28. Janina Vigurs - Storyteller - *Embrace the Ridiculous*

Building on last week’s extremely popular episode with Rachel Tomlinson, this week I am chatting to Janina Vigurs, one of the parents I had the privilege of interviewing for the amazing Newbold Hope conference.

Janina spoke from the heart about her experience of parenthood and her daughter who has been diagnosed with autism, and what she has learnt through the supportive Newbold Hope community.

As I chatted to Janina and got to know her a little better, I found that we both share a love of storytelling, having fun and much more.

I thought she would be an amazing guest for the podcast series and she didn’t disappoint!

Lemon lightbulbs 🍋💡🍋

• There is a child within every adult. Come out to play!
• Inclusion matters and can be enhanced through storytelling
• Fun is FUNdamental to building a change platform.
• Fun helps people relax and talk to each other as equals.
• Laughter can be a part of even the most serious and sensitive topics
• Clowns and laughter specialists can bring joy, even in the toughest times         
• Dr Bob Klaber’s kindness sessions are a joy!
• Being mindfully kind is good for you
• Janina WLTM Rachael Wong, children’s author and storyteller!
• Storytelling is a gift - help others to become storytellers
• People are compelled to tell their stories
• A story told well, with passion and knowledge is pure gold
• Miles Sibley,  Patient Experience Library, is right – we need to give far more weight to ‘patient stories’
• Language matters. Words are very powerful.
• A diagnosis of autism allows access to the right tool box
• Things have been really tough during the pandemic - don’t beat yourself up! 
• Newbold Hope provides a phrase book to understand, interpret and respond to children’s violent and challenging behaviour
• We love Yvonne Newbold!
• Prioritise support for children who have struggled during the pandemic

Links and shoutouts
Janina Vigurs
Fun is FUNdamental to building a change platform
Grapevine, Coventry
Rachael Wong, children’s author
Miles Sibley, Patient Experience Library
Yvonne Newbold and Newbold Hope
The exhibition of Ukrainian stories in Birmingham
The World Storytelling Cafe online

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Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

Transcript

Gill Phillips  00:10
My name is Gill Phillips and I'm the creator of Whose Shoes a popular approach to coproduction. I was named as an HSJ 100 Wild Card and want to help give a voice to others talking about their ideas and experiences. I'll be chatting with people from all sorts of different perspectives, walking in their shoes. If you are interested in the future of health care, and like to hear what other people think, or perhaps even contribute at some point, Whose Shoes Wild Card  is for you.

Gill Phillips  00:40
In the last podcast, I spoke to Rachel Tomlinson, a head teacher talking about the kind and inclusive approach that she uses at her primary school in Lancashire. Already, it's proving to be one of the most popular episodes. I met Rachel through Yvonne Newbold. Rachel was a speaker at the Newbold Hope conference. Well, today I have the privilege of talking to one of the parents who also spoke at this amazing event. Janina Vigurs spoke from the heart about her experience of parenthood, and what she's learned through this supportive community brought together by Yvonne Newbold. As I chatted to Janina, and got to know her a little better. I found that we both share a love of storytelling, and much more. I thought she would make an amazing podcast guest. So let's find out more. Welcome Janina. Thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself? And what's important to you?

Janina Vigurs  01:46
Hello, Gill. Yes, of course. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It's a massive honour considering everyone else that you've had on to be amongst all of those names is really humbling. Thank you. So my name is Janina Vigurs. I'm a professional storyteller, playmaker, and general mucker abouter. So I work with children and young people primarily between the ages of about 3 and 11 years old. Although if we are being truthful, I believe there's a child within every single adult. It just gets hidden under layers and layers of routine and responsibility. And so I speak to a child within grown-ups too. I work with children and young people in schools and across educational settings. But I also run birthday parties and I perform at corporate events. And I perform at festivals as well, like Cambridge Folk Festival and Glastonbury, I’m one of the Glastonbury storytellers in the kids field. The things that are important to me, are inclusion. I believe that everybody, no matter who you are, where you've come from, everybody deserves the right to play. And everyone deserves the right to be heard, and has a deep need to be included, and to feel welcome at the table of play. And I include storytelling within Play, and not the other way around. Because the way that I do my storytelling, the way that I work, it's very playful. It's very inclusive. It's not a spectator sport. It's very, it's very active, and not passive at all.

