#34 Featherbed Tales and the power of voice with Caroline England.

In this episode I talk with Caroline England, founder of Featherbed tales. Caroline shares the inspiration behind Featherbed Tales, how the books, cards and poetry can be used and the power of voice in memory making. Caroline also describes the innovative work with libraries, childrens’ hospitals and the Motor Neuron Disease Association and how the Featherbed Tales technology can support Advance Care Planning.

Key messages from guest

• Caroline describes three catalysts that led to the creation of her audio work, the memories or a loved one’s voice, hearing an audio book used to support adoption and the familiarity of hearing a voice not heard for over thirty years. 

• Voices have a huge power in connecting us with our memories. 

• Caroline shares research on the benefits of story telling for hospitalised children.

• Once created, the storybooks and cards from Featherbed Tales are instantly available. 

• The Featherbed Tales helps towards promoting childrens’ oracy. 

• The Featherbed Tales books can be used to create memory legacy work.

• The books and content of Featherbed Tales are available to anyone who has Motor Neuron Disease

Resources

Study  mentioned by Caroline about the impact of listening to stories among children in hospital in Brazil: 

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/storytelling-reduces-pain-and-stress-in-hospitalised-children/

How to access the storybooks

• Individuals - you can try out using our FREE recordable nursery rhymes.  Just sign up and you can access these immediately in your account. Additional items can be purchased for as little as £1

• Residents of Suffolk, County Durham and the London Borough of Newham

  All of our content is available free of charge if you are a member of one of these libraries.   You need your library membership number and can sign up through our library login.  

  Go to https://featherbedtales.com/LibraryMemberships 

  If you are resident in these areas but don't belong to the library follow the link to sign up with your library. 

• For individuals with MND and their families

  You can access Featherbed Tales stories in the UK for free due to a new partnership between Featherbed Tales and the MND Association.  For more info email cyp@mndassociation.org  

• Children being treated at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital

  This initiative is being led by the play team at RMCH who can provide you with access to Featherbed Tales storybooks free of charge.  Speak to the play team in the hospital or contact hello@featherbedtales.com  for further information. 

See youtube video explaining Featherbed Tales - how to make a personal story recording 

Online demo sessions

Caroline offers free monthly online demo sessions to anyone who would like to find out more.  Please come along and join this informal session to see how it works, the value it can bring and examples of how it is used in different settings. You can join the next session via the following link:

https://www.featherbedtales.com/news-1 

Bio

Caroline is founder and writer of Featherbed Tales - a digital platform which enables you to record your own voice and overlay this automatically onto beautifully illustrated digital picture books, nursery rhymes, poems and greetings cards.  These can be instantly shared with anyone anywhere in the world. Caroline launched Featherbed Tales in 2020 to harness the power of the voices of those we know and love around us, to connect people through storytimes and to create forever memories with the voices of beloved family and friends.

Caroline has a background in business and research based consultancy.  Her primary areas of focus have been business strategy, sales and marketing, specifically new business and market development and communications. She has worked with a wide range of clients including the World Health Organisation, Mars, utilities companies, government departments, local authorities, and police and crime commissioners, along with The SilverLine and many smaller social enterprises and charities. 

Caroline has always been passionate about literacy and the natural world around us all. After a significant birthday she decided it was a now or never moment and decided to take a completely new direction in her career, to combine her love of these two important areas of her life into a new venture.  And thus Featherbed Tales was born.  Her current priorities are to lead Featherbed Tales and bring the magical impact of storytelling to enhance speech, language and reading development in early years learning, to encourage curiosity in the world around us, to connect families and create lasting memories for families to treasure.  

Caroline believes in the power of collaboration and is always interested in working in partnership with like-minded individuals and organisations. 

Please do feel free to get in touch by email at caroline@featherbedtales.com

Links

Featherbed Tales website: https://featherbedtales.com

Social media links (FB, Insta, Linked in and YouTube):

Facebook 

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Find out more about my Bespoke Consultancy

• Service analysis for teams seeking to improve EoLC or prepare for CQC

• End of Life Care Education

• Lasting Power of Attorney Consultancy

• Talks and presentations

If you’d like to find out more about my work contact me.

What one thing will you do?

It would be great to share what resonated with you from this episode, what is the one thing you will do differently? Head to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to continue these important conversations.

Thanks to all my guests for working with me to share their knowledge, experience and stories about Advance Care Planning. I hope you enjoyed listening and have insights to take away; I love hearing your reflections on the series and look forward to reviews on Spotify where you can also subscribe to the series.

Clare

Important Conversations about Important Conversations.