Rose Hall is a writer and editor at Usborne Publishing.
Before the course, Rose was committed to doing the work on inclusion and was really interested in issues of discrimination and equality at a political level, but was aware she hadn’t focussed on how to put this into practice in her writing of children’s books. She explains “I think I didn’t realise to what extent it was all active, live, and relevant - in so many ways.”
Through taking part in the inclusion programme Rose found she gained confidence and ideas about how to approach character development, writing briefs, and commenting constructively on illustrator roughs and colours. After completing the programme, she says, “I feel much more confident and even more committed to inclusivity in children’s books. Where I perhaps had a hunch or a gut instinct about something not being right, I have the tools to articulate why that is, and to propose solutions. There are specific changes I am implementing in a current book I’m working on that are a direct outcome of the content of this course. I’m taking a new approach to character development to ensure they are more authentic.”
Find out more about Foundations for Inclusion