Kitezh Children`s Community - Masha’s account of trip to England and Scotland

Newsflash

Andrew Aikman, a British Volunteer, carpenter, English teacher, with two grown up children who lived in Findhorn Community for twenty years came to spend a year in Kitezh in June 2006. This is a taste of his experience.
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Masha’s account of trip to England and Scotland

Monday, 09 August 2004

So, who wants to go abroad, to see new countries, meet new people? For almost everyone this is huge festivity and opportunity to widen one’s knowledge! I, Masha Krivenkova, and the head of Orion, Masha Shibaeva, were fortunate enough this autumn to spend three weeks in the UK, travelling around England and Scotland. But it was not a celebratory holiday that awaited us, but hard work – visiting therapeutic organisations for children, gaining new experience which can help our settlement to work more professionally. Liza Hollingshead and our consultant in Scotland, David Dean, prepared an excellent programme: 2 days in London with our friends Alex Nice and Dina Fisher to adapt to the language and culture; then 3 days at a professional conference organised by PETT; then a week in the Findhorn Community in Scotland. Finally, as a dessert, there was a week travelling with David Dean around some new and some of the best organisations working with ‘difficult’ children. The timetable looked extremely tempting, although now I understand that we didn’t expect to meet even a tenth of the people that we did while we were abroad… I must say straight away that we are incredibly grateful to our great friends David Dean and Liza Hollingshead for the effort, time and enthusiasm with which they communicated with everyone. Furthermore, we are also thankful to all the specialists who found the time and desire to share their experience with us – two unknown girls from Russia.

So, the first wonder took place on board the aeroplane… I had never flown before, only seen take-offs on the television thousands of times. And there I saw through the window how the chassis lifted off from the ground, and we swiftly soared up! Delight, surprise and childish joy – it was the same each time we took off.

In London we were met by Dina Fisher, a young woman who spent a year in Kitezh as a volunteer and then for more than a year after that she worked as a coordinator for our Kitezh centre in Moscow. She remained our friend even when she returned overseas, as happens with many of our volunteers. In Russian schools all children learn short texts about London, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, but no one thinks about the real things – but we saw them right up close, just an arm’s reach away. Dina showed us around London, and acquainted us with the sights. Soon Alex Nice came to meet us – he was a wonderful Kitezh volunteer and has also remained a friend. He kindly received us in his home for these two days.

Dina bought us tickets to Westminster Abbey, which brought us close to the very heart of Middle-Age England. We felt the breath of history, travelling around the galleries, passages, meeting the names of Kipling, Newton, Shaw on tombstones… Our encounter with the Globe Theatre almost convinced us that Shakespeare was really an actor and playwright from Stratford upon Avon, and not just a web of legends and conjectures. In short, towards the end of our second day, thanks to our friends Alex and Dina, London became almost like home, so that, walking past an advertisement for a Dali exhibition, I calmly agreed with Masha, “Yes, that looks interesting, we’ll definitely have to go there in three weeks, on our way back.”

Our time in London allowed us to see a completely different system of interactions between people – polite people on the underground at rush hour was a real indicator of civilized behaviour! However we were struck by people’s interactions with young children, which we observed in various places: mothers don’t talk with their children, and if they try and speak first, the mothers answer “Shhhh!!”. Children were literally howling, screaming and stamping their feet in an attempt to attract their parents’ attention. But it was in vain – that well-known ‘English politeness’ muffles their little ones in a cocoon of estrangement. This is what we saw, we won’t generalise!

The conference we went to from London was organised by the training centre of the Mulberry Bush School (PETT), and also by specialists from the university of children’s guardians. As we then found out, this was a high-level professional conference. It was directed at working with people who find themselves in direct contact with difficult children in boarding schools, and was called “Life in the process of learning, learning in the process of life”. Its structure was very interesting and was made up of three parts: the first – what happens in a child’s inner world and how to work with it; the second – how staff can support one another and be effective with children; and the third – what a therapeutic organisation for children really is. The first thing that struck us was the fact that the concept of a child’s ‘inner world’, and the discovery of what happens in it was a revelation for these people! Almost everyone worked with behaviour, but no one had thought about the necessity of searching for reasons for it in their inner world! Whereas for Kitezh and Orion, this is our everyday work. The second thing that struck us was the unwillingness of the people there to share their thoughts and worries with each other. Therefore there were 10-minute pauses that hung in the air, from which the dynamic of the group process suffered. And there I understood: they are rarely asked at work about what they think and even more rarely what they feel. Whereas for us this is simply a reality of life. In short, as far as acquaintance with theory is concerned, we found numerous correlations and parallels with Kitezh but also realised its uniqueness. This produced a feeling of pride and belonging to a large and important joint enterprise. At the end of the second day we did a presentation about Kitezh and Orion for the whole auditorium, and then answered questions for another hour. This was the moment when we overcame the language barrier. On the third day of the conference the lecturers said to us “You can teach us!”. After 10 days we heard from the famous child psychiatrist Helen Minnis. In short, the conference became a starting point for our realisation that Kitezh has always intuitively worked on professionalism in their work with children and foster parents, and now the time has come to recognise and structure all our discoveries into one system, and then share this with other organisations. This was just another confirmation of this realisation. Findhorn received us in its well-known Clooney house, with a multitude of interesting people and unusual activities. The first, and possibly most important, thing that struck us was that everyone who knew even just a little about Kitezh met and spoke with us as with old friends. This was an unforeseen but pleasant surprise! Suddenly I unexpectedly understood that it has indeed been 15 years that Liza has worked for us from abroad, forming a positive image of our community in the eyes of the varied Western public. She does this because she believes in our work and the people who are drawn to this process! Our knowledge increased again… The second important observation was that whatever the people in this community did, they worked with love and good humour – which makes it easy, and they cultivate this ease in themselves. I thought of how daily routine consumes joy and enthusiasm if these things do not become a part of the general culture. Therefore it is simply essential to spread this realisation with the whole of Kitezh, so we can try to use it. Thank you, Findhorn, for the impression, realisation and support!

