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Changing Relations

We are an arts education and training company that provokes thinking around gender equality, gender

18/02/2026

Fab session with the girls from Creative Youth Opportunities planning the post film premiere Q&A for our screening in a couple of weeks.

They've tasked us with what they want to hear from writer-director , from one of our partner teachers at , and what they want to share themselves.

And when we asked how they felt about receiving unexpected questions if we open the floor to the audience, they shrugged, relaxed, no worries...

So get your tickets!

And get ready with some interesting questions for these awesome girls who are essentially up for whatever challenge we throw at them (next stop - academic conference - not even kidding - will update in due course - they are here for all of it) 💖

https://tickets.redhillsdurham.org/event/a-is-for-amy-film-premiere-and-qa/

16/02/2026

Can't wait for our big screen premiere of A is for Amy at Redhills Durham.

A is for Amy tells the story of teenage Amy whose boyfriend subjects her to domestic abuse and how, with the help of friends, a teacher and support services, manages to escape.

It has plenty of laughs as well as tears, deeply felt love as well as hurt.

It has been created with young people for young people and those who care for them - be that parents, teachers, carers, youth workers, grandparents, friends...

Feedback from the stage version of A is for Amy:

"Every teenager, their parents/carers and teachers should see it"

"I came away from the performance thinking to myself that every young person should be able to see something like this, and that there is probably no better way of making a young person aware of how an abusive relationship comes about. I actually wished id brought my own teenage daughter along and definitely would to future performances."

"It has made me feel more comfortable about helping people in a situation like this" - young person

Get your tickets here:
https://tickets.redhillsdurham.org/event/a-is-for-amy-film-premiere-and-qa/

13/02/2026

This week has been

We’ve reflected on:

💔 the way in which mental health difficulties might present in young people

💔 how we might miss that these behaviours could indicate something underlying that needs addressing

💔 how existing challenges can make a young person vulnerable to being targeted

Did you know that 50% of children exposed to abuse develop mental health difficulty ()?

In the first phase of developing A is for Amy, one of the young people who saw the play and took part in our workshop said...

“Even though I’m under multiple horrible statistics, I feel safer.”

Essentially... forewarned is forearmed.

Our brand new film of A is for Amy depicts:

💔 a bubbly teen girl escaping an abusive home to move in with a charming boyfriend

💔 the charm gradually turning to control and Amy’s world becoming smaller and more isolated

💔 her friends noticing and reaching out for adult support

💔 her teacher arranging specialist support to help her recovery

💔 her friends supporting her with love and care, being a safe space, letting her breathe

It’s a story of Children’s Mental Health... the signs, the risk factors and support pathways.

Come and join us for the premiere of A is for Amy!!!

https://tickets.redhillsdurham.org/event/a-is-for-amy-film-premiere-and-qa/

(link in bio)

11/02/2026

here...

There's so much that one could comment on in the seemingly endless release of Eptstein files.

But this little note really stood out to me and felt like a fitting reflection for .

In a 2016 exchange with Deepak Chopra, Epstein dismissed allegations regarding an assault of a 13 year old girl as being from a "troubled young woman with a history of drug use."

Firstly, a 13 year old is not a young woman. A 13 year old is a child.

Secondly, the idea that behaviour indicative of a child with mental health difficulties would be a reason to disregard their testimony is a classic misdirection from the lens we should be taking.

What we should be picking up on here is that the girl in question was vulnerable. And abusers target vulnerability.

When we accept a narrative that the testimony of someone with mental health difficulties - and / or that of a child - is untrustworthy, we are failing to acknowledge the dynamic of abuse and the deliberate choices made by those who wish to exert control over others.

It reminded me of a piece of work we developed several years ago, where we sought to challenge victim-blaming narratives that create a hierarchy of victims with some deemed more worthy of sympathy than others.

What we need is to redirect the focus to the behaviour of those who are seeking to control and take advantage of others and to recognise that a young person who is "troubled" is someone who is vulnerable and needs our support rather than being dismissed and/or blamed.

Image credit and .turner_21

09/02/2026

“She’s mental”

This is how a young person described the behaviour of Amy, the victim (and survivor) of teen domestic abuse in our play “A is for Amy”.

I (Kate) have been thinking about this a lot and felt these reflections were fitting for the start of .

Some of her behaviour could be perceived as her “being mental”: she becomes withdrawn, she becomes snappy, she’s inconsistent and unreliable, she stops going to college, she stops looking after herself physically, she’s tearful…

But why? Why is she behaving like this?

I asked the young person, if anything was making her behave like this.

Slowly you could see them start to make the links between what her abuser was doing to her and how she was behaving.

So, I have an ask…

If you notice a child or young person you know behaving out of character

No matter how slowly this change happens.

Don’t look away.

Ask.

They might not tell you. They might not be able to.

But they might tell you.

Now or another day.

Be there for them.

