In November 2025, Narrative Alchemy delivered one of our off the shelf programmes - a Story Exchange session for the Staff College’s Aspirant Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) programme - a flagship leadership development pathway preparing senior leaders for the complex realities of directing children’s services.

Our Story Exchange approach is grounded in the internationally recognised Narrative 4 model, using the core structure of:

• Prepare → 

• Pair & Share → 

• Retell → 

• Reflect.

This method creates a safe, relational space for participants to step into one another’s stories, build empathy, and see leadership challenges through multiple human perspectives.

For this session, we designed prompts that aligned directly with the ADCS programme’s core values:

• • integrity

  • relational leadership

  • accountability

  • compassion

  • courage

  • the human impact of systemic decision-making
    
    

Leaders were invited to reflect on a moment from their own professional journey that revealed something essential about who they are as practitioners - and then, through the retelling process, to hear that story back through another’s voice.

The session was rich, reflective and deeply connective. Participants described gaining:

• • a stronger sense of shared purpose

  • deeper insight into their colleagues’ motivations and experiences

  • renewed appreciation for relational leadership

  • increased confidence in leading through complexity

  • a reminder that leadership is both structural and profoundly human
    
    

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
 

The most common response - repeated by multiple participants —-was simply: “We wanted more of it.”

The Story Exchange not only set the tone for the day but also prepared the group beautifully for their subsequent training on Marshall Ganz’s Public Narrative framework.

It offered a powerful reminder that before leaders can mobilise others, they must first understand the stories they carry themselves.

In July 2025, Narrative Alchemy was invited to open the Staff College’s Asscoaite Training Day with a bespoke piece of oral storytelling: The Fire Carriers - a mythic tale written specifically to honour the ethos, purpose and impact of their work.

Drawing on the deep tradition of oral storytelling, The Fire Carriers was crafted to mirror the archetypal journey of those who guide, teach and support others. It wove together themes of responsibility, wisdom, community and the passing of knowledge - speaking directly to the heart of what it means to be a facilitator in challenging and ever-changing environments.

Delivered live, without slides or script, the story acted as a powerful threshold moment:
a way of gathering everyone together, grounding them in meaning, and marking the day as something set apart.

The atmosphere in the room shifted - from busy arrival chatter to a shared sense of attention, presence and purpose.

Only after this narrative opening did participants move into their standard programme for the day. The story did not replace the training; it set the tone for it. It acted like a ceremonial beginning - a reminder of why their work matters before they stepped into the practicalities of how they do it.

Beginning the day with The Fire Carriers created a strong sense of unity and intention, enriching the rest of the training session and offering a memorable experience that participants carried forward.

Between 2022 and 2024, Narrative Alchemy was commissioned to deliver a series of Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) workshops for frontline practitioners across the East Midlands. Over two years, we worked with professionals in early help, social care, education, youth services, health, and community support - helping them understand the impact that parental conflict can have on children and young people. Following the success of the programme, we have since delivered the workshop across multiple regions throughout the UK.

These sessions combined performance, facilitated reflection, and guided discussion to build practical insight and shared understanding.

Each workshop began with two actors and one facilitator performing a live argument between parents - carefully designed to be realistic and recognisable, but never crossing safeguarding thresholds into domestic abuse.

Participants were invited to experience the argument through the eyes of a child at a specific developmental stage:

• newborn

• toddler

• primary school pupil

• secondary school young person

• or college/young adult
  
  

This simple reframing created profound shifts in perspective.

After the performance, practitioners discussed:

• what the child's immediate physical and emotional reactions might have been

• how that experience might shape behaviour, regulation, and sense of safety

• and what they themselves had felt as adults watching a staged conflict, knowing it wasn’t “real”
  
  

This contrast opened powerful conversations about sensory overwhelm, emotional absorption, hypervigilance, and the way the human threat response presents differently depending on age, development, and environment.

We then explored wider manifestations of parental conflict - from silent withdrawal to simmering hostility - and guided participants through the neuroscience of chronic stress and threat activation. We examined how prolonged exposure to conflict can disrupt a child’s emotional development, stress regulation, and long-term mental health.

The aims of the workshop were to:

• raise awareness of the short-term and long-term impact of RPC

• develop a shared understanding of why this issue matters

• build a common language and lexicon for practitioners across different services

• strengthen coordination between agencies

• and signpost staff to local specialist services and training to deepen their skills
  
  

Across the two-year programme, we trained practitioners in every local authority in the East Midlands as part of a wider regional strategy.

Due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback - particularly the clarity, accessibility and emotional resonance of the approach - we continue to be invited to deliver the workshop across the UK.