#55. Arti's Twinkle: Shining a Light on Parental Alcohol and Drug Use for Children - Dr. Cassey Muir and Josie Brookes

Children and young people whose parents use substances often feel alone in their experiences, with very few people to trust or talk to.  Parents and caregivers mention uncertainty on how and when to have conversations with children in their family and answer their questions in the best way. Dr. Cassey Muir,  Dr Ruth McGovern and teams at Newcastle University brought together the messages from their studies which are told in this story about Arti, the wishing star. The story was written by Danielle Slade and illustrated by Josie Brookes. Dr. Cassey Muir and Josie Brookes Join us on this episode to discuss the journey of Arti and how it is helping children and families across the UK.

https://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Twinkle-Twinkle-Arti-by-Danielle-Slade-and-illustrated-by-Josie-Brookes.pdf

The project was funded by the  This project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research (SPHR). In collaboration with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI): Medical Research Council and Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health.

Dr Cassey Muir: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/people/profile/casseymuir.html
Josie Brookes: https://www.josiebrookes.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to our guests
• 4:35 The Book's Purpose and Background
• 8:13 Research, Co-creation and book development
• 26:45 Key Themes
• 32:48 How the Arti is being used and impact
• 47:19 Personal Reflections of The Creation Process
• 1:04:00 Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:03

Welcome everybody to the Smooth Brain Society. I am Sahir. And today we'll be talking about a book. So the book's title is Twinkle Artie. And it's a book designed to support the needs of children and parents who use alcohol and drugs. The book is part of a project which is funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research. So the NIHR in the UK. And now it's time to introduce the guests to people who worked on the project. So first is Dr. Cassie Muir. She is a research associate at the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University and a public involvement and engagement researcher with the NIHR Families Policy Research Unit at the University College London. Her research aims to improve both health and social needs of vulnerable children and families. Our other guest is Josie Brooks. She's an illustrator and her portfolio includes illustrated books, animated films and projects for live events. She's, she was the illustrator of Twinkle Artie. So welcome both of you guys to the Smooth Brain Society. Hi, thank you for having us. So you guys heard the more formal introductions, but for the sake of our guests, for the sake of our listeners. If I had to ask you to introduce yourselves. How would you guys do that? So maybe we can start with Kessy first. Yeah, I guess kind of professionally researcher, very passionate about children's mental health, working in sort of the space, making sure that children, young people's and families' voices are heard in research. A lot of co-production, lived experience, expert panels. I'd also say that I was I'm really interested in kind of health and fitness. Currently going to do the Great North Run this year. So that's fun. So that kind of keeps me occupied training for that in September. Wait, what is the Great North Run? The Great North Run is a half marathon. That is based at Newcastle. OK, OK. A big event. And I've never done it before, so that'd be fun. One of my friends says once people turn 30, they get into golf or into running and I don't know why. Yeah, I've noticed a lot of my friends getting into either the one or the other. A lot of my friends are running in various marathons and half marathons around the world. I can say I've also heard that and yeah, now in my 30s and I'm like, yeah, start running as my kind of mental health space and it takes me away from work. It's funny as well because it's like a local rite of passage, so if you're from the Northeast, it's something that you're kind of meant to do. So it's kind of a good challenge at some point and you're like, I haven't done it yet, but I do hope to do it as well sometime. It really is a rite of passage. I think it is, everyone always says, so you haven't done that and you're from Newcastle. Is it a kind of a big event in a sense? Yeah, I think it's there. biggest half marathon in the UK or something like that. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that information. I think it is. Fair enough. All right, Josie, what about yourself? If you had to introduce yourself as opposed to my formal introduction, what would that be? Yeah, so I'm an illustrator. So I'm a freelance artist and have been for a roundabout getting on for I think 18 years. So my practice is very varied and as part of my work I do quite a lot of community based projects as well. So that's kind of working as a creative facilitator and going into community settings and working with people to unleash their creativity. And that can be using illustration. I do some stop motion animation, printmaking as well, which is one of the kind of areas that I work in. But yeah, just generally kind of reinforcing that belief that everyone has creativity and we can tap into that and it can make people feel better. Nice. I think that's a very good segue into the actual into the actual project, because it is very creative when I first heard of it. So I'd asked the NIHR if they had any people for me to speak to. And the very first person said is you need to talk to Cassie Meir right now, because they just did a book. just a book illustration and it was very fascinating to me because I hadn't heard of anything like that before so if you could talk, both of you talk to us a little bit about the book, about Artie and what people, I guess the background for why you decided to write a book and yeah and sort of give us a little bit of introduction into the field in general. Yeah, I guess I'll take this one, Josie, and then pass over to you. So before it all started, I was doing my PhD and my PhD is around, was looking at supporting children, young people who experience parental alcohol or drug use and that is sort of a major issue in the UK. So across England is around about, I don't know. half a million children and people who experience parental substance use, especially at dependent levels. And there is a lot of evidence that shows this harmful impacts of that, of parental substance use on children. So for instance, kind of young people who might experience abuse or neglect, some young people may face bullying and stigma from their peers. They might not do so well at school. And some Some young people may also go on to use alcohol and drugs themselves. And we know quite a lot of the kind of that has an impact on children, young people. But the interventions and support for young people and children directly are limited. And that's really where I was trying to do some of my research to try and understand what kind of support would young people want. And