Overview
Despite our love of formal training, much of the evidence suggests that learning happens between people and is best facilitated by peers. Creating a learning environment is key to all our work and, although never directly funded, our focus during our work in Newsham Park was to create an enabling network. This meant that we worked hard to foster relationships between different groups within the local community.
These differences in ethnicity, age, and socio-economic status were only reinforced by the ways in which funding was targeted at particular groups or particular problems. To overcome that, we deliberately sought to keep all activities open to everyone, not only on paper but in spirit. We also sought to create a safe psychological environment that enabled people to connect across perceived differences and find common ground between them.
The evidence of the success of this informal network can be found in the number of ongoing friendships between former participants and the extent to which the network-enabled people to share resources, help, experience and advice in ways that did not encourage dependency or foster shame.
The Enabling Network
NEWSHAM PARK
The following organisations and initiatives Tree House is either working to support or aligns with their values around social prescribing, social wellbeing, mindfulness and connectivity.
The following organisations and initiatives Tree House is either working to support or aligns with their values around social prescribing, social wellbeing, mindfulness and connectivity.
SERVICES
About Tree House
Project Delivery
About Tree House
Our Working Philosophy
A tree house promises an escape from the world to a place of fun and creativity and safety. It suggests a retreat in nature, a place from which we can safely view the world and have the time to create and gain new perspectives. It is also a place in which we can easily connect to what is good and beautiful in ourselves and in our world. A tree house exemplifies the spirit that we want to cultivate in the world.
Who We Are
Tree House Liverpool CIC was established in 2013 by a group of people seeking to model, deliver and contribute to develop, the very best practice in delivering community wellbeing and in applying the same principles to other fields such as strategic thinking, personal learning and organisational development. Our Directors take responsibility for maintaining that philosophy as well as engaging in an ongoing learning process including the critical evaluation of the quality and impact of our own work. We undertake self -funded work and projects commissioned by a range of partners, as well as securing volunteers and voluntary contributions, both in-kind and financial, so that what the outcomes that we help to bring about can be sustained beyond our direct involvement.
We work alongside people, in their own environments, to discover powerful solutions and create approaches which are resource effective, productive and sustainable. We have successfully delivered a wide range of projects, large and small, working with diverse clients and in challenging environments. What links all this work is a focus on creating connectivity, enabling others, the wise use of existing resources and a legacy of increased wellbeing, and resilience.
What We Know
We know from a growing body of evidence and because our practice has shown us again and again, that:
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Everyone has latent capacity and every organisation and system hidden and/or underused assets.
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Any problem or challenge addressed in an inclusive and empowering way results in a more intelligent, impactful and sustainable solution than if the ‘answer’ had been dictated.
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Building and progressing projects and strategies in this way builds ownership and shared responsibility and this, in turn, has both measurable and immeasurable benefits for the health and wellbeing of the people within that system.
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Any contact with nature, whether it is looking after a house plant or sleeping under the stars, has a deeply beneficial impact on human beings. Our practice has supported this wide body of research
Our Board
Christina Ashworth
Director
Christina is a public and social policy innovator with a diverse track record. She has worked successfully locally and nationally and as a Central Government Advisor as well as in her own neighbourhood. She delivered a multi-million-pound community commissioned regeneration programme in Nottingham, transformed the delivery agenda in Hackney, taught Masters Students at Liverpool University, and has resolved conflicts in some of the toughest inner-city neighbourhoods in the country. She has continually invested in her own learning and development and brings a broad range of evidence and understanding to her practice with clients. She looks now to continue on this path seeking to be part of creating a much more life-affirming and sustainable world.
Hayley Trowbridge
Director
Dr Hayley Trowbridge is a digital practitioner with a keen focus on using technology in community and informal learning settings to enhance people’s lives, develop skills and capacity (at both individual and organisational levels), and to address social and cultural inequalities. In her role as CEO of People’s Voice Media she oversees and delivers a number of UK and European research and organisational/service development projects. Through this work, she uses storytelling practices to support individuals and groups to have a voice on the issues that are pertinent to them and equips people with the skills to use narratives of lived experiences to create social change.
Mike Rowe
Director
Mike is a former civil servant but now an academic. His research and teaching is concerned with the relationships between public organisations and their users/clients/beneficiaries. This has included work on welfare systems, community renewal, housing, health and policing. He firmly believes that we all have scope to make a difference and to effect change. His teaching is a subtle call to revolt.
Louise Outram
Director
Louise is a barrister employed in the public sector with 30 years’ experience of dealing with governance matters.
She has a strong sense of Justice and wishes to ensure fairness of opportunity. She believes that public services need to be delivered in a more effective way than at present and her involvement with Treehouse has been to support the practice to develop alternative delivery methods,
Louise has been a Director of Treehouse for 6 years.