Gill Phillips  03:31
That's an incredible start. Because in terms of Whose Shoes and storytelling, obviously, the big part of my work is around people telling their lived experience stories, serious stories, but we use play and we use fun. And we use playfulness, throughout our work. And I don't know whether you've seen the lemons on Twitter, I have people say what are the lemons? You know, why lemons? Where do they come from, and probably it's more interesting to have them as a bit of intrigue rather than the exact where the lemons came from. So I started with Whose Shoes back in 2008. And it was a board game, it looked like a board game. It's a tool. It's a facilitation tool. It's a coproduction tool, but it is, like it or not, a game with little shoes and a dice. And then in 2009, along came the recession. And literally people were saying to me, Oh, you'll get nowhere. If you call it a board game, you need to call it a learning development facilitation tool with lots and lots of management speak. And I never went there. And I've done Steller Stories. So then if you've come across any of my Steller Stories,, and using fun we've got the FUNdamentals of building a change platform with lemons, and it literally starts with ‘children have fun. Why is it that we can't have fun as adults? What is it that knocks that out of people? So we are so on the same page Janina?’

Gill Phillips  04:56
And I think at our workshops, I see some people perhaps didn't realize it was a board game. And you can see a mixed reaction sometimes. I know the very first session I did, and it was a really senior guy, and he started arguing about whether we got an extra turn if you throw a six. You know, I saw him from literally leaning back in his chair with a suit thinking, you know, I'm gonna be out of my comfort zone here, to properly being in and chatting and being a character and you just find things within people that need to be found, don't you? And then they talk to each other as equals and, and it's fun.

Janina Vigurs  04:56
Oh, fantastic. Do you know, and that's been one of my most recent thoughts, is how can I help grown-ups include play more in their lives, in their day to day lives just in the mundanity of it all, because you're never going to make time for something as silly and frivolous as play because there's no value in it, it  doesn't make any money, it doesn't get your house cleaner any quicker, it doesn't get the Ocado order done any quicker. But it's so vital for our well being. That I honestly genuinely believe that there needs to be space for play within adults’ lives more. And I think the people that actively work to include that live more fulfilled and happier lives.

Janina Vigurs  06:23
Yeah, it's a real leveler. It absolutely is. And it's interesting that and I get this a lot in schools as well, sometimes children. And indeed, adults, almost need permission to join in and permission to play, permission to be a little bit louder, or a little bit cheeky or a little bit raucous. And when that permission is given, and they kind of take it, it's is nothing short of beautiful.

Gill Phillips  06:49
Yeah. And I think as with my work if you're trying to do something serious alongside it, so games in adult learning, or coproduction or whatever, then when they come on, they play together, and then you create that atmosphere of being equals, and actually, we're all just people together, then it's, it's a bit of magic, I think you've said that, that you've unlocked something. And then that's where the real conversations come because people trust each other, and feel at ease together with some of the workshops and work that we've done around really sensitive topics. And to be honest, you neither, you know, you do something for the first time, I've thought, hmm, is this appropriate? You know, ultimately, it's a board game and a really, really not just serious but sensitive topic. And it just gives me so much joy when I hear laughter in that room. Because those people with difficulties or whatever it might be, we're all human beings together, and the lightness that comes from laughing together. And you mentioned something really exciting as we were starting that word laughter reminded me so what's going on for you?