I kind of reviewed the literature across worldwide literature. looking at their experiences of living with parental alcholed drug use. I then interviewed and chatted with children and young people from across England and that was all around kind of what support they would want or what support is being useful or not so useful that they've all received so far. And from that they kind of came up with lots of different ideas and thoughts around what we could do going forward and what is needed and we did some production workshop to prioritise a lot of those ideas. So I think there was kind of 20 in general and the young people had put forward as the kind of main priority to develop resources within schools that would help them to have conversations about parental substance use. So it's a very kind of taboo subject, it's generally hidden within the home, within the family. but also kind of within peers, people at school don't talk about it. It's mostly talked about within schools in terms of their own alcohol or drug use, but not necessarily being impacted by somebody else's. And these conversations were really about having it from as early as possible. So a lot of the young people said, nothing was ever mentioned at primary school all the way through to secondary school, even onwards. and one of the things that was prioritised was to have a storybook made for children that would help have these conversations with a trusted adult but also within kind of maybe classrooms or groups of young people. So that's kind of where it came from my aspect but parallel to that there was another research project going on at Newcastle University with Professor Ruth McGovern and Debbie Smart. and that was looking at how you support families where there might be substance use but with the non-using parent or caregiver and they were trying to understand what kind of support that they needed but also how they could then work with that family member to support the young person and what they told us was that actually they don't know how to have those conversations with their children they want to have them. but it's usually at awkward times. They might kind of hide it from the children thinking that it's helpful. They've been asked to, you know, wait in the queue at McDonald's and they're not sure how much information to say or what to say. So they kind of brush it off. But obviously the young person internalizes that as kind of, no, we shouldn't talk about it. So they'd also found something very similar that they wanted support to help have those conversations. The young people, the children wanted support. for those conversations with family members or within schools. And I guess that's kind of where we got to in terms of the my PhD findings leading us that way. We applied for some extra funding to actually develop the children's storybook. And that's when we kind of all came together to develop that. But I'll kind of pause there for a second in case Josie wants to add anything. We can kind of talk about how we developed the book and stuff like that. Yes, so in terms of my involvement, obviously I didn't come in until a little bit later on into that process. Originally I was contacted by Ruth, so she contacted me saying that they had this idea for making a children's book. It's been something that I've done before in the past and specifically I've worked on a project where it actually had a similar structure working with teenagers who had gone through the adoption process. So they had worked co-collaborated to create this book which was to be used as a resource in terms of like exploring themes such as like their identity and how it's shaped them and actually for that to be used by younger children who were either in, who had been adopted or in the adoption process. So I think Ruth had seen that work and that's why she'd contacted me. But from my point of view, I really like taking on illustration work. Any illustration work is great, but I really love it when it's got that sort of social context to it, where it's actually working and it's used as a resource and there's something more to it where it's actually helping a certain demographic. So that was the kind of original draw for me was that it had that kind of element to it and it had a really clear idea of being a co-collaboration which again is something that as an illustrator sometimes you end up working by yourself or in isolation but I find it's really creatively inspiring to work as part of a team and this was kind of an opportunity to not only work with a writer but to work with a research team and people with lived experience. So it just seemed like a really interesting project to get involved in. There are a lot of interesting points you guys brought up. I don't know which one to pick on first. I actually, let's start with this. What went through my mind was, cause you guys said it was co-collaboration. So it was developed with people with lived experience. By that, are you talking about children or are you talking about the parent, one like you had mentioned Cassie, one parent in the household wanting to bring up, a non-using parent wanting to bring up those issues. So who are we talking about here? Yeah, so I guess in that kind of, from the research element, I guess, we think of it in terms of it was the research team, it was Josie as the illustrator, it was Danielle as the author, and then it was also, we had children who had, so we worked with 15 family members, all who had lived experience in some way. We had children who were kind of the target age range of the book, or a little bit older. We had some. young adults who could reflect on their experience and kind of give us some insight as an older young person. We also had parents who both had lived experience of using substances but also those who were kind of non-substance using parents. We also worked with practitioners and teachers so it was very much lots of collaboration I guess across that. and I guess with so many collaborators, it must be very hard to sort of distill ideas at that point. I can see a lot of people having different opinions. Yeah, I'm not sure what Josa thinks of this but I think that was one of the challenges for the project and I think from my perspective coming, so I already had done a lot of the research and the other research team had it from like the parents' caregivers perspective and it was making sure that the findings that we found and the themes that we found were incorporated as well as listening to the voices of the families that we were then working with as well and making sure that the practitioners had their voices heard and trying to make sure all that comes together. And I think Josie and Danielle did that really well and really creatively and kind of, you know, we did a lot of brainstorming, I think, when we had different ideas and okay, how do we tackle this? How can we bring in that? I don't know how you felt about that, Jocie, as well, from the creative side. Yeah, it's really interesting because it was quite a big task. And when you when you listen to it back and think about how many people were involved from different areas, you know, there is that kind of risk that there's too