EDUCATION
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
CREATIVE THERAPY AND BUTTERFLY BEGINNINGS
AN insideKENT EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS DELAHUNT
THOMAS DELAHUNT IS A NURSE, POET, ARTIST AND SENIOR LECTURER WALKING THE EDGES WHERE TRAUMA MEETS CREATIVITY, AND WHERE NEURODIVERSITY BLOOMS INTO NEW WAYS OF KNOWING. HIS WORK IS BORN FROM LIVED EXPERIENCE AND SOFTENED BY THE SCARS HE CARRIES, EACH ONE A LINE IN A LONGER POEM. THROUGH HIS PHD AND PRACTICE, HE IS WEAVING TOGETHER SPACES OF TENDERNESS, SAFETY AND VISIBILITY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN UNSEEN FOR TOO LONG. HIS ART GROWS FROM THE SOIL OF CARE, WHERE BUTTERFLIES RISE AND HIDDEN STORIES FINALLY FIND VOICE.
Thomas, please tell us about your professional journey to date. This journey began in childhood. I grew up with hidden challenges and a complex relationship with learning. From failing the 11-plus to navigating GCSEs, BTECs, A-Levels and eventually earning an HND, my path has never been linear. Each stage required adaptation and resilience, eventually leading to a degree, a master’ s( distinction), postgraduate certificates and now a PhD. I’ ve travelled every rung of the educational ladder, but always as someone slightly out of step; someone searching for meaning in the margins.
Nursing became my foundation. In hospitals, I witnessed the complexity of human life: grief, hope, love, loss. But over time, my hands, which once bandaged wounds, began to itch for a paintbrush, for a pen. I followed that instinct into education and poetry, eventually becoming a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University. There, I’ ve sewn poetry into the curriculum, rooted learning in the forest floor and watched students unfurl like petals under the sun of inclusive pedagogy.
You’ re currently studying for a PhD exploring the value of creative therapy. What inspired this step? Healing isn’ t linear, it curls, dances and resists structure. I stepped into this PhD because I needed a space wide enough for absurdism, messy hope and poetic truth. Creative therapy offers a language without words, a way to reach the places traditional research cannot go. My PhD doesn’ t aim to solve trauma, but to listen to it, to find its rhythms and render them visible as art. I believe the poetic can be a method, not just a metaphor.
You are dedicated to creating safe spaces, particularly for those with hidden disabilities. What sparked your desire to amplify these voices? Because I, too, have been hidden and disabled. I know what it feels like to shrink in bright rooms, to carry pain without a name. My desire comes from that silence – the kind that presses on the chest. I want to create spaces where the unspeakable can be sung, where people aren’ t asked to mask but are invited to shine. We are not problems to be fixed. We are poems in progress.
As a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, do you have a specific approach to inclusive learning? Has this influenced your personal creativity? My teaching begins with an open circle and a question: who are you becoming? I build classrooms that honour uncertainty, that privilege kindness, and that see vulnerability as a strength. We learn beside trees, in notebooks and sometimes in silence. One module close to my heart is Nursing and Social Justice, where students engage with protected characteristics through the arts. Here, creative expression becomes formal assessment – poetry, painting and performance are used as legitimate ways of knowing and being. This approach has reshaped me. My creativity is now rooted in co-creation, in being brave enough to not always know the answer.
Tell us about The Enchanted Garden and The Butterfly Farmer initiative. How did this incredible project first begin? It began as a whisper of a poem – The Butterfly Farmer. A story about care, fragility and hope. That whisper caught the wind and became a movement. Now, schools across Kent are growing real butterfly gardens, painting wings and reading poems with soil on their hands. Alongside Donna’ s team, we’ re co-creating The Enchanted Garden, a place where children, carers and butterflies meet. It’ s part sanctuary, part learning space and all heart. It shows what happens when poetry leaves the page and becomes habitat. The Enchanted Garden( enchantedgardenskent. co. uk) welcomed its first neurodiverse primary cohorts at the end of the last term and bookings are now open for schools for the 2025 / 2026 academic year.
What’ s next? How can our readers get involved? The butterflies are only just beginning. We’ re expanding our outreach, dreaming up exhibitions and inviting more co-creators into the fold. If you’ re an artist, a teacher, a dreamer, or someone who simply believes in tenderness – come join us. Follow the journey on Substack or Kickstarter. The work grows not in isolation, but in shared breath. This is a chorus. And every voice matters.
kickstarter. com / projects / tcl / the-butterflyfarmer-the-next-adventure substack. com /@ thomasdelahunt
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