Frequently asked questions

If you have an active licence you can log into the Sandstories portal to access our resource hub where you will be able to view articles, watch videos and download documents for free.

You can access the 50 minute film via the portal dashboard up to 72 hours before the workshop date and time, and up until midnight the same day.

No attempt should be made to copy, download, or transfer the film onto any device, platform, or storage system. This is crucial to prevent breach of copyright and to protect the integrity of this unique resource.

When purchasing a Sandstories licence, the training commissioner will need to sign an agreement on behalf of their organisation, which sets out the terms and conditions of the licence.

This can be found at the bottom of the website home page and also here: Licence Agreement

From the portal you will be able to:

• View your licence term and expiry date
• View your agency and facilitator details
• View past and future workshop details
• Set-up new workshop sessions
• Access the Sandstories film (72 hours before the workshop, so that you can have a practice if you want to, to make sure your technology is suitable)
• Access workshop resources
• Access Sandstories downloads, recommendations, and guides
• ‘Favourite’ certain resources which you can access from your dashboard
• Access technical advice and urgent support

The portal contains all the guidance, resources, and background research to support the delivery of Sandstories workshops.

It’s necessary to purchase a licence in order to respect the copyright and maintain the integrity of the Sandstories workshop model.

If you have chosen not to renew your licence, your access to the portal and the Sandstories resources will come to an end, at the end of your licence period.

You can view your licence type and expiry date in the top right corner of the portal dashboard.

If you are on a 6 month licence you will receive a reminder notification by email 2 months before your licence is due to expire or 3 months before if you are on a 12 month licence.

Licences are not available to individuals.

This is because a key element of Sandstories training is that it should be experienced in a group setting and led by an accredited facilitator.

A MAT could purchase a licence to be used across its ‘family’ of schools, rather than each school needing to purchase its own licence. The cost of a whole MAT licence will reflect the size of the MAT.

Sandstories is mindful of the tight financial constraints on the public and voluntary sectors. This is reflected in the pricing, which has been set at an introductory level for early adopters of this new iteration of Sandstories. More information is available at Pricing

To enquire about a licence and the price for your organisation, please fill out the contact form.

If a multi-agency partnership (e.g. Children’s Safeguarding Partnership) purchases a licence, this can only be used for partnership training events. Individual members of the multi-agency partnership will need to purchase their own licence if they want access to Sandstories workshops specifically for their own agency.

For more information or direct discussion about training requirements and costs, please don’t hesitate to contact us via our contact form.

You are invited to contact Sue at Sandstories to discuss an arrangement for a face-to-face meeting and an opportunity to preview the film and the additional workshop materials, prior to purchasing a licence.

The principle behind having a minimum of two facilitators for each licence, is to create resilience and capacity within an organisation/agency, to have access to an accredited facilitator for all booked workshops.

Annual leave, sickness absence or a facilitator leaving the organisation could disrupt the training calendar, if there was only a single local person accredited to deliver the Sandstories workshop.

Facilitators will need to be nominated by the training commissioner who is purchasing a licence to provide Sandstories workshops for your workforce.

Below is some guidance about what kind of experience and background would suggest someone is well equipped to become a facilitator.

Facilitators of the Sandstories workshops need to have a naturally sensitive and empathic style, which enables them to “hold” the group of participants and be very observant of both individual and collective responses to the content of the training.

The following characteristics would suggest somebody is well placed to be a Sandstories facilitator. This isn’t a checklist which needs every box to be ticked, but it offers guidance for identifying potential facilitators or helping individuals decide whether this might be something for them:

• A strong commitment to child centred practice
• Keen to keep developing own professional interests and to ‘go the extra mile’ in their professional development
• Willingness to listen thoughtfully, whilst enabling and guiding reflective conversation
• An ability to step away from simply instilling or teaching compliance with policies and procedures, in preference for encouraging creative and courageous practice
• Direct experience of delivering services on the front line, although it does not need to be current experience
• An understanding of group dynamics and with this, an ability to respond to participants’ behaviours and responses, to maintain a safe and non-judgemental atmosphere
• Experience of facilitating group supervision
• Insight into how local agencies and professional disciplines prioritise their work and their capacity to collaborate with others
• A strong commitment to promoting information and intelligence sharing, both within and between teams and agencies

The facilitators will have been accredited at a face-to-face training session. As soon as the licence for their organisation/agency is activated, the facilitators will have access to the portal and can begin to book Sandstories workshops for their workforce.