The fourth and last section was more rich and intensive than we expected. David Dean put together a programme of meetings with therapeutic organisations and specialists in such a way that we had the opportunity not only to drink in professional experience, but also new impressions and images of another culture, travelling around Scotland by car. David turned out to be capable of a good adventure: for example, at the porridge-making championship he told everyone – unbeknown to us – that there were guests from Russia! As a result we tasted the porridge like specialists, gave an interview, were photographed – in short, we were the centre of attention. After several days we found out that a news report including our contribution was being shown on television, and a newspaper with an account of our travels was being sold in the shops! “What else is there in store for us?” we wondered in some trepidation…

David gave us a whole week to ourselves for time and attention so as to create the image of opportunity within us: how we can work, think, live and rest. It constantly seemed to us that David unobtrusively directed our attention to perceive the most important moments, whether it be a new acquaintance or free conversation. Why did he do this? We think that it was an act of transmitting experience – personal, professional and common to all mankind. We are very grateful for what we received, which was above and beyond even what we had dreamed.

We visited two young schools for difficult children, “Troup House School” and “Wild2learn”. Here we found many communal moments with our work when we borrowed useful documentation and asked for advice. It was surprising not to meet with children’s team - everyone lives apart, quietly. This puts you on your guard in a children’s organisation: either children are very complicated and demand separate attention, or a means is not created and there are insufficient children and motives for communication. The Sycamore organisation, which has existed already for 25 years, impressed us and we were overwhelmed with respect and gratitude to the director Tim Foley. He spent a whole day with us, showing us children’s centres and telling us about the nuances of work and development. It was nice to hear that Tim, in his own words, was inspired to create his own project for children by a visit to David’s therapeutic community ‘Raddery’ 25 years ago! There we felt that people – adult colleagues and children – really gain pleasure from what they do. Here was not only a friendly group, but also a well thought-out children’s programme and a vast enthusiasm for their leader. In a purely professional respect we took a great deal: the necessity to create a system of support and development for staff, a powerful personal involvement of absolutely every member of the group, images, how to make this real. But the main thing was that we saw new horizons for our organisations – for we are only 15 years in existence and we have space to move, development is possible! Furthermore, we felt once more a powerful resemblance in the principles of life and communication in the group – as if we were finding anew a feeling of identity, of our own value and uniqueness. David asked, “What do you think, what’s the difference between Troup House School and Sycamore? – 25 years’ experience!” and he was right.

As a complete contrast we spent a day of rest in Edinburgh, which seemed ancient and mysterious, quite different to the busyness of London! Pipers on the streets, a dark blue sky, an excursion around the Scottish Parliament and the Castle of Kings on the top of the highest hill, and the composition of mosaics of an ‘alien’ culture – all this relaxed and changed our mindset, helping us take time to consider. We had completely fallen in love with Scotland, finding in it something – very subjectively – similar to Russia!

In the morning the journey to Glasgow awaited us, where we were supposed to meet with two prominent specialists in the area of child psychology and psychiatry, Judy Furnival and Helen Minnis. Incidentally, unexpectedly for us three, Judy turned out to be a consultant for Sycamore, having worked with them for 19 years! We had precisely an hour, but our chat lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes! Together with David we prepared useful questions to ask such people, and we gained understanding from them, clear and deep answers and maximum interest in communicating with us. Just another realisation that real specialists are first and foremost interesting, versatile and purposeful people. How good it would be to become like them! Our encounter ended with an exchange of contacts and an agreement to collaborate on various issues. It is great that in Britain communication between specialists within one region is so developed – everyone knows one another and is prepared to come to their aid if it is needed. We in Kitezh and Orion will begin this system of professional inquiry in Russia! On the return journey to the Lazy Duck – David’s house – the three of us sang songs in various languages, were happy, celebrated our return and success! At home we were met by David’s whole family, who had all become our friends, and this was the first ‘return home’!

On the last day David asked us, while we were going up Highland Hill in the car, “Is there anything else that we can do for you?”. “Yes,” we said, “we want to hear about your school, Raddery!” “We’ll try and think of something…” was the reply. That evening before Beverly (an art therapist working with Kitezh and Liza’s celebratory dinner we watched a slide show from the school’s life, during which David subtly inserted the principles and practice of therapeutic communities (!!!). We felt this deeply, so a big thank you, David! We also realised that Raddery and Kitezh are probably close in spirit, which David commented on: “That’s why I can help you!”

The following hours, days and nights merged into one: the celebratory farewell dinner with David’s family, the sadness of parting, Findhorn and Liza’s house again, the aeroplane, London, the aeroplane again – and back home again, hello! Wherever you have been, behind you and in your thoughts remains your homeland, big or small…

All of the next week and the beginning of the one after that were spent in constant meetings in the therapeutic communities Kitezh and Orion. We spoke about the trip, exchanged impressions, news and new projects. We even drew the volunteers into it, who were interested particularly in the professional experience that we had brought back.

There is a feeling of responsibility for the experience that we gained; we also understand that all these new things are adopted gradually, much slower than we would like. But we hope that we will have the strength and willingness to use our acquired knowledge, adapt it to circumstances and means, so as to strength our own organisation!

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 04 December 2007 )

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