Hope is a powerful force that can help us navigate even the most difficult and trying times. It can be the difference between giving up and pushing through, between despair and resilience. For me, hope became especially important after the tragic suicide loss of my late husband, Glen. After his death, I felt like I was at the epicentre of the world’s largest earthquake. I was blinded by a fog that seemed like it would never lift, and I spent the first year stumbling around in a daze, trying to find my footing again. The wounds I felt, both physical and mental, were gaping and painful. But through it all, hope was my lifeline.

It’s ironic to think that Glen, who was always a beacon of hope to those around him, felt so hopeless in his last moments. But even in the midst of my grief, I knew that hope was still there, waiting for me to grab onto it. And grab onto it I did. Step by step, I stood back up. It wasn’t easy, and some days felt like a lifetime. But I was determined to build a life again, for myself and for my children. And when I was selected to walk with the baton of hope at the Manchester leg, I wanted nothing more than our eight year old daughter and my sister Charlotte, to walk beside me in honour of Glen.

From very early on in my grief, I searched for support, it wasn’t an easy task especially when I was so desperate and lost. I knew I couldn’t go with him because that would have destroyed my children and, thankfully I had an amazing support network. However, I did have PTSD and gaining therapy for this was not easy. I paid privately for most of my therapies because of wait times, the lack of local support and the fact that national charities weren’t easy to navigate. I couldn’t understand why nothing was instantly offered. I had come from a Health care background and to me the lack of support at the most horrific time of your life, just encouraged all the negative emotions you already felt. That feeling of shame and the stigma is very real and you feel abandoned, so the lack of support through the complex grief cycle of suicide made no sense at all to me.

I channelled my grief via blogging and gained a community of people who have lost people to suicide, in this I found hope. I now advocate on this subject. I said from very early on I wanted to utilise my grief to positively impact others and always realised that although there was support out there, the missing link was immediate support by means of a referral, helping people affected by suicide to navigate their journey and give them hope. Nobody seemed to work together and it was all self-lead, whilst people were left in unbearable emotional pain.

“Their ethos of hope and collaboration resonated with me and my own feelings of where the system had failed me.”

I followed the Baton of Hope from starting my new job as a Suicide Prevention & Bereavement Coordinator on a new project called Solace at Empowerment Charity in Blackpool.  With a specially designed baton leading the way across UK towns and cities, this suicide awareness and prevention initiative is special. It is set to be the largest of its kind, with the aim of starting important conversations and prompting necessary actions. Their ethos of hope and collaboration resonated with me and my own feelings of where the system had failed me. The Baton of Hope is a symbol of the power of hope, passed from person to person as a reminder that we are not alone. This initiative is bringing attention to the issue of suicide in an unprecedented manner, and will help to reduce the stigma surrounding it. It encourages people to ask questions, listen, and direct individuals to appropriate help, Suicide is everyone’s concern and not one of us is exempt from suicide.

“I have learnt to let the wave wash over me, not fight it and stand back up tall.”

Of course, my journey of hope hasn’t always been easy and not every day is the same, the waves of grief can still be very raw especially when triggered. However, I have learnt to let the wave wash over me, not fight it and stand back up tall. I always look for that little beam of light cracking through the clouds and, I can’t wait to walk with the Baton alongside my eight-year-old daughter for her daddy. Installing hope and that it’s ok to have honest conversations to our future generations is key in change.

Hope to me is not just a four-letter word, it is a lifeline to society and in difficult times, it is more important than ever that we come together, support one another, and pass on hope. I truly believe if we can work together we can save lives.

About the Author: 

Sam Southern is a Lead Suicide Prevention and Bereavement Coordinator at Empowerment Charity in Blackpool. Prior to this, she specialised in Gastroenterology as a healthcare professional in the NHS. In addition to her work, Samantha runs a thriving local events business. As a dedicated mother of five, Sam has faced adversity, including the tragic loss of her husband to suicide in June 2020. This experience has driven her passion and commitment to raise awareness and offer hope to those who may be struggling. Samantha is not only a dedicated professional, but she also enjoys spending time with her family, blogging, and promoting mindfulness. She enjoys walking and believes in the benefits of staying active. Samantha’s personal interests complement her professional work and help her to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Follow Sam on Twitter and Instagram.