Janina Vigurs  07:57
So I've been approached by a charity, wonderful charity called the Laughter Specialists. And they are a team of clowns, play specialists who do an awful lot of work in hospitals and healthcare settings. And they work to spread joy, and laughter and silliness and fun amongst children, who are in awful situations that we as adults would never want or dream to be in. And for children, when they are receiving medical treatment, play is often way down the agenda. Obviously, their health has got to come first. But if children are playing and happy, and finding small pockets of joy, where they can then I believe, and the charity believes that their health will be improved, because they'll feel better in themselves. And so the laughter specialists have approached me and we're having chats about how I can be involved with them, and how I can help them spread the laughter bug, and I'm really excited about it.

Gill Phillips  09:08
I'm sure you'll be amazing. I'm sure that will happen. And obviously the terrible terrible things happening in Ukraine. I don't know whether you saw the clowns at the station. So exactly what you're saying. You know, these families and the mum, I can't imagine, it with one bag packed for the family and on her own and perhaps a couple of children with her and they come across a clown and the children and the mum are laughing. At that moment, everything else is forgotten because laughter is just so deep, isn't it and so good for you.

Janina Vigurs  09:12
Oh, beautiful.

Gill Phillips  09:45
Just incredible to see, so there are some nice video clips that I've seen. Coincidentally tonight actually, I love the way threads are being woven if you like for the podcast series. So talking to Rachel Tomlinson last week I mentioned Bob Klaber and his kindness sessions. There's one tonight. So by the time this podcast goes out, it will sadly have passed, but not for you, Janina if you're interested. They've got a laughter specialist talking tonight as their main speaker. I don't know any more about that. I've just seen it. I love Bob’s sessions. And I've seen: six o'clock tonight. So I could send you the link to that.

Janina Vigurs  10:22
Yes, please. Yes, please, I will be there. Oh, fabulous.

Gill Phillips  10:28
And I think you'd love that whole community. And that's where I mentioned it was Rachel. Just as Rachel in her school is using kindness to reach the children and the adults. These kindness sessions, they're international sessions, they're pulling in the most amazing group of people who've got that in common that they actually think that kindness in health care or in life, or whatever it is, is the way forward.

Janina Vigurs  10:52
That's so wonderful. And I love your analogy about threads being woven, because I think we've got enough weavings here on our warp and weft to make a coat. Because something I don't think I've mentioned to you before, is that a little personal side project that I started when I was a new mummy is a project I call Relentless Kindness. And where I have lots of tiny little, two and a half inch by two and a half inch cards. And it has relentless kindness on one side. And on the other side. I handwrite just motivational stuff and just encouraging quotes. And I leave them in places for people who I will never meet, to find in really ordinary places, like amongst the value beans in a supermarket, or, you know, in a car park pay station point. And I've been doing that on and off for about seven years now.

Gill Phillips  11:48
Really?

Janina Vigurs  11:48
Yeah, yeah. And it's just a wonderful thing that's brought a lot of joy to my life. And yeah, and we've got a lovely little Facebook community around that as well about 300 people now it's lovely.

Gill Phillips  12:00
So local to me, I'm big, big fans of and I'm not sure if they've had mentioned the on the podcast series, they certainly deserve to so Grapevine Coventry. And I don't know quite what they're doing at the moment, I'm a little bit out of touch. Some of these things obviously haven't happened in the same way the last couple of years. But I've walked round the park in Coventry with them as a group. And we've had little random acts of kindness and little cards to give to people. And some of the children giving you know, not just the children, the adults, and you see people react. And there might be a ‘this is a bit weird’ initial reaction she's actually going up and giving. And then they see what it is. It's been like a little lavender sprig with a nice butterfly painted on it, or, you know, just little things like crafty things that someone's obviously gone through a little bit of time and effort to make for them. And you see people smile, and then perhaps have a little conversation and perhaps it just lightens everybody's day. And it's lovely.

Janina Vigurs  12:57
Oh, that's  so sweet. And also the science behind it. It's not just a lovely woolly , slightly hippie thing to do. The acts of being mindfully kind to people obviously benefit the person that you're being kind to whether you you can see them or or you know them or not. But else it does something good in you, as well. I don't know what brain hormones, it releases, what chemicals it releases, but I'm fairly certain that dopamine is released, which is a pleasure seeking hormone, or brain chemical. And doing kind of good things makes you feel good, too. So it's, it's backed by science man, it's not just happiness.

