and intelligent personalised care for people, whether they have learning difficulties or dementia, putting the Mental Capacity Act into action is vital. Then they can choose and choose again, just like we do. I have chosen to come to the beach for the afternoon, in the autumnal sun, and am writing this lying on my tum drying off after a quick dip in the sea at Southwold. I understood the facts involved in the decision, I retained the information, I weighed up the consequences and I communicated it to myself and my beloved. MCA in action! Dry? Really?!

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This Summer I created a long held vision; namely to run a community camping course for parents and children around the issues of self esteem. Growing Up Well, or GROW for short, had four components; a Power of Self Esteem course focusing on parenting and family relationships every morning; activities for the children at the same time; drama and arts for the families  in the afternoons and community living – camping in tents, cooking over an open fire and eating communally.  

We had wonderful fields to camp in care of Dom Marples at Woolsey Bridge Fields near Burston in Norfolk, replete with compost toilets, a sauna, a summerhouse, an outside shower, hot water, beauty, space and freedom. We had six parents taking the course,  five volunteers on team and eighteen children, aged from 9 months to 16 years. We had fresh, organic veg thanks to Michael at http://daganyafarm.co.uk/ and wonderful meat from the local Harleston and Diss butcher dabrowne-butchers.co.uk. I have never bought 100 pork sausages at one go before!

Did all go according to plan? Hmmm, not quite! A month beforehand we had 10 people on team but Life intervened, as it is in its nature to do, and amongst its moving in mysterius ways, one team member became a participant, in-laws unexpectedly came to visit from foreign climes and lucrative work was offered to one of our freelancers. So down to half numbers…boy, did that team work hard! A huge acknowledgement and thank you to Tash, Julie, Judi, Kate and Nic,for all your generosity, ingenuity, creativity and loving care, and to Katy and Harry for joining us for one and three days respectively and bringing laughter and lightness with you. 

On 15th September I am starting a Power of Purpose course in Norwich, which will run over 3 consecutive Sundays. I started GROW with an idea and then solid work from this course. I created a RESULTS process outlining what I wanted to create and how, why and when. I used the ability to be responsive to the changing circumstances by course correcting and noticing when I was drifting into insistence that it looked a certain way. There were moments when I thought that I had simply bitten off more than I could chew, didn’t have enough time or was going to make an almighty mess up of the whole thing and lost the joy and vision of creating it. Once again I used processes from the Power of Purpose course work to challenge these fears and to move myself back  into choice and enjoyment.

Tonight, 3rd September I am offering a free preview session at The Arts Studio at Lionwood Infants School, Telegraph Lane East, Thorpe Norwich NR1 4AN so that anyone interested can come and try out some of the work and decide whether the course is for them.  It will be from 7.30 to 10.00pm. You can do the course without this taster session but it is a great opportunity to ask any questions you might have and see how you might turn those ideas in your head and heart into reality.

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