The first year of Chatterbooks
Background
I have been running a shared reading group called “Chatterbooks” in the Liverpool Women’s
Turnaround Project since the end of May 2011. The Turnaround Project is a branch of PSS – a
charitable organisation operating very widely within Merseyside, working with vulnerable women at
risk of offending. The Turnaround Project is based at the Community Justice Centre in Kirkdale, to
the North of the city centre, and also has outreach services in other parts of the city. Women
attend from all over Liverpool, and can get their travel reimbursed to help make the service
accessible to all.
The project aims to increase women’s self-esteem and confidence, encourage them to manage their
emotions and take control of their lives. The project offers a variety of one-to-one support and
group work, ranging from practical advice such as CAB drop-ins, parenting programmes and help
with housing, right through to massage, cooking and exercise classes. This holistic approach seemed
to fit well with The Reader Organisation’s ethos and we felt that the open but relaxed approach of a
Get Into Reading group could be a helpful addition to the programme of activities on offer in the
centre.
Women who are previous offenders or are considered at risk of offending can be referred to the
project through a variety of means: by the courts, through their social worker/drug worker or
through other external and self-referral methods. As a result, there can be a high turnover of
women, and a sometimes chaotic feel to the setting, due to the women often being in crisis and
having multiple problems to deal with at the same time. The majority of women I have worked with
have drug and/or alcohol problems and a large proportion have also had to deal with domestic
violence situations. Many are vulnerably housed and several have children who are in the care
system.
Setting up the Project
We discussed the timing of the group with the centre staff and worked around existing timetable
commitments to find a suitable slot within which the group could run. We decided on a Wednesday
morning. Chatterbooks was included on the project timetable which goes out to all of the women
using Turnaround and we also put up posters and gave out flyers to the women. I attended other
sessions that ran in the centre (such as craft and positive thinking) and did “taster” sessions for the
women. I pre-prepared six weeks’ worth of stories and poems that I felt would work well in the
setting, with the intention of involving the women in the choices of reading material after that time. I
hoped that this initial “run-in” would allow the group to settle a little and get a feel for what the
group was about.
Reading Sessions
The take-up for the first session was good, with 5 women attending plus a staff member, who had
been nominated as the point of contact for the group. We read a story, set in Liverpool, which
focussed on people being moved out of their houses and onto new estates at the extremities of the
city. Several of the women in the session identified with the feelings of isolation associated with
forcibly moved to new housing and one of the women remembered the actual events that the story
was based upon. We talked about how important a sense of community is and how easy / difficult it
is to feel like you belong – several women stated that they identified with feeling like an outsider in
the place that they lived. There was loads of discussion around how times have changed and the
differences in communities now, compared to when the women were children. We then shared a
Robert Frost poem about making choices and the women were able to talk openly about the choices
they had made in their lives. This could have been a very painful discussion, especially in this setting,
but the mood was a very positive one and the women focussed much more on the choices they
were proud of and the things they had done to take ownership of their decisions.
After this first session the attendance dropped off rapidly and we went through a phase of having
only one or two people attending for many weeks. Due to her workload commitments at the time,
the staff member was not always able to attend and I felt that this had an impact on the number of
women who stayed for the reading. Some people dropped in and out of the sessions as they were
waiting for other services, but the number of people attending for the whole session stayed low. We
had some excellent sessions, however, and I have no doubt that they were of value to the women
who attended. One woman, in particular, made an effort to attend every week and looked forward
to the session, for many weeks. She always contributed to discussion and always had thoughtful and
interesting things to say about the texts we read.
As the women using the centre change, so do the women attending Chatterbooks. Some weeks we
get high attendance, many weeks we have one or two women in attendance and sometimes no-one
turns up. However, the majority of women who attend, even if their attendance is only a one-off,
seem to gain relaxation and enjoyment from the group. It is very much a springboard for the women
to share their experiences and talk through things that have happened or are happening in their lives.