Gill Phillips  13:39
And to see little children doing like to learn to actually have the pleasure of giving as well as receiving for all of us, just like you're saying, there's more pleasure really I think in giving a present and finding something that you know, will just be spot on with that person, a little thing. A nonsense thing. Yeah. It’s good fun. So I've realized that you're the second children's storyteller on the podcast series. I don't know if you came across. It was an early episode, Rachael Wong, so she's a friend of mine. And she wrote children's stories with the children during the pandemic. So an incredible story that she wrote with the children in Middlesborough. And she was getting the children to write the next chapter. So one day she was talking to them, and then the next day, she'd be basically writing out what they told her to write. So if you haven't come across that episode, you'll love that one.

Janina Vigurs  14:34
I will find it out. I am shocked and amazed that I do not know who Rachael Wong is. And I'm sorry, Rachael, if you're listening. The writing world, the children's writing, storytelling writing world and the Children's storytelling, telling world are often two quite separate things and we don't tend to mix or meet often, which is a sad thing, I think. But when people say to me, what do you do and I say I'm a, I'm a storyteller. I think there's a little confusion as to what that actually is and what it looks like. So I tell folk and fairy tales from my culture, which is British, but also East European as well, that's where the Yanina part comes into as I’m part polish. And I tell them from memory. So there are no books, there are no props, there are no puppets. There's nothing, it's just me. And I think sometimes when I do turn up at schools, or corporate events, people are sometimes a little bit confused or disappointed, maybe. But they're certainly not by the end, because I work to tell a story with the children. I don't expect them to sit quietly and still. And just listen to me rabbiting on and on and on and on and on. Now, there are several ways in which I get them involved. And I encourage them to help me tell the story. And I tell a story with them, they tell a story with me. And together the story gets told. And I love that because it means that I can have the same story that I might tell I don't know, the magic porridge pot, I might tell that five days in a row in five different settings. And each time that story will be different. It won't be exactly the same every time because there is that element of spontaneity that Rachael was obviously drawing out of the children with her work as well. And that's, that's magical. And at the end of our sessions, at the end of our time together, I say, well, thank you so much. I always thank them. And I say this is the story that I've told you. And that's the story that you can now tell someone else, please take it, it's yours. This is my gift to you, take it, run with it, go and give it to somebody else. And I encourage them to become storytellers too.

Gill Phillips   16:54
I absolutely love it. Now you must promise me and if necessary, I could link you up. I'm so excited. I'm imagining this conversation between you and Rachael Wong because you're so in tune with each other with that. And separately from that, Rachael's messaged me and told me about an event. I think it's on for the whole of April in Birmingham, and I'm hoping to go tomorrow. And it's Ukrainian storytellers. And, incredible, I think some people that she knows in Birmingham, and helping them tell the story of their families in Ukraine at the moment. And through an art exhibition, photos, stories, and so on. I should know more about it. But I don't know more about it. Because I haven't been But the power of storytelling, I think it's given people… Some students that came over, as I understand and obviously separated from their families, desperately worried about what's happening at home, it's given people purpose to try and share some of that.

Janina Vigurs  17:56
It's really important and is really, really powerful medicine whenever you go through something just really enormously life changing., you see it a lot in new mums, new mothers desperate to, they will tell their birth story. If they know that you're pregnant, they will tell you their birth story, even if you don't want to hear it, there is there's just that need to be heard. And what Rachael's involved with I think, is just just phenomenal. I've been lucky enough to be involved with an international group of storytellers called the World Storytelling Cafe online, started the beginning of the first lockdown. We came together. And storytellers are very well connected people. Obviously, we are people people. And so we collect other storytellers as we go along. We make good alliances and good friendships. So my good friend, John Rowe, who is a master storyteller. and my mentor helped set this up with the World Storytelling  Cafe, which is a an actual place in Morocco. Because Moroccan storytelling is such a rich culture. And yeah, so we gathered lots of storytellers from absolutely all across the globe. And we come together, we're still doing it weekly, over various sessions online through the World Storytelling  cafe website. And yeah, it's operated via zoom. So you can hop in and come and join us live. And there is a digital hat where you can if listeners so desire to they can drop some digital notes and coins in the digital hats. And that gets shared out throughout the tellers that are telling on that particular day. But yeah, we did have a Ukrainian special where we managed to get hold of some Ukrainian tellers to share their stories as well their folk and fairy tales and that was just wonderful.

