What’s your Spirit of Lockdown?

Share your story to inspire a better, more connected future

The stories we tell now about our response to Covid-19 will shape how we look back on this time, and how we move forward as a society.

What are the truths that will inspire our better days?
What’s the spirit you want to bottle to guide your way forward?

Share your story of lockdown and join a community of story sharers across the country in celebrating the power of relationships and inspiring a conversation about how we can build back better, stronger and more connected.

Share a written story

Share a multimedia story

Explore others’ stories

Whether you’re looking for inspiration to write your own story or simply to understand people’s experiences during the lockdown, dive into our latest submissions.

Shifting Power

In brief In this, the latest in our series of lockdown reflections by our network of observers, Relate's Director of Services, Ben Collins, reflects on what lockdown has taught us about power within service delivery. Another busy week in lock down – feeling...

Relationship-Centred Public Services

In brief In this piece for Joining the Dots blog Ray Shostak considers the “enabling conditions” for developing relational practice and suggests a framework for supporting them. Ray has been a teacher, a local authority worker, a civil servant and eventually Head...

The Relationships Field: 6 initial reflections and 5 questions

In brief 6 weeks ago, we (Iona Lawrence and Immy Robinson) set out to explore whether a ‘field of relationships’ could, should, or does already exist. We’re still at the early stages of this exploration but have been lucky enough to pick the brains of some very...

Our dreams for a Centre in Community Participation and Connectedness

In brief The UKRI recently published a call for a new world-leading Centre in Community Participation and Connectedness. Bringing together academics, policymakers, practitioners and community members, the Centre will have a bold ambition to make a meaningful...

There’s No “Virus” Without “Us”: The Smoke and Mirrors of Independence in a Global Pandemic

In this Joining the Dots blog, Canadian graduate Prachir Pasricha reflects on the way COVID-19 has shone a light on the importance of a collective understanding of wellbeing. Prachir Pasricha recently graduated from the University of Western Ontario in Canada after...

Practicing Kindness

In brief In this Joining the Dots blog contribution, Ben Thurman reflects on the tensions between kindness and risk, relationships and professionalism, emotions and performance management, and the need to reshape organisational culture to foster a culture of kindness....

Collection from Swansea – Spirit of Lockdown #5

As part of our open call to Share your Story, we received this #SpiritOfLockdown collection from the Local Area Coordinators in Swansea. These seven people tell us about their experience and their journeys of the past turbulent year.

Making relationships the first mile

After a year of research into simple, ordinary, human relationships, Iona Lawrence shared her initial findings in Through Thick And Thin. In this report, she illuminated a set of shared concerns, identified through hundreds of conversations around the state of our...

A season for change? Part three: Social care – a critical test

We argue that the approach the government takes to overhauling our creaking social care system in the coming year will provide vital insight into whether it will in fact pursue a meaningful project of relational public service reform. This is part three of a three-part series by Rich Bell, exploring the possibility and pitfalls of relational reform under the new Burnham government.

How staying rooted changed everything I thought I knew about quality

What principles does a busy Jakarta-based CEO return to in order to centre relational approaches? What does it mean to hold the tension and relationship between local wisdom and global standards? What can we learn from the Indonesian value of ‘gotong royong’?

Everyone is welcome

You don’t need to be an experienced storyteller to take part. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar or being the next JK Rowling – we want to hear about your experience of lockdown in your voice and in whichever format works best for you.

You might want to write your story, to video it, audio record it, draw it, tell it alone, tell it in pairs. Choose the format that works best for you and get sharing!

share a written story

share a multimedia story

Populating the map

We’re building an interactive map to showcase and celebrate stories of lockdown from across the UK. In early 2021 we’ll be inviting storytellers and local decision makers to come together to draw out lessons and shape a better, more connected society post-Covid.

You are under no obligation whatsoever to consent to your story being shared publicly – it’s entirely up to you to decide whether you’d like to share it or keep it private. Whichever format you decide to share your story – written or multimedia – please take a moment to let us know whether you’re happy for your story to be shared.