Perspectives

With Penny & Jennie from The Informed Perspective
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In today’s fast-moving world, it’s easy to feel disconnected, from our communities, from other generations, and even from ourselves. The Informed Perspective exists to pause that rush, to listen more carefully, and to create space for meaningful reflection and dialogue. We believe that when people share their experiences—across generations, cultures, and backgrounds—they offer insights that strengthen the communities we live in. Conversations that begin locally can be enriched by broader voices, bringing fresh context, challenges, and inspiration that help us grow together. Each episode of our podcast also includes input from tween contributors, whose questions and reflections often open up new ways of thinking. Their contributions add richness to the conversation and create opportunities for learning and connection across all ages. This platform is about imagining better communities: by listening more closely, learning from each other, and finding new ways to reconnect with what matters, right where we are. Keep informing those perspectives. theinformedperspective.substack.com

  1. 4d ago

    Perspectives: Learning Through Play

    What is play, really? If you ask most people, they’ll picture a child on a playground, building blocks, or kicking a ball. But in our latest Learning Through Play podcast episode, we sat down with play therapist Dr. Kate Renshaw and researcher Dr. Will Zoppollini to challenge that narrow definition. Play isn’t just an activity. It’s a mindset. Right now, we are living through a global play deficit, and it’s showing up everywhere, from our rigid school systems to our adult lives. We’ve become obsessed with standardising education, over-scheduling kids, and funneling everything through screens. As artificial intelligence begins to automate the analytical and repetitive parts of our world, a profound shift is happening. Humanness, real-world contact, and raw joy are becoming our most vital human assets. If AI can write the essay, crunch the data, and generate the code, what makes us human? Our capacity for curiosity, emotional connection, and imaginative play. Here are a few mindset shifts we explored in this episode that we can all start adopting today: * Redefining Playfulness: Play doesn’t require a toy or a scheduled block of time. It’s an attitude of flexibility, curiosity, and approachability. It’s about how we look at the world. * Flexibility in Assessment: If learning is a natural process of adaptation, why are we still measuring it with one-dimensional, sit-down testing? We need assessment models that value how young people solve problems creatively and collaboratively. * Micro-Minutes of Joy: You don’t need hours of free time to inject play into your day. We can weave “micro-moments” of playfulness, humour, and connection into the margins of our routines, whether we’re 6 or 60 years old. * Navigating the Tech Wave: Devices aren’t going anywhere. But instead of letting screens dominate our attention, the real challenge is intentionally designing our days to foster deeper, face-to-face interactions and human connection. We are starving for connection in a hyper-connected world. The antidote isn’t doing more—it’s learning how to play again. Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Learning Through Play

  2. Sep 24

    Perspectives: Empathy

    Empathy is something that sits at the very heart of the work we do around listening and being heard, but let's be honest, it’s not always present. In a world driven by busyness, digital noise, and constant polarisation, deep listening can get forgotten. In this episode, we explored what empathy actually is, reminding ourselves that perhaps the exact definition matters less than simply being fully present with another person. We also looked at its profound physiological impact on the human brain and how structured methods of deep listening can help heal societal divides. We were joined by retired psychiatrist and Empathy Clinic founder Dr. Ashok Bhattacharya, and Empathy Center director Edwin Rutsch, pioneer of the Empathy Tent and Empathy Circles. We Talked About: * The Biology of Being Heard: Ashok broke down the actual science: true empathic listening literally calms your amygdala, lights up your vagus nerve, and drops your heart rate, telling your nervous system, “You are safe.” * It’s a Two-Way Street: Empathy isn’t just a one-way favor where you absorb someone else’s stress. Real connection is mutual—it’s a shared space where both people need to feel safe, seen, and heard. * The Holistic View: Edwin walked us through a brilliant way to break it all down: basic empathy (tuning into others), self-empathy (checking in with your own needs), and mutual empathy (that shared magic between people). * The “Empathy Battery”: This lovely metaphor from Edwin that empathy acts like a charging station. When you actually feel heard and seen, you get an energy boost and your capacity to listen to others then shoots right back up. * Taking Empathy to the Streets (The Empathy Tent): Edwin shared how taking “Empathy Tents” even right into the middle of intense, shouting political protests can shift dynamics for the better. * Everyday Micro-Connections: You don’t need a grand gesture to practice this. Ashok reminded us that simply asking a slightly deeper question or acknowledging a stranger with genuine curiosity can completely shatter that cold, modern anonymity we all walk around in. Ultimately, empathy needs more than occasional attention, it requires continual practice. If kids grew up with conflict-resolution built into their school day with embedded structured tools like Empathy Circles this could lead to empathy becoming our subconscious default rather than a conscious struggle. Action Items & Takeaways * 🌐 Try one of Edwin’s Empathy Circles: If you want to practice this framework in your own life or community, check out the step-by-step instructions available at EmpathyCircle.com. * 🌱 Bring Curiosity to Your Week: Notice how a simple, gentle acknowledgment of a stranger, giving your undivided attention for five minutes to a family member or friend, or asking a slightly deeper question can completely shift an everyday interaction and shatter that cold, modern anonymity we all walk around in. If this episode resonated with you, please do share it with a friend who might appreciate it. Keep noticing, keep listening — and stay curious and empathetic about the world around you. Until next time — keep informing those perspectives. Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Empathy

