Inspiration from ACE Interrupters in Great Britain
Jain Boon – creative activist Freelance theatre director, Wales There is something quietly prophetic about Jain Boon. She has spent her 35-year career working as a theatre director with young people, often taking her company of actors on a profound journey of the soul. The themes that preoccupy her are invariably trauma-related, but her creative practice is based on collaboration, choice and creating a safe space for her young actors to work in. Ultimately, Jain’s message is one of hope and resilience. She is also an effective communicator, compelled to educate actors and audiences alike about the effects of trauma on the body and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It wasn’t always that way. “As a child, I had no voice,” Jain says. “My parents were busy running their guesthouse, first in Scarborough and then in Blackpool. I felt unloved and invisible.” She realises now that she spent her childhood in a permanent state of fear. “School was a refuge, not a place to learn in,” she says. “My brain was offline.” For years afterwards, she was estranged from her parents, although she was eventually reconciled with her mother. “Now I know I was loved, but they couldn’t express it.” These formative influences left their mark. “Ensuring young “… Ensuring young people got a people got a voice was very important to me,” she explains. voice was very important to me …” At school, she developed a love of drama thanks to her English teacher. “She just let people play in the classroom and used to get us up acting in front of the class.” Stints in youth theatre eventually led her to drama school. As a freelance director, she wears many hats, tutoring at the Welsh College of Music and Drama and at a summer school for young people in the care system. She is also responsible for pastoral care at RawFfest, a Welsh festival of arts for young people. On top of that, she is a trainer for the Arts Council of Wales and for the ACE Support Hub, which is funded by the Welsh Government.v Through Jain’s work in schools and youth theatre, she has become a de facto ACE ambassador for young people. Being kind to others has always been a personal credo. Sitting in the café of the Welsh College of Music and Drama, Jain recalls how her mother was also kind and joyful, despite being a very anxious person. In 2015, Jain had a lightbulb moment that illuminated her past as well as her preoccupation with hard-hitting theatre, including years spent looking at domestic abuse. “Suddenly I realised all the work I was doing was trauma-related and I was relating it to my own life as well.” The catalyst for this moment was her research into ACEs while applying for a US fellowship based around working creatively with trauma. She didn’t get the fellowship, but everything she learnt as she filled in her application form set her off on a new path.
The ACE Support Hub is a Welsh Government-funded initiative to share knowledge and transform systems with the goal of creating an ACE-aware and trauma-informed nation.
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