Workshop with
Jen Grace
Title: The Rarely Spoken-About Addiction: Dependency on Services (Especially within Mental Health & A&E)
Facilitator: Jen Grace, Founder of Reflective Gap
Overview: Join Jen Grace, the founder of Reflective Gap, for a powerful and transformative workshop. Jen will share her personal journey from living in the shadow of service dependency to founding Reflective Gap, a platform for lived experience speakers.
Description: In this workshop, Jen will take you through her experiences of growing identification as "the patient," which led her down a path of manipulation and self-destruction. She will discuss how she began to understand the roots of her dependency and what she needed to change to live as a person she likes and respects.
This workshop is not just about Jen's story; it's an opportunity to explore why so many people develop a deep co-dependency on systems meant to support them and what draws us into that cycle. Most importantly, we will explore how to break free from this dependency with honesty, humor, self-awareness, and purpose.
Objectives:
• Understand the often-unspoken addiction to service dependency.
• Unpack the reasons behind the development of co-dependency on support systems.
• Learn strategies to break free from this cycle with honesty, humor, self-awareness, and purpose.
Interactive Elements:
• Group Discussions: Participants will engage in small group discussions to share their own experiences and insights on service dependency.
• Role-Playing Exercises: Through role-playing scenarios, participants will explore different perspectives and practice strategies for breaking free from dependency.
• Reflective Journaling: Attendees will be encouraged to keep a reflective journal throughout the workshop to document their thoughts, feelings, and progress.
• Q&A Session: An open Q&A session with Jen Grace, where participants can ask questions and seek advice on their personal journeys.
Target Audience: Anyone interested in understanding service dependency, including individuals with lived experiences, mental health professionals, and those working in A&E,probation,HMS staff and prisoners.
Call to Action: If you want to understand this often-unspoken addiction and join a conversation that empowers real change, reach out. We’d love to have you with us.
Workshop with Markus Bauer
“Through Hell and into the Light”
A Real Story of Living with and Overcoming OCD Led by Markus Bauer
Raw honesty. Deep resilience. A lived experience of transformation.
This 3-hour workshop is a heartfelt journey through mental illness, recovery, and hope. Markus Bauer shares his lived experience with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, depression, alcohol misuse, and suicidal ideation not as a cautionary tale, but as a beacon for others navigating similar darkness.
Core Themes:
- The lived reality of OCD: its earliest grip and everyday struggles
- Depression, isolation, and the coping mechanisms that nearly broke him
- Seeking help, surviving relapse, and learning what recovery truly demands
- The liberating role of spirituality in healing
- Reframing healing as nonlinear, deeply human, and always possible
Why Attend?
- Gain insight into the emotional landscape behind the diagnosis
- Hear a story that doesn’t flinch but also doesn’t give up
- Ask questions, reflect, and feel seen in your own experiences
- Leave with hope, understanding, and a renewed sense of possibility
This workshop is an invitation to anyone feeling alone in their struggles, as well as professionals seeking deeper understanding. Markus doesn’t just share his story he lights a path.
Workshop with Lukas Zapolnik
Breaking the Silence, Building Understanding
Facilitated by Lukas Zapolnik
What happens when the systems meant to protect you do the opposite?
At age 17, Lukas faced a devastating choice: stay in an abusive home where survival was uncertain, or brave the unknown alone. His journey spiraled into homelessness, abandonment by services, and years of brutal labor yet through every hardship, Lukas became a builder of insight, resilience, and radical compassion.
Core Themes
- Trauma through a survivor’s lens: Lukas brings raw, firsthand knowledge of childhood abuse, homelessness, mental health diagnosis, systemic neglect, and labor exploitation.
- Recovery and resistance: His story is woven with therapeutic models like CBT, DBT, WRAP, and peer support. These aren’t abstract tools..they’re lived lifelines.
- Systemic critique and hope: Lukas exposes the cracks in mental health and social service systems, while shining light on what's possible when care evolves.
- Practical advocacy: His workshop equips leaders, organisations, and frontline workers to transition from disciplinary models to trauma-informed, strengths-based care.
What Makes This Workshop Different?
Lukas doesn’t offer theorie…is he offers testimony. From walking the highway during a thunderstorm to navigating psychiatric systems with dignity stripped away, every piece of this workshop breathes lived experience. It's a call to listen better, lead differently, and build spaces where no one is left behind.
Who Should Attend?
- Healthcare professionals seeking better trauma-informed practices
- Educators rethinking emotional safety in schools
- Leaders building inclusive, reflective team cultures
- Policy advocates and social workers ready to challenge status quo
Lukas’s journey is brutal, beautiful, and filled with lessons that institutions can’t afford to ignore.