  3. Sep 11

    Perspectives: Holistic Education

    In a fast and ever-changing world, what are the skills that our children really need, and how can we help support them more? Let’s be honest: much of traditional schooling still feels stuck in a time warp. We are training children to pass tests, memorise facts, and check boxes in a system built for a completely different era. But the real world they are walking into demands something entirely different—emotional resilience, critical thinking, conflict resolution, and, above all, deep human connection. Holistic education isn’t something we can simply outsource to a classroom. It is a shared responsibility that spans our homes, our communities, and the spaces we create together. In our latest podcast episode, we sit down with two incredible guests who are tackling this challenge head-on: * Janice Stewart-Yates, an educator specializing in diversity, equity, and trauma-informed practice, who breaks down the core tenets of peace education and why creating emotional safety is the foundation of true learning. * Imogen Bond, Managing Director of Empathy Lab, who shares how stories and reading can be powerful tools to build perspective-taking and emotional language in children. What We Explore in This Episode: * Why traditional memorisation-based learning is failing to prepare youth for the modern digital landscape. * How radical acceptance and trauma-informed teaching create a relational classroom environment. * Simple, practical ways parents can foster wonder, empathy, and non-violent communication at home (including the power of “I wonder why...” statements). * How to identify schools that genuinely embody holistic values beyond their open-day marketing. Action Steps to Try This Week * For Parents: Practice “people-watching” and wondering together with your children about the emotions and experiences of others in everyday situations. Use non-judgmental prompts like “I wonder what they might be feeling right now?” * For Educators: Focus on personal self-reflection and professional development around emotional triggers to better support students in the classroom. * For Prospective Parents/School Visitors: Observe real-life classroom and community interactions outside of formal open days to look for authentic evidence of student agency and core values in practice. “Empathy is a skill we all need to practice and develop.” “Understanding unmet needs helps us respond with compassion.” As always, thank you for reading, listening, and being part of this community. Let us know in the comments: What is one skill or quality you wish schools prioritised more? Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Holistic Education

  4. Jul 28

    Perspectives: Back To School

    I know, I know—it feels a little early to be talking about getting Back to School while summer is still here! But the academic new year is already quietly appearing on the not too distant horizon. Looming ahead is the new term with those eventually darker mornings, shorter evenings, heavy backpacks, school uniforms, and that long-term pile of expectations on both kids and parents. In this week’s episode of Perspectives, we wanted to have a really grounded chat about how we can approach this season differently. Here are a few key takeaways from our chat with guests Clare, Brittany, and Jess: 1. Warmups, Cool-Downs & Reading Our Bodies Why do we expect kids to sit at rigid desks for 6 hours straight without warming up? We discussed how weaving quick forward bends, seated twists, and calf stretches into the school day can help to keep young spines happy. Plus, learning to read body cues early on stops physical tension before it turns into adult back pain. And it’s not just the children who have to settle back into a restrictive routine—teachers do, too! As Clare reminded us when it comes to posture and habits for healthier joints and muscles: “Teachers can be leaders of that change!” 2. Stopping the “Short & Snappy” Mornings ⏰ When mornings are rushed, parents get stressed, short, and snappy and everyone leaves the house frazzled. We share a few simple ways to take the time pressure off school mornings so the whole day might begin with softer energy. 3. Footwear, Bags & Re-Acclimatising 👟🎒 Transitioning from summer freedom straight into stiff leather shoes and heavy backpacks can be a shock to the body. We explore foot-shaped footwear options, practical advice on managing bag weight, and gentle techniques for re-acclimatising to the classroom. 4. Funky Ideas for Extracurricular Clubs 🎨⚽ The after-school club rush can get overwhelming fast. Jess, an advisor on behaviour change, shares some games to help kids figure out which activities they genuinely love doing versus the ones that drain their battery. Whether you’re a parent trying to streamline mornings or a teacher looking for fresh classroom inspiration, this episode offers plenty of insight. How are you feeling about the upcoming school transition? Are you already running through the checklist, or trying to soak up the last slow mornings? Let us know in the comments! Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Back To School