many people in the room with too many ideas. But actually, it was an incredible project because it gelled really well. And, you know, we were coming at it from, you know, people Obviously, me and Danielle were coming at it from a creative perspective, and then obviously Cassie and the team were coming at it from more of a research perspective. But we were able, we had a really great flow of communication. And we're all very open to listening to each other and like, and bringing in those ideas and making space within the project in that kind of. research and development phase and really kind of making that space to have those conversations and not rush through it. So I think that was really important because if you don't give it enough space you can miss out on that section and some people feel that their voices aren't necessarily kind of being added and being heard in the way that they're kind of hoping to. So it worked really well in that way. Yeah, definitely. I think we also, we did a lot of iteration with it. It wasn't just sort of speaking to the families once or the practitioners once. It was, we kind of gathered their ideas and we did some separate workshops with them. We kind of spoke to parents first, then we brought in kind of the children, the parents together and then after that we would, the research team would then go to either speak to the families over, so Zoom or go to their home. and keep sharing what changes have been made and how their voice have been incorporated into the book and if they had any other feedback. And I think that also really helped for them to kind of feel ownership over it, but also to kind of tweak as we went and make sure those voices were being heard and they could understand where their voice was being within the book. Yeah, that's incredible in a sense, because when I always think of, I guess, general concept, general perceptions are that a research team does some research and they put their findings out in a report, in a publication, in a journal, they might do some news about it, and then there might be some change to some policy somewhere, maybe, maybe not, or some drug is created somewhere, maybe, maybe not, but sort of... you guys talking about how you guys did this back and forth with so many people to make something which I guess can be used by everyone in the sense that everybody can read the book. As of upload it's been exactly a year since the book has been out. I have more questions about the process. So for example, at the very beginning you guys, Cassie had mentioned that would, the question is about approaching the subject, right? So how do you begin this discussion or open the discussion with children? So in that regard, was it an issue with the children who you spoke to in terms of designing the book? So I'm assuming that the children you spoke to, all of them had sort of lived experience. So they are in many senses, they're the outliers in terms of they got spoken to as opposed to. I guess a large contingent of kids who would never be spoken to until they get older about you know such issues of substance abuse in the family. Yeah, yeah so the families that were involved had been involved in some of previous work so they'd been open about their experiences before and they all knew why they were at in the creative workshops, they knew why they were part of the research but we didn't really focus on that as such, we weren't asking them about their lived experience at this stage, we kind of already knew from the research that we'd conducted what the kind of experiences were how we might want to talk about that. So the workshops were much more about thinking about the characters and I guess some parallels between what the might experience, but also what the characters might. And we use the role of the characters as a way to have those conversations. Josie, I don't know if you want to say a little bit more about that element, because you kind of came up with some of those activities. Well, it's almost like the process in the workshop slightly paralleled the book in the sense that we were talking about the themes, but we weren't necessarily being as explicit to the children about themes, we were using the characters to kind of tell that story and that message and to get their feedback on it. So it was, I mean, it's kind of, it's something that is a really helpful tool and also it wasn't just obviously visual, we were looking at visuals and we were kind of thinking about the characters and what they might look like, what the world that those characters might but also Danielle as the writer was really exploring the language that we might use, even kind of that idea of like where the narrative might be positioned, what, you know, from whose perspective and how it's written. So it really did help us and inform us in the text that kind of developed and the visuals that developed. So it was really vital, wasn't it? It was, and it was, but also it was an enjoyable. workshop, you know, it was a kind of an opportunity to feel that they were contributing to the finished product and it was part, you know, that sense that it was something that they were involved in and could be proud of, which was really important to us, but also that it felt like encouraging experience for them and a safe experience for them as well. So, with this back and forth, how would the writer feel? How did the writer feel in terms of this? Because I guess, were you sort of taking passages or pages being like, this is what we've got, what do you guys think? And then going back and forth, am I jumping too far ahead? Was there steps before that as well, which I need to talk about? Yeah. So I guess before we got, we all met, so... research team Josie and Danielle who's the author. We met and we taught them about our findings and we kind of developed this sort of like one pager basically with kind of the main themes and some quotes from the families and I think it was from there I think yourself and Danielle kind of discussed maybe some themes overarching themes that could be used and we took some of those themes to the families. So there was things around, I think there was ones around weather, landscapes or mountains. There was stuff around obviously space, which I know we haven't kind of really talked about what the book is about, but it's based within kind of space. Artie is a star. And I think that's where we started with kind of thinking about the storyline and the world. It was almost like that idea of what, symbolism we could, what the families, because at this point the children weren't involved, it was the adults, and it was kind of what sort of symbolism we came up with as a group and options that we could kind of use as starting points or places to explore and then kind of almost flesh out the ideas before we settled on anything. Yeah. So what made you settle on Artie as a star as opposed to, you know, as a raccoon or something? What ended up going with the space idea? That's interesting that you say the raccoon because I think that was another idea was a kind of almost like, obviously when it comes to picture books you kind of often, when you're thinking about a subject that involves people, it's quite good to kind of remove the human element and represent those people or those circumstances in a non-human way. So animals are a great one for that. So that was something that we discussed. But space was another one and the idea of it kind of becoming something otherworldly. