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Level Two · Capstone · 24 rooms

The Phoenix Awakening

Eleven hours on an inpatient mental health ward, and the ninety days that were minuted at the end of them. Six people talk to you, and every one of them tells you the truth. That is the difficulty, and it does not get easier.

Where an organisation changes

The Phoenix Awakening is where an organisation changes rather than a person: the capstone, after Phoenix Rising, and one for the whole estate.

In every room, everything stops for twenty-six seconds and cannot be skipped. You may ask one question per room, and once you have asked it, it is spent.

An older Black woman and a younger man walk side by side along a field path at dawn, mist behind them.
The morning after
Three Black people laugh together around a long table after a shared meal, a kente cloth across the middle.
A table kept
An empty supervision room at dusk: two armchairs, a low table with a closed folder, a lamp lit by the window.
Supervision, at dusk
A Black woman walks up the path towards the open, lit doors of a red-brick hall at dusk.
Into the hall

Twenty-four rooms

Rooms I to XII · 21:04 to 07:00

One night

Eleven hours on an inpatient mental health ward, room by room, through to the board room at seven.

  1. 21:04Room IThe Handover Room
  2. 22:10Room IIThe Assessment Suite
  3. 23:35Room IIIThe Staff Room
  4. 00:50Room IVThe Seclusion Corridor
  5. 02:48Room VBay Four
  6. 03:40Room VIThe Medicines Room
  7. 04:15Room VIIThe Complaints Tray
  8. 05:00Room VIIIThe Day Room
  9. 05:30Room IXThe Estates Corridor
  10. 06:10Room XThe Office Before the Meeting
  11. 06:40Room XIThe Transfer Bay
  12. 07:00Room XIIThe Board Room

Rooms XIII to XXIV · the ninety days

The ninety days that followed

What was counted, drafted, minuted and decided, until the handover room again.

  1. 14:10Room XIIIThe Counting Room
  2. 11:20Room XIVThe Overflow Room
  3. 17:50Room XVThe Car Park
  4. 06:05Room XVIThe Ward at Six
  5. 16:30Room XVIIThe Education Centre
  6. 14:40Room XVIIIThe Anteroom
  7. 13:15Room XIXThe Staff Room, Again
  8. 17:05Room XXThe Room Booked as Training
  9. 11:40Room XXIThe Corridor Outside Pharmacy
  10. 16:40Room XXIIThe Communications Office
  11. 10:00Room XXIIIThe Room of Consequence
  12. 21:04Room XXIVThe Handover Room, Again

What a place holds

  • Twenty-four rooms, across one night and the ninety days that followed
  • One question per room: spent when you ask it, and you cannot ask again
  • In every room, everything stops for twenty-six seconds and cannot be skipped
  • About seven hours, measured from the material rather than estimated
  • Your own record to take away: every answer, every commitment with a name and a date against it, and every question you reached and did not answer

There is no score and no certificate, and that is the point. Level One marks your work and issues a document saying you understood. A programme about what institutions record, and what they leave out, does not end by handing you another record. Nothing you do here is checked, scored or reported, and nothing you write leaves your own device.

Before you enrol

This programme contains a restraint, a detention under the Mental Health Act, a funeral, and racism that is never once announced as racism. None of it is gratuitous.

It is written for people who work on wards, and some of the people who read it will have been the patient or the family instead. If any of it sits closer to your own life than to your work, that is worth knowing before you begin rather than after.

Take your place

£399

Per practitioner, at the founding price.

Founding price until 31 December 2026. From 1 January 2027 the standard price applies.

Enter The Phoenix Awakening: £399

Secure payment via Stripe. Your access details are sent on enrolment.