Dionne Reid, founder of KiD iN YOU, is encouraging adults to tap into their inner child and experience play again. Her business is all about creating an outlet for joy that fits naturally into people’s busy adult lives, whether that’s in the form of a corporate workshop, a community event, or an online session.
“Now more than ever, it’s important to tap into things that are based on the most authentic form of you. Play allows you to access healing, I think that play is the best form of medicine.”
The Origin Story - Tackling Isolation with Play
The pandemic was a difficult time for many of us, not least the creative industry. Dionne is a music artist, and like many creatives found herself confronted with a lot of uncertainty when lockdown was announced.
There was a community around her that she saw struggling with isolation and worry about the future.
Seeing a huge need for human connection, Dionne started running online game shows as a simple way to bring people together, and provide that creative outlet that was lacking.
Without knowing it at the time, KiD iN YOU was born.
“People started to tune in and then I would get these messages afterwards saying, ‘you don’t know how much I needed to do that, it’s just made me feel a little bit like I’m a part of something.’
“After seeing the impacts, I just had to lean into that more.”
It grew organically from there, first with the creative industry, then NHS workers and others feeling the effects of isolation, until Dionne started getting requests through word of mouth for corporate engagement sessions.
How it Works
As the business has grown, Dionne has developed various packages tailored to a range of settings in order to meet the different needs of those she works with. Currently there are two main arms: corporate and community.
The corporate side of the business is designed to promote team cohesion, wellbeing, and collaboration within the workplace. Through bringing an element of play to corporate workshops, Dionne has found that interactions become much more authentic and meaningful between colleagues, and teams often leave the sessions feeling energised and connected.
The community side of the business allows anyone to engage in sessions, and ranges from game shows to Sunday dinners.
No matter the format, play is at the heart of every activity run by KiD iN YOU.
“It’s been crazy, crazy but in the most beautiful organic way.”
Dionne's Hatch Journey
Dionne describes her business as being very much ‘reverse engineered’. First came the service she was providing, and then afterwards it was a case of embedding structure and mechanisms to help it run smoothly and then grow.
“It started without me. I would say it just had a life of its own.”
She joined a Hatch Incubator programme to try and find some of that structure and get some grounding in the essential elements of running and growing an impact business sustainably.
Not really knowing what to expect going into a Hatch programme, Dionne says that she found it invaluable finding a community to support her, and to believe in her vision.
“People romanticise being a business owner, but when you are so invested in the impact and the outcome, it gets very personal and vulnerable and raw. And if you don’t have the right people around in that initial stage, you can crumble and you can run.”
A big part of the experience for Dionne was not only learning more about the business, but learning more about herself as well: specifically what sort of a learner she is, and how being neurodiverse impacts this learning.
“I was directly confronted with things and thought processes that I had never explored before. And thankfully the Hatch experience was such a safe space to discover it and to talk to people about it.
“There was such a beautiful transparency that I was able to build up with the Hatch team that allowed me to get the best support for my neurodiverse needs. That’s not something I’ve ever been able to do before.”
“There’s not that many spaces that allow that authentic journey to happen.”
Watch this Space
From a business that came into being by accident, KiD iN YOU is going from strength to strength, with new partnerships, new events, and new products on the horizon.
Through the Hatch Fund Dionne successfully applied for an investment grant into her business and has been able to get some support around certain areas of the business, freeing up more time to lean into her superpower and focus on the creative elements.
There are events running through to December this year at Rich Mix, a YouTube channel that’s launched, and even more to come.
In the words of Dionne: “Watch this space and welcome to the playground.”