Gill Phillips  19:44
Incredible, really incredible. So now I want to go off and join the World Storytelling  cafe because it just sounds really good fun. And similarly, Bob Klaber has sessions, the kind of sessions I mentioned, a proper international audience and people getting up in, obviously Australia and New Zealand at 3, 4 in the morning to join these sessions. Because people are just so keen to come together and share.

Janina Vigurs  20:10
They are Yeah, the power of hearing a good story well told is wonderful. So I love. I'm a big radio listener, a big radio fan, I listen to radio for a lot. And if somebody is telling something, or talking about a subject matter with knowledge and passion, it's absolutely fascinating. I listened to a 30 minute documentary a couple of years ago about DUST on radio for it was brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. Because it was told well, told with passion and told with knowledge. And like you said, if something is told, with lightness, and first hand experience and from the heart, it's an incredibly powerful learning tool. And so just trying to bring this full circle before I go off on another tangent, again, like I'm prone to doing.

Gill Phillips  21:00
Dangerous together. Oh, yeah.

Janina Vigurs  21:04
I know, a previous podcast guest of yours who's put together the library of stories for NHS clinicians to access. I think it’s just a brilliant, brilliant, wonderful resource. And I think that the learnings that could come from that will far exceed anything that you could learn on a formally qualified education course.

Janina Vigurs  21:26
Oh, yes. Miles Sibley and the work he's doing around patient experience library. I think that's who you mean,

Janina Vigurs  21:32
yeah. That's the one.

Gill Phillips  21:34
And honestly, I'm just hoping that that podcast can be so influential, because just like you’re saying, it’s research based, that storytelling is not just important, and a good thing and enjoyable, he's using evidence and research to try and get patient stories, and even that word patient stories, up to the same level of acceptance and recognition and importance as medical stories, or actually, they're called medical reports. And the whole mismatch of language in terms of as a clinician, I report a serious incident, or I write a medical report, but you come up with a complaint or a patient story, or something a bit anecdotal. And I just found talking to Miles, blew me away really, just so fascinating that he not only has collected, I think it's 70,000 documents in his library., but could just talk with such knowledge about how important they are. And things like if an organisation that's collected patient stories, or patient information, closes, the lack of priority to actually hang on to all of that information as evidence, and how that feeds into these, sadly, regular tragedies that are happening in the NHS, because because, well, because people aren't listening, because they're not being heard telling their experiences. Wow.

Janina Vigurs  23:07
Yes, I do wholeheartedly. Absolutely. And the unbalancedness of the weight of value that's put on, on those those experiences using different types of languages is you're absolutely right. And report, I feel is seen as way more serious and important than a patient experience. Yeah. So language is vital.

Gill Phillips  23:33
And that has been a theme that runs through not just the podcast series, but everything I do really that language and getting people to understand the power of words, and using that word rather than a different word. It's not just semantics, it is important. So in terms of your own journey, if you like, because that's how we've connected and come together. What is that you'd like to tell the listeners about that?