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure how we arrived exactly at the stars. But it was one of the, it was definitely one of the themes that came out of those workshops. And it was one that myself and Danielle, when we were kind of brainstorming at the next, our next sort of phase and session, it was just something that we both felt connected really well to the messages and that we could visualize and see both visually and in writing and thinking about the characters. And that we brought to the team as one of the ideas, but that we all kind of agreed on. felt like it had a lot of scope. Yeah, I think that's definitely kind of what it was. There was ideas and I think everyone, it just kind of clicked with everybody. And the next stage was really trying to make, see if that clicked with the children, young people. And it did. And that was kind of where we came up with some of the main storylines really was from young people's ideas around, so Artie's a wishing star. And I think it was one of the young, the children's ideas that actually. Mabie's arty doesn't know how to grant wishes or she can't grant wishes like her friends. And having that, introducing that kind of element of difference between the main character and Mabie's, her kind of world or the people that she sees. So yeah, kind of, it became space, but there was no clear point at which point we made that decision. Kids in general are the harshest critics of anything because they don't have much filter. So it must have been a really daunting thing going up to them being like, hey, if we have this idea. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It felt like there was that pressure on those sessions with the children and that kind of feedback from them. But you know, they're brilliant because they are so creative naturally. You know, they just come up with all of these incredible ideas. and kind of blow you away. And it's so nice because they just provided us with so many great starting points and ideas and characters and even like terminology that they were sort of words that they were using. So they really did feed into it and bring that, it's that kind of creative energy that you just wish for. And so that happened, it was lovely. Um, can we, can we talk, I guess you have spent, spent a lot of time saying themes. Uh, and we said it sort of vaguely in terms of like trying to fit themes and could we talk about what these themes were? Uh, so I get like a better idea of what all first the parents and the children said that they wanted to cover in the book. Yeah. So I guess a little bit Twinkle Adi as a storybook for children. we've kind of set about between the ages of sort of five to eight. That's kind of where we were pitching at. So kind of key stage one, going to key stage two within the primary school system. But actually, it's from some of the feedback that we've had, it's been used with some younger children, but also some older children, depending on how that the books used. And it was very much it's about trying to have these conversations with children. And The themes are very much around making sure that the young people, the children feel okay to have mixed feelings about the kind of a parent who uses alcohol or drugs. It can be, you can be really happy in some moments, you can be really fed up, sad, feeling lonely in that it's okay to have that mixture. It's also about kind of trying to make sure that the young person doesn't feel alone in their feelings. that there are people who might want to talk about it or who can and that kind of link to having a trusted adult. For some young people it might not be somebody within the family it might be somebody at school and to make sure that book could be used both within a family context as well as within different services but also schools. And a lot of the children and young people that I spoke to had told me about when they were younger and even as they aged. A lot of them tried to control the uncontrollable or the unpredictableness of living with a parent that uses alcohol or drugs. In one of the ways when they were younger, it was around kind of throwing away their parent's alcohol, you know, pushing it down the toilet. And we encapsulated a lot of those experiences as well within the book. And there's a really, I think, probably one of my favourite pages within the book that... in the illustrations from Jor-C is a page where Artie is trying to capture the Yozl. So the Yozl is kind of a made-up character that represents alcohol and drugs in the book, causes mischief for one of Artie's kind of big stars and there's kind of drawings around how she's going to capture the Yozl and create this star but actually sometimes even as hard as children or Artie tries sometimes it just doesn't work. And although young people were trying to kind of create safety for themselves, it was about realizing that it's not their job or their role to do that. And there were some kind of big stars or adults in their lives that could help. So those were kind of some of the themes. But yeah, I think every page has some kind of experience or an impact that family members have shared with us. try to incorporate that as well as some of the parents' experiences of how it can actually be really difficult to watch a child struggling with their emotions and not sure what to do or you try to be there for them but sometimes it is just about having a conversation and yeah Artie goes through the same kind of turmoil as what Mabie's were hoping that someone might come along and talk to an adult, Artie goes and talks to. somebody within the book as well. I don't know if Josie you've got anything to add to kind of maybe some of the key messages or themes that you liked? I mean I think you've said it all really well there Cassie so I you know that is those themes are kind of running through that and I guess the only other thing I would add is that it it's definitely not trying to be that fairy tale ending. It's not the book's not sort of saying we'll make everything okay and I'll be fine in the end. And that's what I really love about them. That one of the sort of strong messages is that it's saying it's okay that it's that it's sometimes it's not going to be. Okay and sorry I'll say that again. So sometimes it's saying that it's not always going to be okay but that. you don't have to be responsible for that or like you don't have to put take that on yourself, you know you're just a child and this is not all your responsibility and something that you have to think about. So it's quite you know it's got a mature message in there but I think it's something that really helps children to take the pressure off themselves in those situations. Yeah. Yeah, the broaching the subject thing can lead to a lot of mixed messages, as you said, because what's that saying? The kids say the darndest things at the darndest times. And like you said, if they're