I found that the women are much more open than they are in other groups that I run; perhaps this
is because, for the women who attend AA or NA, they are used to sharing and talking in a group
situation. I think that the women sometimes find it harder to put themselves into the shoes of the
characters in the story, though, and so when I have chosen texts that don’t reflect their own lives so
much, group members have been impatient with the story or classed it as boring. This has, at times,
left me unsure as to how I should target the reading materials – should I only bring texts that reflect
the women’s own lives and are therefore “relevant”, or should I attempt to gently expand their
horizons – is that my role? I certainly have taken a mix of genres and writing styles and stories /
poems from different eras, but I try to feel around for an “anchor” which makes the text relevant to
the women attending the group.
In one session, one of the women was moved to tears by the story, which dealt with the theme of
domestic violence, saying “I have the same thing happen to me.” I asked whether we should stop
reading, but explained that it would be good to get to the end as the story had a powerful and
positive conclusion. All of the women wanted to read on. The staff member in the group was very
useful in addressing the issues head-on, saying, “We don’t like to hear about this sort of thing
because it is upsetting but look, it has got us talking and we need to talk about these things”. We
read on to the end of the story and then finished with a strong and empowering poem, I Rise by
Maya Angelou. The lady who had been very upset said that although she had not enjoyed that
particular story, it had been helpful to her as she felt she had to admit to herself aspects of her
relationship that were not right and made her want to confront those issues.
Sometimes the success of a choice of text surprises me, for example when I took the poem A Poison
Tree by William Blake to the group to accompany a story dealing with the themes of revenge and
hatred, I was worried that the group would be dismissive of it due to its old-fashioned language.
However one lady in the group immediately picked up on the idea of nursing a grudge and allowing it
to grow rather than dealing with the issues straight away. She referred to her own experiences,
stating, “It’s easy to get angrier and angrier with someone, until you know you hate them but you
can’t remember why”. All of the women in the group were able to share their experiences of either
holding a grudge or being on the receiving end of someone’s anger and we talked at length about
how we deal with anger and resentment. One woman in particular kept referring back to the poem
to back up her point, which was exciting as the discussions often trail off in this group and it can be
hard to pull it back to the text. At the end of the session she said to me, “I feel dead intelligent in
this group. I don’t normally feel intelligent but with the things I’ve come out with about this poem it
makes me feel like I’ve got a brain”.
Another fantastic session we had around a poem was when I took in Carol Ann Duffy’s Havisham,
which starts with the line, Beloved sweetheart bastard… This immediately captured the attention of
the group and everyone had so much to say about how the character in the poem was feeling and
their state of mind, and also relating the poem to their own current and past relationships. One lady
made a particularly valid point: “She feels abandoned and unable to fight her feelings of anger or her
love. She’s trapped in love with him and hates him but loves him at the same time”. This was one of
the first instances of group members empathising with a character in the text, rather than solely
relating the reading material to their own experiences. We talked about the poem and really picked
it apart for the full hour and a half session and never got on to reading the story I had taken. All of
the women in attendance commented on how much they had enjoyed the group.
Training
We have delivered “Read to Lead” training to one member of staff from the project. She attended
one of our residential courses, held in Cheshire in September 2011. In her evaluation of the course,
she rated the Read to Lead training as “Excellent” and stated that she felt she had improved her
communication skills and grown her confidence as a result of attending the course. She summed up
her experience: “I feel so empowered, I want to share reading all the time with all the people in my
life. And to think that reading was once the thing that scared me most.”
This staff member hopes to take over the running of the group gradually over the next couple of
months. The Turnaround Project are supporting her to do this, and have allotted her timetabled
time every week to dedicate to preparation and delivery of sessions. She will share the facilitation of
the sessions and then take over the session completely, with monthly catch up meetings to see how
she is getting on.
