This is also in the ” About ” section and I will be writing about all of these projects in my blogs, but this will help you to see what I am currently working on.

February 2009

1) Relationships, collaboration & sharing – As an extension of my MSc Applied Positive Psychology research, I’m developing the research and forming a steering group to explore the following themes: What can we learn from how our psychology has evolved in relation to ownership and identity made apparent in the technology world ( i.e. Creative Commons, Social Media etc ) and how  that can be embedded in to the rules by which our personal relationships ( not just our professional relationships ) operate. We are now more able and willing to share, cooperate and collaborate across the working sphere of our lives, but how can we translate this sharing of resources, information, knowledge and time into a sustainable and supportive framework for our community, personal and intimate relationships. This is work that will be feeding in to my Doctorate.

2)Personalised budgets, residential and community care, and Peer to Peer support – At thinkpublic I worked as part of the core team on two pieces of work last year that generated interest for me in this area ( Plan My Care is developing a tool for personalised budgets and CareBase is a chain of residential care homes ). As care services increasingly shift from a centralised model and in to community and local government infrastructures, what will an all encompassing service look like that delivers real peer to peer support, knowledge sharing, meaningful quality, adaptability and consistency.

3) Action, recognition & value networks across sectors - Social movements with real social needs as there target, that recognise the power of cross-sector collaboration, the use of Applied Positive Psychology to shift mindsets ( e.g. engaging with eudaimonia ) and the value of tapping in to intrinsic motivation.

4) Reflexive Practitioners - An initiative I am currently developing in partnership with 3 others, that will surface different people and different ways of working and re-define thoughts on leadership. In creating a different arena for activity that is more in line with where we stand socially and culturally we hope to effect real social change that permeates the fields of social research, policy and practice.

5) The role of feminine qualities in innovating the social - I am never looking to create division in anything that I do, and so the focus of this is more to understand what those feminine qualities are ( that both men and women have ), those aspects of working, complex systems that are less tangible, measurable or process-driven, the ” soft skills” that seem increasingly to be the glue as well as the fuel in generating empathic, relevant and truly embedded social change.

6) Sexual energy, Wholeness and Aliveness - My final thesis for my MSc was on the relationship between sexual expression and eudaimonic well-being. This work is now being published and whilst extending the research I am currently exploring models by which I can start applying it.