trying to ask a question at a McDonald's drive-thru or something and you do not want to say it, you shut them down, but then later you want to help them. But then the kids already sort of there's that level of distrust being like, why have you shut me down before? Why do you want to talk about it now? And sort of those sort of themes as well feel very interesting and seem very difficult to how you would have captured them in the book. Can we move forward and then talk about how the book is being used? Because you guys, oh because as you said the message isn't necessarily, is a very adult message that sometimes it's, sometimes there's not much, it's okay to feel certain ways and this and sometimes it's not, it's not your fault and it's also in many cases it's not your duty to solve it. How has that been received by kids and what has been some of the, what do you say, is repercussions the wrong word? Outcomes. What have been sort of the outcomes since? And like you did that one, I'll see. Yeah, that's fine. So like you said, this has been a year since we launched the book. We had a kind of celebration event last year, which was at the Seven Stories, which is in the northeast. And it's a children's charity that supports kind of children's books and children's literature. And that was very much we wanted it to be more of a celebration event where the families who were involved and people who were involved could get together and just see the final product and take it home. We had some kind of, we had a reading from Danielle, we had colourings, we had quite like a lovely event. And I guess that was the first step in the impact in actually just seeing everyone in the room and that they got to take the book away. And we had the children who were involved in the project. been really excited to show their friends and show their teachers of what they've been working on and for that to be read out in class. So that was a really kind of big thing even just from launching. But I guess since then we've obviously kind of got limited funding so we've had I think about 650 copies of the book, like physical copies of the book printed and those have been shared across. services, families, schools in England or the UK as well. And I think it's around about 300, just over 300, I think different services have got that book. And I think 200 of those have actually actively reached out to us. So we get lots of kind of requests or word of mouth through different services. And it's kind of just jumped around the country. So I kind of try to keep track of how they've heard about it or who's kind of forwarded on. But yeah, it's been really great in terms of that. But also it's a free resource. We've got it online. So we have the Wikipedia version of the book situated online. And I think that's had over 5,000 downloads. That's awesome. We also created a read along video. So Danielle kind of read the book, we showed some of the images, we've got kind of Twinkly Music in the background, and that's on YouTube, and that's obviously also a free resource, another way of kind of using the book. And I think, as I did check this morning, and I think it's just under 14,000 views of that on YouTube, which is amazing. And that's kind of proliferated as well, just even over the past few months. And I think it is just kind of services. valuing it and sharing it with like a partner service or People are talking about it in different kind of contexts So yeah, we're getting lots from it and we haven't done any formal testing of it yet but we did kind of send out a survey and people have obviously emailed with kind of any feedback if they've used it and lot of the practitioners have said that it's been really valuable in kind of opening up those conversations in a way that feels quite safe for children as well as can be quite fun. So there are lots of different activities that either teachers or practitioners can do based on the book. So we've had kind of examples of creating little puppets of Artie. creating kind of extra stories around what Artie might be getting up to next, doing drawings, chatting about kind of how that might be impacting on Artie, say the Yozl character. But also it's had kind of things that we maybe didn't necessarily know would happen. So I've had somebody reach out to me who wanted to. develop it into training for local authority practitioners, drug and alcohol services as a way of kind of helping open up those conversations between the children and the adults, but also between services. So the adult services and the children's services and understanding that actually they can both use this tool as a way to help have those conversations. We've also had practitioners from prisons contact with us because they were running a storybook session with fathers where they kind of film them reading storybooks and they send it to their children and they really wanted to use Twinkle Artie as a way to have those conversations with the fathers but also that the fathers could have that conversation with their children so it's kind of things that we never really thought the space as it would be and it's it has reached them. I think we've also had lots of feedback about the fact that actually it's not just parental substance use that gets talked about. It can be things around other sort of family dynamics, so parental mental health problems, domestic violence and abuse, poverty, or more widely just kind of promoting positive mental health or thinking about bullying and kind of learning more empathetic attitudes. to my peers in the class. So yeah, we've had lots and lots of positive feedback, which has been really great. And I know kind of Josie and Danielle have sort of also shared it across their networks as well. Yeah, I mean, I think, Cassie, you've, you probably know a little bit more than me about the outreach of it. And I've actually just I didn't know some of that. So that's like really amazing for me to hear as well, because you do a piece of work and you kind of send it out into the world and hope that it's, you know, has a positive response and is used in the way that you've intended to. And even better if it if it gets used for more. I love the idea of the fathers reading it and sending it to their children. That's like a dream kind of outcome, isn't it? So, yeah, in terms of my experience, it's been really well received when I've kind of shared anything about it. And I've had people kind of reach out to me and ask whether it's available or if I could arrange for a copy to be sent out. in the same sort of services and areas that Cassie's already mentioned. But it's, yeah, it's had a really positive response. Oh, that's, that's truly incredible. I, I like the point that it opens up avenues of conversation for other things as well. Like you said that it was for substance use and alcohol was at least that's how it started out, but a lot of these conversations have the same sort of starting point. Like how do you approach them? Whether it be about other mental health issues, whether it be about domestic violence, which you said is a big one. Um, whether it's, yeah, whether it's about. poverty or things and I think that's really incredible that being able