Outputs
Number of sessions delivered
35
Number of sessions cancelled
7
(no attendance or Turnaround cancellation)
Total:
42
Total attendance
119
Average attendance each week
3 to 4
Number of staff trained
1
Number of individuals engaged
37
Challenges
One of the things that quickly became apparent was that it was going to be hard work keeping the
group well attended and selling the idea of a reading group in this setting. Attendance to the groups
has been very up and down, with good attendance some weeks and then only one or no people
turning up some weeks too. In order to try and drum up a higher attendance, I have re-visited other
existing groups to meet new women and chat with them. The Turnaround Project and I have
planned a re-launch party for early May – we sent a mail-out to all of the women on their books and
attached an invite to the launch party and the group itself. I am going to attend a cookery class that
runs in the centre, to read “foody” stories and poems. I am also going to deliver a taster session to
the staff at the Turnaround Project so that they better know what it is that they are encouraging the
women to attend and they will be able to speak about their own experiences when trying to
promote the group.
The women also often bring the difficulties of their week into the session with them and it can take
time and be a challenge to settle the group down to reading and talking about the book, rather than
about other things going on. Some sessions have been particularly difficult, when the conduct of the
women in attendance has been such that the group has had to stop early or some people in
attendance have disrupted or spoiled the group for the others. In these circumstances I will try
reading something different or try to change tack. If this doesn’t work I find it best to wrap up the
session early and start afresh the next week.
Because of the high turnover of women, we have never got to the point where the group is
established enough to read a novel together or choose texts together and no two weeks are the
same in terms of attendance. This lack of consistency has meant that my main aim is to try and allow
the women to enjoy each session as a one-off and not to worry too much about the long-term
effects that the group might be having.
Looking Forward
Over the next twelve months we plan to develop the project forward in the following ways:
 Delivering a workshop for up to ten women around reading with their children. Each
woman will be given copies of books she can share with her child and will have the chance
to practice reading aloud, play around with making different voices, boost her confidence in
sharing stories and poems and think of ways of expanding books into other activities she can
share with her child.
 Training of an additional staff member.
 Setting up a second group
 Refining the evaluation tool to capture the impact of the reading session as a one-off rather
than commenting on the cumulative effects of attendance. We are looking to find out what
the women gain from each session as they may attend sporadically.
 Handing over the Turnaround group to the designated staff member and then meeting with
her on a monthly basis to see how the group is progressing.
Texts Used
Stories
Wide Eyed by Tracy Aston
The Door by Helen Simpson
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
The Chain by Tobias Wolff
A Cap for Steve by Morley Callaghan
Breaking the Pig by Etgar Keret
Tea with the Birds by Joanne Harris
Chivalry by Neil Gaiman
The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant
Extracts from My Left Foot by Christie Brown
Accelerate by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Sunday in the Park by Bel Kaufman
The Snob by Morley Callaghan
The Brass Teapot by Tim Macy
She Shall Not be Moved by Shareen Pandit
Loose Change by Andrea Levy
Everyday Use by Alice Walker
Faith and Hope go Shopping by Joanne Harris
Welding with Children by Tim Gatreaux
My Polish Teacher’s Tie by Helen Dunmore
The Case of Lady Sannox by Arthur Conan Doyle
After the Wink by Carolyn Steele Agosta
Snap by Carol Shields
Low Visibility by Margaret Murphy
The Price by Neil Gaiman
The Destructors by Graham Greene
The Flight Path by Jane Gardam
The Five Forty-Eight by John Cheever
A Christmas Memory by Trueman Capote
Swimming into the Millenium by Helen Dunmore
Extracts from The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Lady of Letters by Alan Bennett
Extracts from Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Her Big Chance by Alan Bennett
Poems
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
I Am Completely Different by Kuroda Saburo
A Return by Elizabeth Jennings
Doormat by Daphne Schiller
i carry your heart with me by E.E. Cummings
Scaffolding by Seamus Heaney
Leisure by W.H. Davies
All of Us by Kit Wright
Warning by Jenny Joseph
Hope by Emily Dickinson
For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne
I Rise by Maya Angelou
The Galloping Cat by Stevie Smith
Incendiary by Vernon Scannell
Havisham by Carol Ann Duffy
The Poison Tree by William Blake
Comprehending it Not by Norman Nicholson
The Trees by Philip Larkin
Scratches by Hugo Williams
Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
Nuptial Song by Susanna Thenon
Eleanor Stanton, May 2012