Let them know that you are there.

Let them know that you care.

You could be making a powerful difference to them now and in the future.

07/02/2026

Just thought we would give a little shout out to this lush empowerment-focused workshop being run at by our long-term Associate Artist, .

Hope has created a gorgeous set of artworks - Invisible Visible - that were inspired by the lived experience testimony of 7 professionals managing a range of invisible disabilities in the workplace.

This has been drawn together into workbook that will be FREE to workshop participants.

The workshop itself aims to:

💖 Create a safe supportive space to foster conversation alongside people with lived experience

💖 Explore our understanding - and experience - of disability in the workplace - considering the challenges we face but also our unique contribution

💖 Build your confidence to articulate your value and create your own personal work-with-me guide - a document that will feature your accessibility needs and describe what working alongside you may look like

💖 Enable you to connect with like-minded individuals to grow your support circle

Hope will be supported in workshop delivery by the fabulous , fresh off the back of her Tedx talk (here if you would like to take a look - https://youtu.be/4SoM0vbQ774) which was focused on how Kim navigates her autism in the workplace.

Places are super limited on this one to ensure a nice small group, so snap them up while they last - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1981936062114?aff=oddtdtcreator

06/02/2026

Sexual Violence Awareness Week post 3 is about recognising that our LANGUAGE MATTERS.

The language we use matters when we discuss sexual abuse and the cultures which enable it.

The language we choose affects whether people feel able to talk about their experiences and their behaviours.

Instead of using the term Peer Sexual Abuse, our academic evaluator introduced the concept of discomfort and suggested we invite young people to think about the behaviours that make them feel “uncomfortable”.

This enabled a wide variety of experiences, behaviours and attitudes to be discussed, not only enabling a fuller picture to be created but also enabling young people to learn that others had had similar experiences too.

Young people talked about people smiling at them. About people staring at them. Whistles. Inappropriate comments. Name-calling. Requesting n**e pictures to be sent. All within the frame of things that make them feel “uncomfortable”.

Not having to judge whether something was serious enough to count as "sexual abuse" made it easier for young people to talk about their experiences, which covered a wide range of impacts.

Thank goodness we didn’t use the term “low level” which is how Ofsted describe some of the sexual attitudes and behaviours in schools that can tend to be overlooked.

Which of these things wouldn’t have come up if we had?

Which of these things don’t matter?

Which of these things would the young people working with us have felt they “ought” not to admit to bothering them, even though they do?

If you would like our creative team to use the Weaving Stories animation to support your staff to gain an insight into young people's experiences of peer sexual abuse, get in touch - info@changingrelations.co.uk

Image credit and our student intern .vannah6412

04/02/2026

post 2 is focused on NORMALISATION.

Young people have experiences of sexual abuse on a daily basis - it is normalised for them.

Young people in our Weaving Stories project identified the following as the most significant in their day-to-day lives:

💥 Sexist comments and catcalling: e.g. terms such as ‘slag’ and ‘slut’ aimed at girls and homophobic language aimed at boys and LGBTQIA+ young people

💥 Nonconsensual touching, inappropriate touching and groping

💥 The pressure to share private images and the negative consequences when shared without consent

How could we de-normalise these experiences?

Language bullying, gender discrimination, and sexual abuse often hide in those moments that are "uncomfortable but hard to explain." They could be a joke, a glance, or playful behaviour that crosses the line, but these seemingly small actions can create pressure, anxiety, fear and harm.

This is why making steps to de-normalise seemingly small but nevertheless harmful behaviours is so important:

💥 Only by recognizing that behaviours that make us uncomfortable are inappropriate and harmful rather than "normal" can we begin to make changes.

💥 Bystanders who laugh along at these behaviours are also indirect bullies; if no one speaks up, such frightening moments will continue, and who will be the next victim?

How might we create a world where these behaviours are NOT normal?

Young people in our project identified some of the things we can do to de-normalise peer sexual abuse:

💥 Challenge stigma and isolation

💥 Normalise calling out bad behaviour

💥 Become more aware of the impact of your own actions and those of others

If you would like our creative team to use the Weaving Stories animation to support your young people to recognise the harmful impact of behaviour they may see as normal and consider what helpful actions they can take, get in touch - info@changingrelations.co.uk

Image credit: and our student intern .vannah6412

02/02/2026

It's this week and we have tried something a little different to how we usually create our social media posts.

One of our fab student interns .vannah6412 has taken some of the key lessons learnt during our Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse project and combined them with 's fab imagery and her own design flair to create this very visual messaging.

The first image sequence is focused on the issue of AWARENESS and we have pulled out these quotations from young people which we found particularly telling:

“I think it’s hard to get through because they don’t realise what they’re doing is wrong until they actually see the impact of it, or it happens to them”

“Shocked – some of the behaviour I saw I thought were normal activities”

For us, these quotations demonstrate two sides to the lack of awareness many young people have about sexual violence:

✨ Young people do not always realise what they are doing is wrong until they are negatively affected by other people's behaviour in some way.

