🎄🎧 A bit of a Christmas cracker (with maverick music included)

A conversation full of humanity.

In this Wild Card – Whose Shoes episode, Gill Phillips chats with Maff Potts, founder of the Camarados movement and creator of Public Living Rooms - simple, welcoming spaces where people can put their feet up, enjoy no-agenda company, and look out for each other.

No labels. No tick boxes. No “fixing”. Just people.

Maff brings stories (and piano!) from his journey: from working in homelessness, to advising government, and very intentionally returning to grassroots connection, where real change happens. Together we explore why kindness, laughter, and belonging aren’t “nice extras” - they’re essential.

🍋💡🍋 Lemon lightbulbs

🍋 “Where would you put the KPI for this?” The case for humanity, music and improvisation over metrics.

🍋 Public Living Rooms = connection + purpose (without needing a “service” or a diagnosis).

🍋 Permission to be a bit rubbish - and why failure/iteration can be a superpower (England vs Silicon Valley!).

🍋 A powerful example of language changing everything: when “Put your feet up” became “It’s time to talk #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek”… footfall dropped from 1000 people to 40.

🍋 The “how” matters: how we welcome, speak, listen, and create environments that help people feel human.

If you’ve ever felt weary of spreadsheets, assessments, and VIP top tables … this episode is for you. #NoHierarchyJustPeople

🫖 Want to start a Public Living Room? Find out more at camarados.org (and you might just receive a beautiful permission-giving box to get you going). #JFDI

Happy Christmas everyone!

Links:

Home - Camerados

“It takes a village”

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If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
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I tweet as @WhoseShoes and @WildCardWS and am on Instagram as @WildCardWS.

Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

Amelia Wilkinson: Living (and parenting) with Type 1 diabetes - beyond the data

Published on 14 November (World Diabetes Day), this conversation lifts the lid on what most of us miss about Type 1 diabetes - the mental load, the masking, and the trauma that doesn’t show up on a glucose graph.

Podcast host Gill Phillips talks with Amelia Wilkinson, diagnosed at 10 and now a mum, about growing up through school exclusions and assumptions.

Topics include why behaviour is communication, navigating a high-risk pregnancy, and the power - and limits - of technology.

Amelia calls for two big shifts: train the adults around children with Type 1 (teachers, carers, clinicians) to spot the emotional toll

AND separate Type 1 and Type 2 awareness, so misconceptions stop harming care.

🍋💡🍋 Lemon lightbulbs

🍋 Type 1 ≠ Type 2: why the confusion hurts

🍋 Grief for a ‘former self’ and the hidden mental health toll

🍋 School stories: control, freedom-seeking, and being labelled ‘naughty’

🍋 Pregnancy with Type 1: what it really took for Amelia to have her daughter

🍋 Masking, peer support, and life beyond the data

🍋 Don’t make assumptions – ask how the person is doing, including mental health

🍋 Train the grown-ups!

🍋 Separate the awareness days!

If you work with children and families- or love someone with Type 1 - this one’s for you.

Links

Type 1 Diabetes: The Comic Book Stories (courtesy of FAB Fab NHS Stuff)

World Diabetes Day

Overview of Whose Shoes

Wild Card - Whose Shoes podcast with Aurora Thompson

💛 #WorldDiabetesDay #Type1Diabetes #NoHierarchyJustPeople #WhoseShoes #WildCard

We LOVE it when you leave a review!
If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

I tweet as @WhoseShoes and @WildCardWS and am on Instagram as @WildCardWS.

Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

In this powerful episode of Wild Card -Whose Shoes?, Gill Phillips talks with Aurora Thompson - a remarkable young woman whose story of trauma, survival, and resilience will stop you in your tracks.

Aurora shares her lived experience of abuse,, bullying, mental health crises, and being sectioned as a teenager.

She talks about her diagnosis with autism and what difference it has made.

But at the heart of her journey is a message of hope: a force she breaks down into four vital elements — connection, love, opportunity, and purpose.

🍋 All behaviour is communication - don’t judge, listen.

🍋 How is it okay to restrain but not hug?

🍋 The cost (emotional and financial) of crisis care versus the value of early intervention

🍋 The role of “golden people” — those rare professionals who bring honesty, humour, and humanity

🍋 From despair to purpose: how a photo of a therapy dog sparked hope, and how participation work with Barnardo’s became a lifeline

🍋 “Aim for the stars and you might just land near the moon” - Aurora’s call to dream big.

We also explore diagnostic overshadowing, the importance of holistic care, and why systems must stop lazily labelling children as “complex” and start seeing them as whole people.

Aurora is now studying philosophy, working with young people, and speaking out with passion and clarity to help change the system for those who come after her. Her voice is brave, authentic, and unforgettable.

🎧 Listen in for a story that is painful, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful - and perhaps take away your own lemon lightbulb or two. 🍋💡🍋

We LOVE it when you leave a review!
If you enjoy my podcast and find these conversations useful
please share your thoughts by leaving a review (Spotify or Apple are easiest to leave a review - navigate via 3 dots) and comment on your favourite episodes.

I tweet as @WhoseShoes and @WildCardWS and am on Instagram as @WildCardWS.

Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.