#14: Penny Netherwood, Compassionate Leeds, a trauma-informed city

Penny Netherwood joins us on the podcast all the way from Leeds in the UK. Leeds is currently working towards becoming a trauma-informed city, known as ‘Compassionate Leeds.' Penny is a consultant clinical psychologist and the health co-lead for the Compassionate Leeds project. Megan first came across the work happening in Leeds when some of Penny's colleagues attended a Wagtail Institute webinar. As soon as Megan heard about Compassionate Leeds, she knew she needed to learn as much as possible from the people behind the project.

In this episode, Penny shares the ambitious vision for Leeds to work collectively as a trauma-informed city, where children, young people, and families feel safe and can thrive. Leeds is taking a cross-sector approach, where people working in education, health, social work, and community sectors come together to collectively roll out the strategy. Penny explains the careful consideration and intention behind the language being used in the project, unpacking terms like “trauma,” “trauma-informed,” and the “compassionate approach.”

Megan and Penny discuss some of the key factors that made this possible in Leeds and discuss the importance of slowing down and considering appropriate implementation across systems. Penny shares that the Compassionate Leeds project is moving beyond just providing trauma-informed training, and is using a more responsive, and needs-focused approached. Penny and Megan acknowledge that trauma-informed practice is not just one-off training, but is constant and intentional work.

More on Compassionate Leeds can be found here: https://www.mindmate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Stage-1-Trauma-informed-strategy-doc-5.pdf

Penny mentions Myron Rogers and “Myron's Maxims” which will be of interest to those considering systems thinking. https://www.leadershipcentre.org.uk/team-enabler/myron-rogers/

Myron's Maxims are included here:

• People own what they help create
• Real change happens in real work
• Those who do the work, do the change
• Connect the system to more of itself
• Start anywhere, follow everywhere
• The process you use to get to the future is the future you get.

Host: Megan Corcoran, Wagtail Institute, https://wagtailinstitute.com/

Music by Kabbilistic Village https://kabbalisticvillage.com/