✨ They often do not realise what others are doing is wrong because it is so normalised.

What this means is that awareness is absolutely critical to help us understand and change our own behaviours and also for us to be able to recognise and take action about other people's behaviours, be that calling someone out or reporting them.

Having an awareness of what is OK and what is not allows us all the opportunity to make the world a better place, because once we are aware, we can decide what action we are going to take.

We love this quotation from a young person who took part in a workshop that used our animation as a prompt for reflection --

“[I’m going to start] helping people who look like they are in an uncomfortable situation”

If you would like our creative team to use the Weaving Stories animation to increase your young people's awareness of what is - and isn't - OK, get in touch - info@changingrelations.co.uk

31/01/2026

here with some thoughts on boundaries, rejection sensitivity and consent...

As a late-diagnosed ADHDer, Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria has been a really useful framework to understand my heightened emotional responses; to recognise the pattern of thinking for what it is rather than a true reflection of how things are; and to put in place the checks for reassurance that I need when my internal interference fails to quieten the thoughts that I must have annoyed / upset / disappointed someone.

It's quite hard work!

But better to understand than to be stuck thinking "why am I like this?" and feeling ashamed that I'm a person who experiences a lot of emotional turmoil.

Bearing in mind that my brain is a bit like a multi-coloured, swirly-patterned, neon spider diagram, I've been wondering whether there's anything useful about this framework for teaching about .

It isn't always easy when people say no. The feeling of rejection that floods our brains can be overwhelming.

Obviously we all need to be able to put boundaries in place and everyone has a right to say no to people, activities, experiences they don't want, have capacity for, aren't ready for...

Learning how to do this has been a big priority for me after a burnout experience a couple of years ago.

But I'm also very conscious of my own reactions when I'm on the receiving end of a No. And I am someone who absolutely wants to respect and not override anyone else's boundaries.

It got me thinking that maybe we need to open a space to talk about not just how we set boundaries but also how we deal with the discomfort of being on the receiving end when someone else places a boundary.

Because it IS uncomfortable and I think we need to be honest about that.

It's easier to deal with difficult feelings if we know it's normal to have them and that having them doesn't make us a terrible person.

It's what we do with that discomfort that's important...

Image credit

29/01/2026

here

It was brilliant to be in a room with loads of awesome men today in the Working with Young Men & Boys Network that is being jointly led by and .

There were other women there too of course 👋 who were also fab 🤩

But as someone who spends an awful lot of time in meetings and networks focused on tackling violence against women and girls, where the vast majority of delegates are female, it was really really refreshing to be in a space where men are actively focused on the government's Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, exploring how the youth sector can tackle misogyny and role model a positive masculinity that encourages kindness, empathy and respect.

Excited to see what comes of the willingness of all of the organisations here today to come together and commit to this theme 🤩

27/01/2026

Exciting news alert!!!

This = the big screen premiere of our brand new stage-to-screen film, A is for Amy.

We're hugely grateful to Redhills Durham for hosting us as we invite friends and supporters to celebrate this significant milestone.

With the recently released government Violence Against Women and Girls’ Strategy emphasising prevention and education, A is for Amy is absolutely on point - this term sees us trialing a learning programme based around it which will support young people to recognise the red flags of toxic teen relationships and understand the pathways to specialist support.

As such, we're delighted to be joined for a post-film Q&A by:

💖 Our incredible writer-director Zoë Murtagh

💖 One of the educators involved in using A is for Amy as a school learning resource

💖 Some of the wonderful young people from Creative Youth Opportunities who shaped the look of the film and the objectives included in the learning programme for their peers

This is a brilliant opportunity to get an insight into our coproduction process and learn about the invaluable resource that will be more widely available in the next academic year.

Harbour Support Services will also be present in case anyone would like more information about the specialist support available for young people affected by domestic abuse in our area.

When: Saturday 7th March

How to book: https://redhillsdurham.org/event/a-is-for-amy-film-premiere-and-qa/

There will be chance to mingle with like-minded folk both before and after, as the bar will be open from 7pm. The screening itself will start at 7.30pm.

See you there folks!

Address

Studio 18, Ushaw Historic House, Chapel And Gardens
Durham
DH77DW

Telephone

+447815837034

Website

http://www.changingrelations.co.uk/contact-us/

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What We Do

Changing Relations C.I.C. is an arts-based education and training company that challenges thinking around gender norms, gender equality and healthy relationships, using creative methods to provide original educational and training resources.

We work with artists, communities and experts to produce powerful content in a range of art forms to engage audiences and participants; from film, music, theatre and dance to creative writing and visual arts.

We address topical and sensitive subjects, such as domestic abuse, male mental health and sexting risks, in an accessible way, giving a voice to those people who have been affected and generating public and professional understanding.