They will then be responsible for delivering the local Sandstories workshops, which they will book in liaison with their training co-ordinator.

The training will include a full preview of the Sandstories film and materials, alongside in-depth guidance from Sue on how to present the workshop in a way which will achieve the learning outcomes and support the participants. There will be whole group discussion and opportunity for individual reflection.

The agency commissioning the Sandstories workshop will identify and arrange a suitable local venue for the one-day facilitator training. This will be delivered by Sue Woolmore, face to face. If there are neighbouring agencies/authorities seeking facilitator training, it might be helpful to have a combined session.

The Sandstories facilitators will need to be nominated by the agency which is commissioning the workshop, through their purchase of a licence. It may be worth contacting your training team or co-ordinator to express your interest in being nominated.

With an active licence a facilitator or admin can arrange an unlimited number of workshops during your licence period.

Through your licence, you have unlimited access to the film and materials via this website’s portal. Once you have booked in your workshop you will get access to the film 72 hours before the workshop start time and up until midnight on the day of the workshop.

You can arrange an unlimited number of workshops during your licence period.

Access to the film and materials is only possible through this website’s portal.

Not only does this protect the integrity and copyright of the materials, but it also means that they can be updated when necessary.

You will need a strong and reliable Wi-Fi connection, a big screen and a laptop/device to connect the Sandstories film to the screen.

The resources portal of this website, which is password protected for licence holders, provides advice about how to access the film.

Guidance will also be given to facilitators at their accreditation training.

Between 8 – 20 is a suitable minimum and maximum number of participants.

Less than 8 will restrict the value of whole group discussion and more than 20 is too many to create a supportive and reflective space.

The workshop has been specifically designed for groups of up to 20 people.

It is definitely not suitable for individual online learning as the content is sensitive and can trigger strong feelings in participants. The workshop needs to be facilitated in a safe and dedicated space, away from interruptions and distractions.

• Go to you dashboard and scroll down to the workshop table.
• Find the workshop you want to change and select the ‘edit’ or ‘cancel’ buttons in the last column.

Editing a workshop:

• If you click ‘edit’ the workshop pop-up should display so you can edit the details.
• Once you have made the changes click the ‘submit’ button, then close the pop-up.
• The details you entered should have updated.

Cancelling a workshop:

• If you click ‘cancel’, a secondary button will display asking you to confirm that you want to cancel this workshop.
• Click ‘confirm’ to proceed with the cancellation.
• Refresh or reload your screen to check the workshop status has been changed to ‘cancelled’.

• Make sure you are logged into the Sandstories portal.
• Go to the resource page.
• Find the material you want to unfavourite.
• On the resource tile click the ‘Favourites’ button in the top right to unfavourite the item.
• In your dashboard click the ‘Favourites’ button in the dashboard menu to jump down to the favourites section to view your updated list of recourses.

• Make sure you are logged into the Sandstories portal.
• Go to the resource page.
• Find the material you want to favourite.
• On the resource tile click the ‘Add to favourites’ button in the top right.
• In your dashboard click the ‘Favourites’ button in the dashboard menu to jump down to the favourites section to view your favourited resources.

When logged into the Sandstories portal, you can “favourite” your preferred materials in our resource hub so that you can easily access these from your dashboard in future.

To do this click the ‘Add to favourites’ button on the relevant resource tile on the resource page.

Please contact hello@sandstories.co.uk explaining that you’ve lost access to the portal and provide:

• Your name
• Your contact number
• The name of the agency your licence is under

Please note it is be necessary to have a licence and access to the resource portal, to be able to arrange a workshop.

• On the portal dashboard, scroll down to the ‘Workshops’ block
• In the top right click the ‘Log new workshop’ button
• Fill out the form that pops up.
• Once you have submitted the details, close the pop-up and you should see the workshop details in your dashboard.
• If the new workshop doesn’t show up when you close the pop-up, try refreshing or reloading your screen.

Guidance on how to do this will be given at the face-to-face facilitator training and any further assistance or support can be given by contacting hello@sandstories.co.uk

Sandstories will handle the set-up of your account and you will receive an email with details on how to login and access the portal.

The email will almost certainly include “WordPress” in its title, so please keep an eye on your junk/ spam folder too.