So I was looking at past FOI requests earlier seeing if anyone had turned up anything interesting on mermaids. I couldn't find anything but did notice that the same people had made a lot of FOI requests to universities asking about their number of trans identifying staff members.
I did a bit of googling to see if I could find anything more about LJ Potter and Jens Bakewell, and found that Potter is listed by Coventry University as having published a piece called Sexuality in school: the limits of education which you need to give an email address to get a copy of. Potter also seems to have written a review of a book by the same title written by a Canadian author called Jen Gilbert. The summary I found on jstor includes chapters like:
^THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ADOLESCENT Sex Education as Taking a Risk
Sex education rests on a distinction between adults and adolescents. Who is the subject of sex education? Whose sexuality is in need of education? To put the question differently: Who is the adolescent in need of sex education, and who is the adult distinguished from the adolescent, in part, by not needing sex education?^
from Potters review:
This book will provide new and interesting ideas for many people (LGBT or not) working at all levels of primary and secondary school, whether as teachers or otherwise. Its final practice focus gives ways forward in which we can make changes to the environment and stop being so afraid of sex. It is also a useful book for those teaching at higher education levels, bringing in a basic level of queer theory and philosophy that could be understood and applied by academics working wherever they teach. If lessons and ideas from this book were taken on board, I could see a real difference being made to the way sexuality is viewed in school.
OK so, who are Potter and Bakewell? Well Bakewell is an ecotherapist and both she and Potter seem to work for Keele University. This document from Keele's counselling conference this March gives a more complete picture:
Jens Bakewell is an ecotherapist, counsellor, supervisor and trainer who has worked in the university, charity and employee assistance program sectors. Areas of practice where they have experience include gender, sexual and relationship diversity (GSRD); rape and sexual violence, working by phone & online, using creative arts and play as part of the counselling process; and disability. Jens works in private practice as an ecotherapist & supervisor, teaches on the post-graduate counselling & psychotherapy programmes at Keele University, is a trustee for a counselling charity that specialises in working with GSRD, and is currently completing a doctorate in counselling and psychotherapy.
The workshop she presented was called "My family and other imaginary animals - an exploration of how we build our own families, support systems or ‘life-teams’"
In this workshop we will draw on the concept of the ‘Queer family’ to examine the people, things and places that are important to our identity and give us a sense of belonging and meaning. We may identify places where there is isolation, disconnection and/or longing for closeness or community. We will use creative tools from narrative therapy to create a map of our own ‘family’ or ‘life-team’. I would hope that this workshop could be supportive for anyone who feels that their experience of ‘family’ has been problematic or fractured.
Next we have
^LJ Potter is a person-centred academic and practitioner. In their client work they have a specialist focus on working with people from gender,
sexuality and relationship-diverse (GSRD) backgrounds and communities. LJ is non-binary and a kink-aware practitioner and they have worked with kinky clients for a number of years.^
Their workshop was "When love hurts (and that’s great!)"
^Kink, or Bondage/Discipline/Dominance/Submission/Sadism/Masochism (BDSM) can be either something people do, or an identity people claim for themselves. For kinksters, kink often forms an important part of their lives, and that can be misunderstood and mistrusted by those outside of the kink world, leading people (including counsellors) to believe that those people are either inflicting or receiving harm. It can be difficult to understand as an outsider, why someone might wish to have pain inflicted upon them, and how this can be consented to. It might also be difficult for people to consider that people might wish to ‘play’ various overt roles in relationships, without those tipping over into abusive situations, or be replicating or exacerbating mental health challenges.
This workshop will introduce you to the concept of, kink/BDSM, and practical ways in which relationships where one or more people in the relationship defines themselves as kinky can flourish. It will look at the differences between kink and abuse. It will define various ways in which kink and BDSM can be described and experienced, and will also discuss the various ways in which as counsellors, we might actively be open to discussing these topics with our clients. The workshop will be mainly practical but will also give some research-based evidence about kink, mental health and counselling.^
So, some familiar themes being repeated and a few more names to keep an eye open for.