The Spokesperson Network & Baton of Hope

Anna Wardley, Luna Foundation will be walking with the Baton of Hope in Milton Keynes on Tuesday 4 July 2023.

Alan Stuart, Calzy Foundation will be walking with the Baton of Hope in London on Thursday 6 July 2023.

The post The Baton of Hope – passed from person to person as a reminder that we are not alone. appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

Today is World Bipolar Day, whilst a great way to raise awareness and challenge stigma, every day is an awareness day when you are living with bipolar disorder, whether you are manic or going through a depressive episode, or even experiencing a period of ‘stability’ however subjective that may be. 

Whilst bipolar is a relatively common mood disorder that affects around 1 in every 100 people (NHS, 2023), on average it can take 10 years for a diagnosis. It can be an incredibly scary time, not understanding what is going on in your head, thinking you are going crazy, being gaslighted by professionals, or even gaslighting yourself. 

For me, it was the constant cycle of trips to the GP when I was suicidal. I did all the things I was told I needed to do; counselling, swimming, taking a hot bath. I tried various different antidepressants which were meant to help, yet they only made my symptoms worse. Four years ago, after a particularly heavy breakdown, I ended up going private, and finally received an official diagnosis of bipolar disorder. 

It was a long time coming, over 15 years in fact, and it was life changing. 

At present there is a growing conversation in relation to psychiatric disorders, the biomedical model of mental health and the language used in these fields. As someone who spent many years overcoming childhood trauma, I understand and welcome the need for conversations around these topics. However, from a personal perspective I also cannot underestimate the positive impact that being diagnosed with bipolar disorder has had on my own mental health journey. 

As bipolar is a mood disorder, monitoring my moods has been a vital way to understand any themes, triggers and when I need to start putting things in place to support an episode. I keep a calendar on my fridge and every morning put a sticker that reflects my mood(s) that day. 

Bipolar certainly affects most, if not all aspects of an individual’s life. However, this doesn’t mean that you are defined by this disorder. For example, rather than using the term “I am bipolar”, I use the term “I have bipolar”. Such a slight change in terminology made such a big difference in my relationship with this mental health issue. It’s a part of me for sure but it does not define who I am.

Being aware of the terminology in relation to bipolar would have also really helped me in my struggle to gain relevant support. When I first went to the GP about having bipolar, I used the expression “One day I’m up, the next I’m down”. The GP instantly disregarded this statement and said “bipolar doesn’t work that way”. Which I later found out not to be true, for example, people can have mixed episodes where they experience both hypomania/mania and depressive symptoms at the same time or quickly one after the other. If I had an understanding of the correct terminology used in bipolar discourse, I might not have waited 15 years for a diagnosis.

When I was eventually diagnosed, I was told I would be referred to a group intervention for those living with bipolar. However, access to both child and adult mental health services are affected by long waiting lists which heavily impact recovery. 

I was on the waiting list for two and a half years. 

I was dubious to go at first given I had waited so long, but with some encouragement, I took the first step. One thing I underestimated was the impact of my fellow peers who were with me on the course. Having a space shared with others who are living with bipolar has helped with those feelings of isolation and being misunderstood.  Whilst I have a great support network, it’s hard to understand how bipolar feels if you’re not living with it, being surrounded by people who “get it” was a great source of comfort. I also felt validated and completely supported by the psychologists leading the group intervention and who provided one to one sessions after the group had finished.

‘I will always have bipolar disorder and it’s a lifelong commitment to managing it, however it’s not a life sentence.’

Four years later, I have officially been discharged from psychiatric care, with both my psychiatrist and myself happy with all the progress that I have made since my diagnosis. Don’t get me wrong, I will always have bipolar disorder and it’s a lifelong commitment to managing it, however it’s not a life sentence. Along with my medication, having the right tools and strategies that are tailored to me and my needs have made all the difference. For example, I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had a suicidal thought, something that I was plagued with over 20 years.  