to approach the subject You haven't done any formal Analysis or anything just yet like you said but do you have any Sort of idea about how the children are taking it because so far I feel all the feedback you would have given on what you mentioned Are all from adults. So yeah Yeah, so currently we haven't done any sort of focus groups or data collecting with children, we hope to do that in the future. We've had practitioners who have used the book or teachers who've used the book with children provide us some kind of information from their point of view and that it was kind of well received, that they understood the key messages in the book. A lot of the times they have said that at the next session say the child is asked to revisit the book of Twinkle Artie, which they've kind of, you know, seen as a positive that actually they, they want to talk about the things that are going on in the book. And it's also engaging. I think a lot of it, one of the bits of feedback we had, which is, I kind of alluded to earlier, was actually one, one service, used the book as a way to have conversations with older children. So I think there were about 15, 16. and it was about showing them that, you know, that there are people out there who are, one, working in this area, wanting to develop resources, but also to kind of get them to reflect on maybe their childhoods and they'd said that they opened up about conversations that they'd never really had before. Usually it's kind of about more here and now and it was they were thinking about kind of things that they, similar themes that maybe they'd went through when they were children. So yeah, it's been used in lots of different ways and we do hope to gather more feedback from children, young people themselves. Hope fingers crossed in the future. You said 15, 16 year olds, so the books for five to eight, but clearly it's helping adults as well, high schoolers and I guess adults as well. Yeah, it's how it's used. It's not being used in a patronising way of reading it to the children, but showing them that a resource that is out there for younger people and what people are working on, and it's helped. those conversations as well which we wouldn't really have thought would occurred. Yeah, I think it's also the illustrations, it shows that illustrations are something which everyone likes, everyone can in some way sort of relate to from like, from like cartoons in the New Yorker all the way to kids. Yeah, and it's interesting because thinking about that sort of teenage bracket, at one point we were talking about who the book was going to be marketed at, and would it, you know, would it be older children and... what kind of format might that take? So something more like a graphic novel, which is kind of more popular with teenagers. But we kind of settled on the picture book and that kind of early, early age range because that felt like it was, well, it had already been part of the research, but it felt like that was who the book was primarily designed to speak to. But it's one of those things, you always remember books from your childhood and you always enjoy reading them. And as an adult, you can take a lot of joy and a lot of messages from children's books. I've got young children and I find that still when I'm kind of coming across new books that I, and I love them. So yeah, I think it's kind of, it stays with you, doesn't it? Yeah, kids books were the best. The more words, no pictures. I still, I remember a lot more from, yeah, my childhood books than I do from some of the novels I've read as an adult. And I always felt a little bit sad when it just got to just a front cover picture and then inside it was just all words. You know, I'm such a visual person, I just respond to it. So yeah, I totally get what you mean there. I felt betrayed slightly. I see a cool picture at the front that is just words inside. One way of kind of moving on the sort of children's book, and we've had lots of conversations about this, is actually developing a book for teenagers and a local organisation to me have a group of young people who would like to do that. So we're currently looking for funding or opportunities to maybe delve into that, working with the author that we worked with on Twinkle Artie and try to think about how we could use these messages and key themes for a more older age range. So it would be something that we'd love to do even going forward as well. We should use this as your pitch for funding, not just from the NIHR and things, but other funders in the podcast world. Any sponsors want to fund this? What's the advertiser which you see on a lot of places? BetterHelp? They're meant to hold up. Yeah, they're on a lot of things. They're not with us, but hey, if you guys want to sponsor a really cool book for teenagers and children, then hit us up. hit Cassie up. This was really good, in that we spoke about the book structure, what sort of processes went behind it, the co-development aspects. I wanted to spend this last part talking about your personal experiences, both of your personal experiences on the project. So first, I will. I would probably ask Josie first, how did it feel? I know you've done a few projects before, but how does it, how did it feel sort of trying to bring sort of these stories and these quotes, which a whole research team comes and dumps in front of you to light? How does the illustration process sort of go? How was it? Yeah, I mean, it was, it's, it's always a really fun challenge. And it is a challenge because you kind of having to take essentially kind of a lot of ideas that are floating around or haven't been visualized and kind of turned that into something. And because it was really co-produced and that was one thing about this project that's great because sometimes it is that kind of the finished text is just dumped in front of you and you've got to respond to that. But this was great because I was part of the conversation and part of that team right from the beginning you know just from like... conversational, chatting, getting to know about the project. So it felt like the investment that I had in it really helped me to kind of come up with those starting points and exploring how things might develop and that world that I was gonna create. It's worth point just saying that I did also work with my husband, who's also an illustrator. So he came in on the project and we kind of worked on these things together. So it is something that's Tom Marge and he worked on it with me. So we kind of actually it was brilliant because we collaborated even within the illustration process. But for me, every project is different and I do have a style. But one thing that I felt was really important to this was to be really open minded and flexible within the within the project to kind of get those. to make sure it was the right world that was created. It was really important that this book was gonna be something that felt reassuring and familiar to the children who were reading it. And actually one of the interesting things was we kind of were talking about space and stars and I was like, oh yeah, I can see this. This is really exciting. But when I started thinking about how, I