Cambridge Care Collective

We meet Mondays at noon (GMT/BST), except on bank holidays. To join our zoom meetings, email helen.cook@gmail.com.

Accessibility

You are free to join with your camera on or not, and to use voice or the chat. Feel free to join the meeting even if you need to stay horizontal and/or in the dark during it. We meet on a platform that provides real time closed captioning.

Confidentiality and Kindness

At the beginning of the meeting, everyone will agree to the meeting rules of confidentiality and kindness. This is a place where people can share personal and painful information, and this agreement helps keep each other safe.

• Anything shared should not be repeated to anyone, not even the person who said it, unless they give permission. It’s easy to give permission, for example “you can ask me about this afterwards”. If you run into people you recognise from the group in the wider world, use appropriate discretion because they may not be out about their disability in public.
• Kindness is twofold, first it encompasses the intention to treat others with kindness, to not speak hatred or bigotry against individuals or groups. Secondly, we acknowledge that everyone will not always have perfect speech, especially as we start to untangle our own internalised ableism, so we agree to be patient and forgiving with each other even then.

Listening activities

The bulk of our meeting is an exercise in which each attendee has a fixed amount of time to speak without interruption. There are a few guidelines that we follow in this section.

• We listen without judgement to each other, and let each other tell their stories without interruption.
• Emotional release like laughing, crying, sweating, trembling, expressing indignation, yawning, and other things, is welcome and encouraged.
• As listeners, we direct 100% of our care and attention on the person speaking, and do not interrupt them to talk about our own thoughts.
• When someone is done speaking, we can thank them, and offer support like “I’m sorry that sounds really hard” or “that’s a lot to have going on right now”, a smile, a reaction emoji, but avoid giving advice. We want people to know they’re heard, and we don’t need to jump into fixing what we see as their problems.
• In general we encourage people to take the whole of their allotted time, even if they can’t think of what to say. The silence may feel uncomfortable for everyone, but sometimes allowing the space opens up new ideas.

We don’t use this time to entertain each other. It’s space that’s set aside for you to share where you’re at, and if that doesn’t come with words, it doesn’t need to. We are witnesses to each other’s lives (to the degree that we want to share), and the time is yours to receive care and attention. You don’t have to “earn it” with words, we can just sit with you in loving silence.

Advice

In the last section of the meeting, people who want to ask for advice can do so, and the group can answer in a more free form discussion. This is entirely optional, both asking for (and accepting) and giving advice. Topics can range from how to get the most out of doctors appointments, how to pace and manage energy levels, how to confront ableism at work, and much more.

Note: we cannot give medical advice.