  5. Jun 23

    Perspectives: Safeguarding

    We came into this conversation knowing that safeguarding matters. We came out of it understanding that this is a conversation we need to be having and revisiting to make sure we are doing it well. Because good intentions are not enough on their own and because the conversations that protect children can be the ones hardest to start. Dr Catherine Knibbs created the term Cybertrauma. For fifteen years, she has worked with clients who have told her, again and again, that what they experience online is not like normal trauma. Because it does not stay in the past and the material persists. Because the harm can resurface in ways that physical harm cannot. Kristi McVee spent a decade investigating child sexual abuse as a detective and many years interviewing child victims. She left the police in 2020 with a PTSD diagnosis and a mission. What she saw in that time changed everything about how she understands risk, how she thinks about prevention, and how she talks to parents about what actually protects children. What they both stressed was this. The most powerful protective tool we have is not a law, not a platform policy, not a filter or a ban. It is a conversation. An honest, open, age-appropriate conversation that starts early, returns often, and keeps the door open for a child to tell us something we might find very hard to hear. Children who have body safety conversations come forward faster. They experience less prolonged harm. They recover more quickly. Not because the conversation guarantees their safety. But because it means they already know how to tell someone. And they have an adult they trust enough to tell. We also talked about something that we think gets lost in the noise around safeguarding. None of this is our fault. None of us were given adequate information when our children first went online. The platforms that profited from their presence did not make it easy to protect them. The systems that were supposed to keep pace with the digital world did not. And the result is a generation of parents who feel guilty, frightened, and unsure where to start, and who sometimes respond to that fear by shutting down entirely. That is completely understandable. And it is also where this conversation begins. This episode is not about adding to the fear. It is about the small moments and the everyday conversations. The ones that keep the door open. We hope it helps. Listen in.Penny & Jennie Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Safeguarding

  6. Jun 20

    Perspectives: Youth Voice

    For a while now we have been sitting with a feeling we couldn’t quite shake. We have had so many rich conversations on this podcast with experts, researchers, authors, practitioners, all talking about young people. And those conversations are so valuable. But somewhere along the way we started to wonder whether, in doing that, we were missing something essential. Whether the people we most needed to hear more from were the young people themselves. We discovered that it wasn't easy. Getting young people to share their voices on our terms simply didn't work. We needed to make sure that they became stakeholders in the process, that co-design wasn't just a word we used but something we actually practised. And that meant we would have to listen differently. That is what led us here. Because we also just wanted to give young people a platform to share what they are actually doing. And what some young people are doing right now is extraordinary. That is what this episode is. Part of our commitment to do things differently. We hope it will inspire other young people to think that they too can get involved, that their voice matters, that they don’t need to wait for permission. And we hope it will encourage adults, in their families, their workplaces, their communities, to think more carefully about how they involve young people in decision making. Not just the big decisions. The everyday ones too. Because that is where the habit of being heard can grow. What became clear to us in this conversation is that the connection between generations has to start somewhere real. Not in a sterile meeting room where a handful of teenagers are invited to represent all young people. But in a relationship. A genuine, human, personal relationship where a young person feels known rather than consulted. Janet from CoGenerate put it in a way that has stayed with us, the shift happens when we stop seeing young people as our own children and start seeing them as valuable voices at the table. Not because their youth doesn’t matter, but because their perspective does. And the research bears this out too. Young people who feel genuinely heard don’t just participate more, they stay. The involvement and the commitment grow from the relationship, not the other way around. Leena founded the Golden Connections Club in Southern California to bring young people and the elderly together, after she noticed that most of her peers had never had a real relationship with an older adult. Not because they didn’t want one, but because the structures around them had never created the conditions for one to form. So she built those conditions herself. Jaan, who is sixteen and based in the UK, spent years navigating Type 1 diabetes and then cancer. That experience gave him a perspective on resilience and advocacy that most adults twice his age don't have. He talked about what it feels like to be in spaces that still treat young people's presence as unusual rather than expected — and about a social media debate where young people are subjects of the conversation without ever being truly part of it. Maja, who is seventeen, is the founder of Child in Court, a project she started after her own experience in family court at the age of twelve, with the aim of making court processes less frightening for young people by explaining their rights in accessible language. She is also a member of her district Youth Council in Warsaw, and her council's community refrigerator initiative, giving people a place to leave surplus food for those in need, was approved unanimously across all political parties. We were also joined by Janet Oh, Senior Director of Innovation and Programmes at CoGenerate, who offered what might be the most uncomfortable insight of the episode. The adults most committed to youth voice, she said, can sometimes become the biggest barrier to it. Not through indifference, but through over-caution. They step so far back that they are no longer partners, they are chaperones. And young people, it turns out, do not need chaperones. They need collaborators. We came out of this episode more convinced than ever that the change we are all looking for is not waiting on a policy or a programme. It is waiting on a relationship. On an adult who decides to show up differently. On a young person who decides not to wait. This episode is full of both. Listen in. Penny & Jennie Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Youth Voice

