SKP News

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