An Interview with
Dr. Angie Wigford
Our Covid-19 Silver Linings Creative Writing Panel of Judges. From left, Louise Short, Andrew Wigford and Dr. Angie Wigford
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r. Angie Wigford is the Educational Psychologist at Dover Court International School (DCIS) in Singapore. She is also the Lead Educational Psychologist for International Educational Psychology Services. Angie trained as a teacher and worked as a volunteer in rural Nigeria and Kenya. She then taught IB Science in international schools in Bogota, Colombia and Vienna, Austria. An enhanced understanding of individual needs caused Angie to re-train and she
worked as an Educational Psychologist in South Wales, UK for 7 years; she now works exclusively with international schools. Angie is passionate about promoting emotional literacy, wellbeing and inclusion in the international schools sector. To this end she conducts research, provides training, develops materials and gives talks at conferences. Angie works strategically with schools to develop their capacity to promote mental health throughout their community.
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What was the thinking behind the FOBISIA Covid-19 Silver Linings Creative Writing Competition? At the start of the global spread of the virus and then being in quarantine myself in March I started to become aware of the level of trauma that many children and their parents/ carers were going through. I was writing a daily email to our staff in which I was trying to maintain/build resilience and keep things positive as much as possible. The email was well-received and I found it personally helpful to look for jokes and positive stories to put in it. The idea of the competition came to me as a