Philani recently arrived
from Zimbabwe 'tells' his story
to participants at our
Morning with a Difference Event
Scroll down to read all about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since March 2000 Persona Doll Training has been offering teachers, learning support staff, lecturers
and students throughout the UK a non-threatening hands-on way to counter discrimination and promote equity and justice. Integral to the training are the resources that we have developed.
These include culturally-authentic, non-sexist, appropriately dressed handmade cloth Dolls
and their wheelchairs and glasses as well as training packs consisting of a DVD/video and support book.
(For more information click on our Resources page)

A group of practitioners in Sheffield in 2002 were the first of many to participate in our one day training.
In those early years all the training was delivered by our trainers who constantly evaluated and reviewed not only their own attitudes and practice but also the content of the training programme.
It is designed to include tasks and discussions around equality issues, opportunities to work
with the Dolls to develop their personas and to create stories around them on anti-discriminatory themes, role-playing and viewing videos/DVDs that feature children engaging with and responding to the Dolls. Judging by the ongoing positive feedback we receive from local authorities, settings, schools, universities and colleges and from evaluation forms, participants find the training useful, thought provoking
and personally enlightening.

More recently through the cascading process some local authorities, colleges and universities
are providing their own in-house training modelled on Persona Doll Training’s original programme.
This anticipated, planned and hoped for development has helped to spread the training and publicise
the Persona Doll approach throughout the country.

The innovative and experiential one day training programme is designed to provide ‘hands-on’
experience, raise awareness and offer opportunities for reflection and discussion of issues as they arise. Early years practitioners, key stage 1 and 2 teachers and learning support staff, local authority advisors, students and lecturers who are looking for non-threatening and effective ways to challenge prejudice
and discrimination find this training programme particularly valuable. Our trainers have years
of experience implementing inclusive practice with children and running participatory anti-discriminatory training with adults.

The training is built around Persona Dolls - special Dolls with their own personalities, life histories,
likes and dislikes. The fact that children readily accept them as small friends means that the Dolls
and their stories provide a powerful tool for exploring, uncovering and confronting racism
and other social inequalities. They enable children to appreciate that words and actions can be hurtful,
to empathise with people experiencing discrimination, to reflect and make up their own minds
about what is fair and what is unfair. During the day participants work with the Dolls to develop
the confidence, knowledge, skills and understanding they need to be able to use them with
children and students.

The day begins with brief personal introductions, anti-discriminatory tasks, a short talk about the Dolls
and the importance of selecting appropriate ones. The trainer then asks participants to pretend that they
are children being introduced to a Persona Doll at circle time and invites them to respond to the Doll
as children. Each small group then chooses a Doll and develops a persona for her/him.
Later in the same groups they each create a story on an anti-discriminatory theme.

Feedback sessions provide opportunities for participants to talk about any issues that came up
for their group and for them personally. The joys and also the difficulties involved in implementing
anti-discrimination are discussed. To illustrate, reinforce and highlight the main issues being raised, extracts from the DVDs, Persona Dolls in Action and Celebrating Diversity: inclusion in Practice,
are shown at particular times during the day.

Booking details

Our Training Administrator, Meeta, is contacted by local authorities, colleges, universities, clusters
and individual settings and schools who want to arrange a one-day Persona Doll training session
or workshops at a conference. If an individual wants to access our training, Meeta will try to arrange
for her/him to attend an accessible training session.

The cost of our thought-provoking, experiential one day training run by our experienced and skilled
trainers is £600 plus VAT. Travel, food and accommodation (when they are required) are not included.
The cost for running workshops at conferences is £400.00 plus VAT. Travel, food and accommodation (when they are required) are not included. To book training or for further information email Meeta
at mjohnson525@btinternet.com or phone her on 01273 888767

Our Code of Practice

• Sessions must be carefully planned and delivered in an engaging and
   informative way.
• Trainers need to think critically about their own knowledge, skills and attitudes.
• Build trust and a feeling of belonging within the group.
• Respond with sensitivity, perceptiveness and openess.
• Listen actively to each participant and offer support where necessary.
• Ensure that everyone is given the time and space to make a contribution
   in her/his own way.
• Don’t allow one or two people to dominate discussions.
• Deal constructively with conflict.
• Challenge views you don’t agree with as positively and constructively as possible.
• Be aware of transmitting negative non-verbal messages
• Although acknowledging that everyone has her/his own opinions the group
   should challenge them if these conflict with equality principles.
• Encourage participants to take responsibility for their own learning, maximise
   their contribution and to take as much as they can from the training session.

A Morning with a Difference
took place in London
on the 3rd of November 2009.

In her role as chair Vicky Hutchin welcomed participants
and talked about how the user-friendly Persona Doll
approach can inform and empower practitioners
and teachers to implement the statutory and non-statutory
equality requirements that are embedded in, for example,
the Race Relations Act, Every Child Matters, the EYFS,
SEAD, SEAL, Narrowing the Gap, Every Child a Talker,
Listening to Children, Citizenship and Social Cohesion.

She asked the question raised by the Persona Doll project,
Equality in practice: research with a difference to make a difference:
Why despite equality legislation and all the statutory and non-statutory
requirements, is anti-discriminatory education the exception not the rule?
Food for thought.

The participants then had the opportunity to meet a Persona Doll and listen to his story told by Babette Brown. She asked them to imagine that they were five year old responsive and co-operative children looking forward to circle time. They were to pretend that they had met lots of other Persona Dolls but it was the first time that that they would be meeting Philani. They had heard many Persona Dolls - some happy and some not so happy.

They were told that Philani had recently come to London from Zimbabwe leaving behind his father, his grandma and the rest
of his family, his friends, his favourite toys and his dog - everything
that was familiar and precious to him.

Having heard the details of Philani’s persona, they were then asked to pretend that time had passed and that Philani had come to tell them about what had happened during playtime at his school.

Roger a boy in year two and some of Philani’s classmates had formed a circle around him, pointing their fingers and laughing at him because they said he didn’t speak properly. Even worse, they wouldn’t let him play with them. Philani said he tried not to cry but couldn’t help it. They then chanted, “Cry baby, Philani is a cry baby.

He definitely does not want the same thing to happen when he goes to school tomorrow morning but wants to know what he can do to stop it. The ‘children’ offered suggestions like, ‘he could tell his teacher’. ‘He could tell his mum.’

To deepen their understanding of the Persona Doll approach, participants viewed an extract from a DVD showing a small group
of children being introduced to a Persona Doll for the first time.

The question and answer session that followed raised a number of practical issues such as: With what age group can the Dolls be used? How can the confidence of practitioners and teachers be boosted so that they feel comfortable working with the Dolls to promote anti-discriminatory education?

Vicky then spoke about the inspiring work being done in South Africa by Carol Smith and her team of Persona Doll trainers.
Both in rural schools characterised by deprivation and great
poverty and in wealthy, well-resourced, high status middle class neighbourhoods, bullying, exclusion, fighting and teasing linked
to racism, sexism, xenophobia and HIV /AIDS are commonplace. Persona Doll training is helping to raise teacher’s and practitioner’s awareness of the need to encourage children to talk about their feelings and experiences and empowering them to use Persona Dolls to address difficult issues like HIV and AIDS
in a non-threatening and constructive way. The team also train Family and Community Motivators who work at a local level
with families, the most vulnerable children and their primary caregivers. An extract from a South African DVD showed a trainer telling a Persona Doll story to a group of children and to their mothers who also expressed their opinions and feelings.

The morning ended with an exchange of views on how participants are implementing anti-discriminatory education.