Janina Vigurs  23:58
Yeah, so another hat that I wear. And in fact, the most important and wonderful and flamboyant hat that I wear is that I'm a mummy. I'm a mummy to a brilliant, eight year old girl, who in December 2020, she was diagnosed as autistic. And when I tell people that I generally get the sorry, face, the pitiful sorry about that face, but actually the diagnosis was a brilliant thing for us, because it gave us access, it gave us the key to the right toolbox, so that we can open that toolbox and use those tools inside to support her. And a wonderful toolbox that doesn't actually need a key at all is one that's provided by Newbold Hope. And throughout lockdown, our experience of of our daughter's behavior was pretty brutal and quite ugly at times, and we experienced, obviously lockdown was hard for a lot of people. But when you're eight, and you're told that you can't do this, and you can't do that, and you can't see this person, you can't see that person that you love either. And then you're autistic as well. But you don't realize you're autistic because you haven't got a diagnosis yet. And your parents don't realize what's going on with you. Entirely. It's, yeah, it's a cocktail for explosive behavior, on her side, and on ours as well. So it was a really tough time. And I turned to Facebook to distract myself, but in the distraction, I managed to somehow find Newbold Hope, who offered me a lifeline, really, and offered me answers and ways of approaching her and the behavior that she was displaying. And it offered me a, like a translation phrase book, you know, when you go on holiday, and you pick up a phrase book of common common phrases to use to help you through your holiday there in this foreign country. Yeah, so if on, and her charity offered me a different way of looking at my daughter's behavior. And I realized that actually, when I listened to what my daughter was telling me through her, her, you know, her violence and her destruction, through her repetitive stims that she would do, where she would hurt herself. Once I learned to really listen to that, with new ears, then life became a billion times better. And we were able to understand what she was going through and, and understand that actually, you know, she, she wasn't being destructive and violent, because she was a bad person, she was in deep distress and utterly terrified. And once I learned to listen to her language, yeah, things became a billion times better. And I was able to approach her with more compassion, and more patience and more understanding, and also towards myself, as well. And I could understand that actually, I wasn't just a bad mum. I was, I was a mum going through an incredibly difficult time. And so that's why I wasn't able to deal with my child in the pandemic, and keep on top of my work life, and keep on top of the household all at the same time, because, yeah, it was it was flipping hard.

Gill Phillips  27:43
The work that Yvonne Newbold does is phenomenal, isn't it, I know, the love at that conference, and you think of, obviously, all the health care professionals trying to help families and the pressure and the systems and the protocols. And somehow, Yvonne has just gone, as a parent, straight from the heart to the heart. Don't blame yourself, aware of what that feels like, and the societal blame and just taking, stripping everything back to just humanity really, and being kind to your child and yourself, but understanding, really deeply understanding. And then I mean, you've used the word ‘a billion times better.’ It's incredible tribute, isn't it to Yvonne. And people are saying that over and over and over. And she's like the most humble person I know. But we need to give that massive shoutout to Yvonne and Newbold Hope. And she works incredibly hard as well.

Janina Vigurs  28:40
I honestly don't know how she does it. I’m just flabbergasted. I'm just absolutely floored, and - the energy and the time that she puts into even things like replying to people on Facebook, Facebook comments, and she doesn't have to, but she does. She does. Yeah, she’s just incredible.

Gill Phillips  28:58
And not just a quick email, you know, we've all got the same experience. And I know I've attended, because I'm a friend and because I'm interested in what she does, and learning more. And so I've attended one or two of her webinars, and she's replying at 3 in the morning to people. And she's promised to answer questions. And she's not just answering them. Sometimes she's putting that time and effort in until it's done.

Janina Vigurs  29:24
Every single time she's nothing, if not consistent.

Janina Vigurs  29:27
So enough of that, because Yvonne will tell us off.

Janina Vigurs  29:33
Oh, she will.

Gill Phillips  29:33
Well, yes, we’re putting her in the spotlight, that won't do. I think the other thing that really struck me from what you said, Janina. is this experience of all of us but children during lockdown, those youngsters who are just learning about life and who've had a chance to, depending on exactly what age they are, that bits being just stripped away. I think your daughter must have been a particularly difficult age,  I think I'm sure it's different for all age groups.