  7. Jun 11

    Perspectives: Youth Mental Health

    We recorded this episode on youth mental health in response to what we are picking up in our community. We knew it would be an important conversation and it was. We came out of it feeling genuinely hopeful and that is not always the case with this subject. Rachel Kelly author of The Gift of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less, opened up about her own mental health journey in a way that took real courage. Ten years of severe depression. And here is the thing that struck us most, the first time it happened, she didn’t address it properly. She pushed through, carried on, and it came back. It was only the second time that she finally stopped and did the work. She was honest about what helped and what didn’t, about the years it took, and about what she now wishes she had known sooner. That kind of honesty is rare. And it matters, because her honesty gives permission. Permission to struggle. Permission to ask for help. And permission to try again when the first attempt doesn't work. What came through again and again in this conversation is that connection is at the heart of mental health. Being around other people. Showing compassion to others, and how that, perhaps surprisingly, builds compassion for ourselves. Rachel described a school where one house had measurably better mental health outcomes than all the others. The reason was a child in a wheelchair. The daily experience of showing up for someone else had built something in those young people that no lesson could teach. Yes, the statistics are dire. Half a million young people in the UK on waiting lists. A ten year delay between first symptom and getting help. But there is hope too. Stigma is reducing. More people are talking. And former teacher Vicki Barsby's Life Story Education programme , where teenagers role-play as parents navigating real life challenges, is producing results that formal sessions never reach. Because it gives young people agency. The sense that they can navigate difficulty rather than be overwhelmed by it. Because it gives young people agency. The sense that they can navigate difficulty rather than be overwhelmed by it. Both guests were clear that the change we need is not just a system change, it is a culture change. A culture in schools, in families, in communities where mental health is not a topic reserved for a rushed lesson once a term, but part of how we live alongside each other every day. Where asking for help is seen as strength. Where adults model the behaviour they want to see. Where young people do not have to reach crisis point before anyone notices. But it’s also clear that we need more spaces for this work. Spaces where young people can share their burdens without pressure, without a grade attached, without the bell about to go. We need an education system that sees the mental health of each child, not just their academic performance and gives them the tools to navigate difficulty and challenge before the pressure becomes too much. That means knowing who they can turn to. That means making mental health part of the fabric of school life rather than a rushed lesson once a term. And it means recognising something we sometimes forget. The mental health of parents and the mental wellbeing of their children are not separate things. They feed each other. Which means this conversation is for all of us, not just the young people in our lives. Listen In! Penny & Jenny Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Youth Mental Health

  8. Jun 10

    Perspectives: Family Dynamics

    In this episode we chatted with Catherine Carr, author of Who’s The Favourite? The Loving, Messy Realities of Sibling Relationships, and Dalton Conley, Professor of Sociology at Princeton, whose research into the genetics of family life has produced findings we weren’t expecting. Here is the one that has stayed with us most. Children shape their parents just as much as parents shape their children. From as young as 18 months, children with higher genetic potential for educational success are drawing more reading, more play, more cognitive investment from their parents, not because parents are consciously choosing it, but because the child is eliciting it. The parenting is a response to the genome. Catherine brought something equally striking from the human side. The roles our families assign us in childhood, the responsible one, the funny one, the difficult one, follow us into our adult lives in ways most of us don’t realise. Into our workplaces. Into our relationships. And the labels hold even when the person wearing them has long since moved on. There is also something in this episode about the conversations we never have. The ones where we sit down with our siblings as adults and ask: what was childhood like for you? What did you experience that I didn’t see? Catherine describes it as spinning around and suddenly seeing the whole story from the other side of the room. Most of us keep putting those conversations off. This episode is a gentle argument for having them sooner. The tween talk question at the end — “I love my family, but sometimes they really annoy me. Is that normal?” — got the most immediate answer of any question we’ve asked. Both guests, simultaneously: yes. Completely. The episode is out now — wherever you listen. Penny & Jenny Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe

    Perspectives: Family Dynamics
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About

In today’s fast-moving world, it’s easy to feel disconnected, from our communities, from other generations, and even from ourselves. The Informed Perspective exists to pause that rush, to listen more carefully, and to create space for meaningful reflection and dialogue. We believe that when people share their experiences—across generations, cultures, and backgrounds—they offer insights that strengthen the communities we live in. Conversations that begin locally can be enriched by broader voices, bringing fresh context, challenges, and inspiration that help us grow together. Each episode of our podcast also includes input from tween contributors, whose questions and reflections often open up new ways of thinking. Their contributions add richness to the conversation and create opportunities for learning and connection across all ages. This platform is about imagining better communities: by listening more closely, learning from each other, and finding new ways to reconnect with what matters, right where we are. Keep informing those perspectives. theinformedperspective.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    With Penny & Jennie from The Informed Perspective
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Informed Perspective
  • Show Website
    Perspectives