mentioned this before, but like how you turn. you're kind of taking essentially what is a human experience and then applying it to something else like you know for example animals in the woodlands but applying it to a star like thinking how can we make how can I make this star feel relatable how can this star look like something that this child is kind of can see themselves in um and how do you make space, which essentially is this kind of big black vast quite kind of spread out thing, feel kind of domestic and cosy. So you know there was like techniques that I used, so a lot of my work involves a lot of kind of exploring like colour, so that colour exploration. and thinking about how I could open the colour palette out. So challenges like obviously the star, you know, we played around with like, what colour would the star be? But essentially it's gonna be some form of yellow, but you know, it's normally, so what like works against yellow? You know, what kind of, what is gonna be yellow is gonna feature in it? So how do I kind of create this world? So there was a lot of like pinks and purples and... Yeah, it was kind of thinking about all of those things and textures and how I could bring that into it and literally what materials I would use to create it. So, sorry, I feel like I've gone, I can't remember what the question was and whether I've gone off on another tangent. What was the question again? Honestly, I've forgotten as well. I was just listening to you. Listening to the story of creation. A little bit of my mind also went to... So my uncle is an astronomer. He's an astronomy professor. And his kids growing up, they knew everything about stars and galaxies. So all I can think of is my five or six year old cousin just ripping into... A story about anthropomorphized stars being like, this is not accurate. Because, Oh, yeah. Cause it's not, is it? I mean, like these stars, and it was really interesting because we played around with lots of shapes. I know I was trying out, you know, there's, there's various different shapes that either might relate to a star, but might actually just be what we've, we've decided it's the, these triangles. Um, but within, you know, within looking at the text, there was like the challenge of, well, these stars are doing things like hugging each other and sweeping and doing kind of these like activities, but that, you know, it's got these points. So how do you make them, how do you make that work without it kind of just suddenly looking a bit like human? So there was sort of design elements that really were developed just due to these kind of practicalities within the story. So I kind of added these like little points here so that there was still that kind of pointy silhouette. And also even just that the main characters are all stars. How do we distinguish them and make them identifiable really easily to a young child, but they're all still stars. So, you know, going back to that idea of, you know, if you look at Toy Story and you see the silhouettes of all the characters, you immediately know them. So it's a harder challenge in a way, but you know, we did things like, you know. big star had glasses and you know there was texture on other star so there was there's ways around it and there's things that you kind of think about that are just practicalities that kind of come into the visual storytelling and you know when that's my turn to kind of think about those decisions I think also we had one of the young people was really interested in space and stars and I was just trying to have a quick little sneaky google ever I couldn't do it I wasn't very good at it. Was this the name? It was the name so Artie was based on a conversation with that young person and I think it's the brightest star in the northern sky I think is where the name was but I can't think of what the actual star's name was I think that's where Artie gets her name from So it was really incorporating some of those things, that some of the children did have real interests in space and stars in the sky. I can't remember the name either. I'm trying to Google it. Oh yeah, yeah. It says, it says Arcturus? Arcturus is the brightest star in the Northern sky. I vaguely remember something like Sirius was the brightest star, but I think that's in the Southern hemisphere. Anyway, Arcturus, there we go. I mean, you know more than me. I'm like, I don't. I think that was his favourite star Yeah. Oh, that's cute. That's really nice. So did all the other stars also have names from there or not really? No, they didn't. Actually, the naming of the other stars was kind of interesting because we wanted them to have... They're called Big Star and Other Star. Oh, sorry, I'm saying that. Is it Big Star and Other Big Star? It is, yeah. Yes. So, sorry. Yeah, so it was interesting with the names because we wanted them to have, they were representing grown-ups but they weren't representing parents or two parents. Oh, okay, okay. So the idea was that it was slightly ambiguous as to the relationship to Artie, so you know, Big Star and other Big Star and that kind of lent itself to there being kind of different dynamics in a child's life. Yeah. Okay, that's very interesting. The other thing I was thinking of is my favorite animation of all time, because you had illustrated it, my favorite animation of all time is in Finding Dory, how they gave Dory's dad a bald spot, and how do you give a fish a bald spot, like a receding hairline. I know, isn't it amazing how they do it, and you know that, and that you then, it like ages that fish. You know, it's an incredible thing to be able to do. But yeah, you're right. It's really interesting, the kind of little things that you can add that just help that kind of... It's just a visual clue, isn't it? That helps everyone. So with that in mind, what were your favourite illustrations of the book? Both of you, what were your favourite sort of parts? Cassie, do you want to... Yeah, I mean, I kind of said my idea. I wonder if for video purposes, for anyone that's watching this, I will show on screen my kind of favourite illustrations. So this is the one where Artie is basically trying to trap the yosel and coming up with different ways of doing it. And I just, it just kind of encapsulates my whole PhD in terms of the findings that I found. and the stuff that I was kind of talking about, and to have it in just, I don't know, a few words and like three images, it's just, yeah, phenomenal that happened. And I think it was quite an emotional point when we first, for myself and the other research team, when we had the first kind of main draft of the story, and then when we had the kind of illustrations alongside it, we all kind of teared up because it... It did really showcase the work that we'd been doing and the voices of the young people and the families and the parents. And I think that was probably one of my favourite parts of the whole project, just seeing it come to life. But also just being able to hear the stories that I'd kind of been listening to over the past couple of years, and just see them in kind of illustrations, but really sort of well done. And yeah, I just think that one just sums up my kind of PhD in the findings that I found. But so about you. So so how many words? So how many words was your PhD? I like your I think it was like 80,000 words. And from that to have a book that kind of showcases a lot of those. So each one of those pictures is actually worth 26. 