Janina Vigurs  30:03
yeah, so at the beginning of lockdown, so she was, or she was six.

Gill Phillips  30:10
Yeah. A year or two into school.

Janina Vigurs  30:12
Yeah, friends.Absolutely. And yeah, just starting to form strong friendship bonds. And yeah, everything was taken away. And we're unfortunate in the fact that all of our family is flung far and wide. So we don't have parents or grandparents just up the road that we can just wander off and go and see nanny for the afternoon. We don't have that. And so yeah, we felt particularly isolated, and then with her, her undiagnosed autism as well, it's, yeah, that was incredibly lonely time.

Gill Phillips  30:49
So I hope now that children do get the priority and the support that they need for whatever, whether it's mental health problems, or just developmental in … say lockdown dogs, a lot of people have obviously had dogs during lockdown, they weren't able to go to any kind of training classes and weren't able to just meet other dogs in the park. So it's very specific problem there. But what about the children? And what about where they happen to be in their development? And then it just came down like an axe,didn’t it, just kind of cutting off all of that. And even if you had the local Granny, and you know, unless you were actually in a bubble, you weren't able to see local family either?

Janina Vigurs  31:27
No, no, which possibly was, was almost worse. I think for those people, you know, in that situation, at least, I was able to say, well, nanny and granddad live three hours away, so we can't go see them. Sorry. Yeah, I've noticed that I run a lot of birthday parties as well. And now that we are allowed to go back and have birthday parties, and village halls and things like that, I've noticed a change in children's behavior. So they are generally a lot more raucous and a lot more rowdy. And I have to do a lot more crowd control. And okay, look, we're going to have a good time. And this is how we're going to have a good time, we're going to look after ourselves, we're gonna look after each other. I really had to, I have to now make those boundaries very clear. And set those expectations because otherwise, it can just get a bit too crazy. And people end up not having such a fun time. Yeah. But I've never had to do that before. And that's been a marked difference that I've noticed. Yeah.

Janina Vigurs  32:32
Fascinating perspective, it is interesting that people in these different roles are noticing things like that, isn't it? Because otherwise you wouldn't?,

Janina Vigurs  32:41
no, no, absolutely not.

Gill Phillips  32:43
So Janina, I found that absolutely fascinating, so many different and new aspects, bringing new ideas and concepts really into the podcast series. So I'm sure that a lot of podcast listeners will be thinking, well, who is this Yanina Vigurs? And where do I contact you? And how do I find out more? And obviously, I can include a link or two in the program notes for the episode as well? What would you like to say?

Janina Vigurs  33:10
Oh, thank you so much. So I'm fairly certain I'm the only Janina Vigurs in the world, if not in the UK. So if you want to find out more about my storytelling work, you can find me at www,JaninaVigurs.com . And the spelling of that I'm sure will be in the podcast title. Because it's with a J and not with a Y because I have awkward Polish spelling there. But also, I'm on Facebook really actively on Instagram as well. Both at Yanina Vigurs storytelling. I don't do Twitter. I should do but …

Janina Vigurs  33:51
I think we need you on Twitter.

Janina Vigurs  33:56
Never be off my phone if I was on Twitter. Goodness me.

Janina Vigurs  34:00
I have been told that I come with a health warning that you don't come near me without ending up on Twitter.

Janina Vigurs  34:04
So it's kind of inevitable, isn’t it?

Gill Phillips  34:14
Thank you Janina. It's been lovely talking to you. Good luck with all you're doing. Particularly the laughter specialists because it sounds as if that's now and it's exciting, and it will make a lot of difference to a lot of children. And I'm sure adults as well. Thank you so much.

Janina Vigurs  34:28
Thank you so much. It's been a complete joy talking to you Gill. Thank you.

Gill Phillips  34:32
I hope you have enjoyed this episode. If so, please subscribe now to hear more of these fascinating conversations on your favorite podcast platform. And please leave a review I tweet as Whose Shoes. Thank you for being on this journey with me. And let's hope that together we can make a difference.