EXCLUDED
In 2020 the multi-award winning documentary ‘Excluded’ that only features the voices, opinions and solutions from young people to address school exclusion was launched. I worked with young people and organisations supporting them through the filming like Includem and The Advocacy Academy - both organisations driven by co-production.
We workshopped how the young people wanted the film to develop, all those who wanted to were named as co-producers on the film and received wages for their work.
Since it was launched on Human Rights Day in December 2020, the film has been watched over 25k times, been screened in cinemas, at film festivals, used by social workers, teachers, educational psychologists, local authorities, police and prison teams, been nominated for a Learning on Screen award and from October 2023 was be embedded on a core module ‘Introduction to childhood studies and child psychology’ on the Open University on their ‘Childhood and Youth Studies’ and ‘Education Studies (Primary)’ diplomas and undergraduate degrees. It will run for eight years and the Open University expects up to 45,000 students to undertake these courses over that time frame.
“Excluded’ shows young people will achieve much more when we can remove barriers to their success and showcase those achievements better than any adults can.”
To continue the conversation around the issues covered in ‘Excluded’, on the launch day, we also held a live-streamed panel discussion.
The panel was chaired by youth activist Betty Mayo, an alumnus of social justice charity the Advocacy Academy, who features in our documentary and helped shape it.
Among the panelists was Natalia Morgan, from the No Lost Causes campaign group which also forms a key part of our film. We were also joined by Glasgow City Council’s education director Maureen McKenna, who set up the ‘Nurture programme’ credited with drastically reducing school exclusions; and Dr Halima Begum, who at the time was director of race equality research charity the Runnymede Trust.
