Beyond Words

Beyond Words reached out from The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival to young people with severe mental or physical illness.

What is Beyond Words?

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Beyond Words created a series of videos aimed at improving wellbeing through creative writing. These videos were presented by our writer-in-residence, Caleb Parkin. Watch them here.

We also worked in partnership with Bupa Foundation on a national writing for wellbeing initiative.

"She has had her world opened and been so encouraged to know there are other young people in similar situations. …she has benefitted so much from [the sessions] and had a great sense of achievement."

Parent

"It has had a huge positive impact on my confidence. It’s made me feel excited for the future."

Student

In any given year, over 600 children in Gloucestershire are unable to access mainstream schooling due to conditions like mental health disorders, cancer, epilepsy, and orthopaedic, neurological and respiratory disorders. The majority of these young people are aged between 14 and 16.

Working with the Gloucestershire Hospital Education Service (GHES), Cheltenham Festivals gave every KS4 student the opportunity to work over time with a writer-in-residence, either in person or via a digital learning platform.

The young people’s writing was professionally published each year in an anthology which was launched at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Over the six years of the programme we worked with four writers in residence, Sue Mayfield, Jane Bailey, Miranda Walker and Caleb Parkin.