SKP News

4 June 2025: Open Justice workshops and lecture at Green Templeton

Thanks to funding from the Sheila Kitzinger Programme, the Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network, met for a second full day workshop and public lecture on Wednesday 4 June 2025. The first workshop, also funded by the SKP, led to the creation of the Network in 2023. In the morning session of the latest workshop, court observers (members of the public, NGO researchers, academics, and journalists) shared their experiences, views, and needs.

Participants were in widespread agreement that there had been important developments since the last workshop, such as the Lady Chief Justice establishing a Transparency and Open Justice Board. Court observers continued to be concerned by recurring issues, however. These included problems with audibility and timely access to hearings and information. There were also concerns that there was a disparity of access between journalists and other members of the public performing legitimate observation roles, particularly in relation to access to court documents.

In the afternoon session, court observers came together with a range of policy and law makers to consider possible responses to the problems that had been identified. This was an opportunity to hear about the work already being done, as well as make suggestions for improvements.

The workshop was followed by a public lecture delivered by Mr Justice Nicklin: a judge of the High Court who chairs the Transparency and Open Justice Board. The lecture, ‘Open Justice – Fit for Purpose’, can be read on the judiciary website. This was followed by a Q&A session. The audience learned about the proposed introduction of new ‘open justice champions’: an HMCTS initiative that would provide point of contact to assist the resolution of open justice issues.

After the events, the legal commentator and journalist Joshua Rozenberg invited members of the network to offer their responses to the proposals which can be read on his Substack newsletter/blog. The lecture was also reported by the Law Society Gazette at this link.

A fuller report of the workshop is forthcoming and will be published on the Network’s website.

31 May 2024: Antonia Mackay’s Three M’others concludes its final show

On Friday 31 May, the Sheila Kitzinger Programme-funded play, Three M’others showed its last performance at the North Wall Arts Centre, Summertown. Offering a glimpse into the real, lived experiences of women as they embarked on their own maternal journeys in the face of a global pandemic, Three M’others concluded its two-day run at the theatre to a packed auditorium.

Written by Dr Antonia Mackay as part of her research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent digitisation of maternal healthcare, the play brought to life pilot data which concluded that the measures introduced during two UK lockdowns negatively impacted women’s mental health.

Following the final performance on Friday, Dr Mackay hosted a Q&A panel featuring experts from medicine, midwifery, health visiting, nursery nursing, psychiatry and Sociology who offered to further contextualise the devastating effects COVID-19 had on women’s maternal healthcare.

The play and panel left a lasting impression on its audience, highlighting social, cultural and economic issues that have remained relatively invisible – until now. This play, it is hoped, offers the first step to achieving positive digital change for new mothers in a post-pandemic world.

4 April 2024: Project shortlisted for Vice-Chancellor’s Community Partnership Award

Shobhana Nagraj and colleagues have been shortlisted for the Vice-Chancellor’s Community Partnership Award 2024 for a project, ‘Tackling childhood malnutrition in Oxfordshire: From Grassroots to Policy Actions’ which grew out of a Sheila Kitzinger Programme-funded event in 2021, addressing childhood malnutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic. More information

3 April 2024: Extraordinary Meeting

On 20 March 2024 the Sheila Kitzinger Programme Steering Group met with expert advisors, friends of the programme, and postgraduate students for a morning at Green Templeton College.
The aim of the meeting was to review the programme’s activities and achievements since its inception in 2015, and to generate and gather ideas and advice for the future. The meeting heard about the programme’s origins in the academic and activist careers of Sheila and Uwe Kitzinger, especially their passionate commitment to changing the world for the better, their open-mindedness to new ideas and new causes, and their willingness to improvise and make outsized use of limited resources. The resulting programme has supported work on a wide range of projects which have made positive – and sometimes dramatic – interventions into complex medical and social issues affecting the most vulnerable and marginalized, from childhood malnutrition in Oxfordshire to national midwifery education to legal decision-making for patients in prolonged disorders of consciousness. The programme’s work also aligns closely with the ethos and transdisciplinary research interests of Green Templeton College.

The Steering Group and its chair, Aileen Clarke, are keen to hear further feedback on the programme and ideas for how it can best continue its successes in the future. If you have comments, please write to Ruth Scobie.

30 March 2024: Tickets now on sale for Antonia Mackay’s Three M’Others

Tickets are now available for performances of the Sheila Kitzinger Programme-funded play Three M’Others at the North Wall Theatre on 30 and 31 May. Written by academic Antonia Mackay, as part of her research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on new mothers, and performed by Oxford Brookes University Drama students, this compassionate, funny and moving play affords a glimpse into the real, lived experiences of women as they embarked on their maternal journeys in the face of a global pandemic. A panel Q&A will follow the performance on 31 May. Buy tickets

16 May 2023: Uwe Kitzinger (1928-2023)

It is with sadness that we report the death of Sheila’s husband Uwe Kitzinger. Uwe was tremendously generous in setting up and supporting the Sheila Kitzinger Programme and was steadfast in honouring the life and work of his late wife. Read more about Uwe