I have a background in working in Creative arts and play projects with Special needs adults and children, particularly those with autism and children with PMLD. I have run music workshops, art and design courses and was the founder and co-ordinator of an eight year sculpture and sensory environmental outdoor living project for Autistic children and adults called Memory Gardens. This was a Voluntary not for profit organisation situated behind the previous site of Action for Children HQ in Highbury Grove, London. It was carefully developed by all participants as a practice of hospitality on a piece of neglected land.
TRAINING
1. I have a BA in Social Anthropology from Sussex University: 2:1 and an MA in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths, 2:1 in which I researched sensory learning styles in Autistic children.
2. I trained in the 90`s in a child centred approach for Autistic Children called Options. The training is given by parents who themselves have been trained.
3, I gained a Creative Teaching Certificate for working with people with Special Needs specialising in Music, dance and story-telling from the City Lit in early 90's.
4. I gained proffessional Shiatsu practitioner qualification with KI KAI SHIATSU SCHOOL now based at Morley College and Qualified in early 2006. I was taught by the founders, Graham Crisp and Chris Osbourne. The school actively encouraged placements and initiatives within community settings. As a student I hired a space in a community centre and gave low cost treatments once a week for a year. Graham continues to be my supervisor when I have questions and has often allowed me to bounce out ideas and concerns in a generous manner.
5. I have additional and continued training in Seiki, a softer focus that follows carefully, breathing patterns. This is conceived and taught by Akinobu Kishi.
6. I study Waraku, a Japanese non-violent Martial art or Bhuto involving spiral movement, pause, sound and micro timing between partners. I study this under Maeda Sensei a Japanese teacher and the founder of this practice who draws some of his teachings in part from Aikido.
7. I have been studying Contact Dance Improvisation and other physical performance practices intensively both in London in weekly classes and extended jams and abroad for the past eight years.
8. I have other training and continuous involvement in Art and Music going back over the last twenty years. I practice art- drawing and colour studies on soaked paper using watercolours, inks and charcoal-and am particularly interested in questioning the moving figure- it's appearance/disapearance and continual transformation and absorbtion into a wider environment as well as doing small-scale wooden sculptures. I play drums, accordian and guitar and am involved in creative writing. There is a direct relationship between my Shiatsu/Interaction work and these other practices.
PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
*Since 2000 I have run a weekly therapy session at an integrated nursery school callled "SIDE BY SIDE", seeing individual children with: Epilepsy, ADHD, Sensory problems, Autism, Motor Co-ordination and balance difficulties.
*Recently I have introduced my own short-term Training and Therapy Program- T-I-L-T working with Learning Assistants together with the child in practical methods of timing, positive reinforcement and Shiatsu contact.
*In 2000 I set up an outdoor Sensory sculpture Project for Autistic adults and children called "MEMORY GARDENS". This ran for eight years with a Youth Club and Mentoring Scheme and an Adult Arts and Social Club. People on every range of the spectrum were involved.
*In 2006 I begun working at MILLFIELDS SCHOOL AUTISTIC RESOURCE BASE as a Shiatsu Therapist with 12 primary age non-verbal autistic children. It was here that I learnt to follow through movements into more quiet resting spaces with the children and to integrate the two together.
*In 2008 I did an MA at GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE in Research Architecture looking at Sensory Learning styles in Autistic children, drawing on the practices mentioned above.
NETWORKS AND PARTNERSHIPS
*THE HEALING TENT Community Events and Social Clinic. In this Clinic based in Lower Clapton, I worked for six months once a week in 2009 with a non-verbal man with complex needs.
*MUNRO HEALTH CO-OP where I become a member practitioner in Jan 2009.
*HANDS INC. Community Events.
*THE SOURCE POINT COMMUNITY CLINC: a joint enterprise set up by myself and another Shiatsu practitioner, Ken Hettiarachi. (Oct 2010). Please go to the page in the menu "The Source Point Clinic".
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
I am a member of the Shiatsu Society UK, Member no.6828
I am affiliated to CHNC, a Complimentary Health Network
I am a member of the Children's Complimentary Therapy Network (CCTN)