1666.66 words. Each picture. That's a lot of pressure. And you did it so well, Josie. You say a picture says a thousand words, these ones say 26,600 words. It's quite nice to quantify it. It's funny because that page, the text was open to interpretation on that page. Like I kind of had a little bit of free reign as to how I would visualize that. And for me, I really like that page as well, because it's a slightly different format, like slightly vignette format, but it kind of brings a nice, slightly more fun, lighthearted moment, which helps that kind of flow within the book, where she's making this thing and it's a bit funny and wonky. So it's nice because it kind of helps move things along. So you've got kind of like that light and dark going through it. Yeah, I like it's nice that you like that one Cassie. Yeah, I want to get framed with kind of your sketches as well. Oh yeah. KGF like early version sketches and yeah, I think I'll have that in my office. Nice. You could have the originals, I think I've got them here. Just sign them as well. They could go for a lot more. All right, considering we're getting towards the end, so this has been done so far. So what are some of the future projects for you guys? Like you had said, you're thinking about a book for slightly older kids. Josie, would you be planning on illustrating those as well? Well, I'm not sure. Well, I mean, it's something that I could do, but it might be that it kind of suits another illustrator better. So it would be something that I could do. For now, I'm just kind of happy to have been involved in this part of it, but I can talk to Cassie about that if she wanted to. The other thing that is exciting though is that we've got something coming up, haven't we, in terms of the development is that somebody's asked for this in, oh hang on, sorry, but someone's asked for this book to be translated into Welsh language. that's going to be the next thing that I'm going to be working on. So Cassie you probably can explain the situation how that came about a little bit more. Yeah so we a service in Wales I can't remember from the top of my head what it is but I think it's like a drug and alcohol service. So I didn't realise this but I think it's kind of law for any services or if they're going to have any resources within Wales English version and a Welsh version and they've got Twinkle Ardy and they really love it, they're using it but obviously to continue using it they have to have the Welsh so they're we've been in conversations to do that and obviously some of the texts have got a translator so they're going to get a translator for us and send it over. Some of the text is easy kind of just replaced but some of the bigger words in the book. have been hand drawn by Josie, so we're kind of yeah working with them to develop that but that'll also then be a resource that we can then share with other services as well across Wales. So very exciting thing coming up for us. Oh that's awesome, that's really exciting. Translations are a big thing right, especially if you can translate them well because it's not just words or sorts of concepts which sort of need to translate. I don't know Welsh, I don't know the concept translation there, but I can think for something like Urdu or Hindi or whatever, that you can't just translate the words, but as an illustrator, having to sort of design the pictures as well, slightly differently for... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's... You know, it's interesting thinking about it in a more global context and how you might make changes to it. But this will be a really interesting kind of starting point, thinking about it in Welsh. I've never done that before, actually. This is the first time I've had to do any translation of a version of a book. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, it's really exciting. And it opens up avenues, doesn't it, like you say, for, you know, other people might want that. And I've taken Artie sort of internationally. We took Artie to New York for a conference. Cornell University was all around kind of public health and so yeah, she's been over there at Alcohol Action Island as a service also been promoting it. It's been the Netherlands so we've kind of it's well traveled. Yeah and we need to continue. And now I guess two weeks from now it'll be up on New Zealand radio as well so it would be there as well. Yes that's so good. So yeah one more country. Although Artie would not be the biggest star in the Southern Hemisphere. Come to change its name. Translation there again, concepts changed. No, thank you so much. This was really nice. I learned quite a lot about I never knew this much effort goes into book writing and illustration and design and you guys show how you guys can make research, also entertaining for people and sort of the reach the book has already gotten shows how important the work is and how useful it is. So thank you guys so much. Thank you. And final question, which we ask all our guests, so it's the same question for everyone. If you had one piece of advice for our listeners, what would it be? It could be any advice, it could be. specific to your book, it could be about running, it could be anything, any life advice, whatever you guys would like to give. Shall I go first? Yeah, I bet you say the same thing as me maybe. I don't know. You go first. I would say that you just, you never know what anyone's struggling with behind kind of closed doors. You don't know what they might have gone through in their past, present. And it's, I guess it's kind of, I don't know if it's corny to say, but just be kind and show that empathy and that it's, you know, everyone's struggling with something. So just to kind of have that understanding when you kind of talking to people or, um, in any situation, I suppose. I don't know. Was that the same as yours, Josie? No, it's slightly different, but I think just, you know, because the conversation's been about the book and thinking about that. I really love the message in the book of, and it's an absolute classic, but I stand by it as well, is that a problem shared is a problem halved, and that idea of not keeping it inside and bottling it up and keeping it to yourself, but that idea of just sort of trusting in talking to someone and sharing that. does help and does make things better. And I think, you know, you can apply that as a child, as an adult and in lots of different situations. So yeah, that would be my advice. Awesome. Sage advice from both of you. No, thank you so much guys for coming on. Hope you guys had fun. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah, it was lovely. Awesome. And now we have to get back to actual work because we're recording this instead of doing our paid for jobs. But thank you everyone for listening as well. Thank you, the NIHR, for sending Cassie my way. And until next time, take care, everybody, and see you in the next episode.