Testimonials
Denise Marshall, Head of Services,
Birth Companions:
Jocelyn from Blue Room has been supporting frontline staff and managers in Birth Companions for over 10 years. The sessions have sustained us in our work with trauma and also helped us to deal with organisational and individual challenges such as those brought by Covid and remote work. Jocelyn’s support has been invaluable!
Rebecca Greenhalgh,
Senior Associate, Pro Bono Manager (US & Asia), Ashurst:
“As a firm with an active pro bono practice we recognised the importance of providing our colleagues with training to ensure that they were able to engage with pro bono clients who had experienced trauma or who were otherwise vulnerable. Our lawyers need to be able to work with clients in ways that do not exacerbate their trauma but that still allow us to provide them with the necessary legal support.
We also wanted to secure training for our lawyers to reinforce and support their own self-care processes to ensure they understood how to support pro bono clients without suffering any adverse impact on their own physical and mental health.
Jocelyn and Mary quickly grasped how the needs of our pro bono practice would necessitate such support and were able to develop two training sessions to address both of our concerns. They provided clear, concise and comprehensive training which would be relevant to a range of professions where people may come into contact with people who have experienced trauma. Everyone who undertook the training provided positive feedback about how useful they found it and as somebody who participated directly in the training, I would echo this“.
Becca Naylor, Pro Bono Associate (EMEA). Reed Smith:
“Jocelyn and Mary scoped and delivered a fantastic training for our pro bono lawyers. The training was expertly tailored to the needs of our lawyers and the clients they are supporting. Our volunteers said:
‘Excellent training – it has given me so much more confidence’
‘Incredibly useful, it make me really think about how to engage in different situations’
‘Very engaging presenters who clearly had a wealth of experience which they shared so generously with us’
‘The role play really helped put our new skills into practice’
Huge thank you to Jocelyn and Mary for so effectively sharing their expertise and enabling our lawyers to better support their clients and themselves.”
Natalie Marsden. Solicitor, Safe Passage:
“I would highly recommend this training for those who are working with traumatised clients.
As a small charity working with asylum seeking children we were looking to develop our skills and highlight the importance of self-care.
Jocelyn and Mary consulted with us in the lead up to the training to understand our work, and tailored the sessions to best address our training needs.
The training was informative, engaging and practical, enabling us to apply the theory to our activities. We were a group of lawyers and caseworkers and the training was pitched at the right level for the team. Jocelyn and Mary are both experts in the their field and have a lot of practical experience and examples to share. My colleagues and I all had excellent feedback and came away feeling more skilled and better able to look after ourselves while we deliver our services to clients.“
David Vanner. Refugee Service Manager
RESPOND – University College London Hospitals:
Such a worthwhile and valuable course. Jocelyn and Mary trained our team to work in a trauma-informed way with traumatised, vulnerable refugee clients. The course was totally relevant to our service, well presented and touched on all points for both our clinical and administrative team. As a team, we would highly recommend this course. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us.
Dr Sophie Laws
Deputy Director for Research and Evaluation
Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse:
"The welfare of our team at the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse while we research and improve practice is a central concern for us, especially post-Covid as home-based workers. Jocelyn and Mary have assisted us very much in how we think about this. They have provided excellent, practical, clinical support to individual staff members, as well as presenting team sessions where they offer suggestions and put us at ease to reflect on feelings that come up. We think together about how to look after our wellbeing, individually and as a team. Managers have also taken advice on how to provide an organisational culture that supports individuals’ health while addressing our challenging mission. We have appreciated their clarity on confidentiality, roles and boundaries in their work with us"
Ian Dean, Director
Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse:
"Jocelyn and Mary, I thought it was an excellent session, and thank you so much for leading it for us so brilliantly. The team were very complimentary about you both afterwards! In particular, I think the session about why we all do this work was the perfect way to start our two days together, it engendered such an atmosphere of positivity and that carried all the way through the away days. So thank you very much indeed".