At a time where psychiatry and psychiatric disorders such as bipolar are under a microscope, the lived experiences of those with bipolar should be at the centre of such discussions. Whether it’s informing conversations around diagnosis; the language used in discourse; the relation it has to childhood trauma; the effectiveness of interventions; and the need for systemic change. 

About the Author:

Beth Thomas is the Mentoring Scheme Manager and Safeguarding Director at Our Place Support in the West Midlands. She has a MSC in Child and Adolescent Mental Wellbeing. She is part of the Sounddelivery Media Spokesperson Network. Follow her on Twitter @Beffy86 @ourplacesupport

The post ‘Every Day is an Awareness Day When you are Living with Bipolar Disorder’ appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

A stoma is where they take out a part of your bowel that is infected and they reattach one end to your stomach to divert the flow of faeces or urine. It is now estimated that one in 335 people in the UK are currently living with a stoma. I was diagnosed with diverticular disease in my 30’s and controlled it but on April 30th 2019 my bowel exploded and I was rushed into emergency surgery. I wrote this blog ‘I Am Not Who I Used to Be’ in 2019 reflecting on that life-changing experience. 

But this year has been a breakthrough for me. I decided that to move forward I needed to be self-aware and I also wanted to raise awareness around the stigma of the stoma. With that in mind, I did a lot of reading, and my journey started with a theatre piece.

A play with Middle Child Theatre, an amazing theatre production company from Hull called “There Should Be Unicorns”. The play takes inspiration from my life; it is about a young girl (Jasmine) that believes in unicorns and superheroes. She is from a working class background and her dad (me) teaches hip-hop in a bus (based on my work as Founder of the Beats Bus). Jasmine has problems at school and gets beat down because of her dad and dreams but it has a happy ending and Jasmine changes the minds of the bullies. Within the script Luke Barnes, (the scriptwriter) and I wrote about my experience of having a stoma and the effects of the operation. There is a scene where dad (me) has to open up to his daughter Jasmine (played by Emily Gray) as to why he’s struggling, because she is struggling too. Here are the lyrics I wrote for this piece.

“Dear daughter
I never felt like this before
Everything I once told you has changed once more
One day I was fit next day I’m on a drip
24 hours body shut down quick
Confusion, pain, anger and fear
The fight for survival brought the darkness so near
Drug induced state brought altered reality’s
The face in the shadows their trying to grab at me
Ice cold fingers dragging me to the unknown
Angel top my right fighting them alone
Hand of god in the surgeon saving my soul
7 hours later 37 staples to hold
My torso together lower chest to pelvis
Doc told me not to cough if I could help it
Trust me the first time I felt it
Out of the dark into the light was my exit
Thoughts of family woke me with a warm tear
Next thing nana saying I’m glad to here
Outlook on life is different when death tells you it’s over
Physically a changed man dad’s got a stoma”

My next step was tweeting Colostomy UK. They picked up on the awareness I was trying to raise through the play and got in touch. I was still very nervous about speaking about things but they said they wanted to write a piece about me. In turn, this made me research the work that the charity does and after speaking to Giovanni, the founder of Colostomy UK rugby team, he told me about the Step up for Stoma 39 challenge. The significance of the number 39 is because every 39 minutes in the UK someone has stoma surgery. I found this statistic comforting in a strange way that made me feel less alone (not that I would wish it on anyone).  I also found out that Colostomy UK has a rugby team. This is amazing and led me to go rugby training for the first time in 27 years, man did i hurt! I am playing my first game in 27 years on October the 16th in Newcastle, man that is going to hurt too. 

So this was my breakthrough. I am testing myself to do both of these and for my Step up for Stoma 39 challenge I am doing 39 miles on the bike at the gym over September and October. I have completed 18 so far and have raised £120 for the charity. I have vlogged my progress and posted it on my twitter so that everyone knows I am doing the challenge not sat at home on my butt. But more importantly to raise awareness, and show that it is possible to exercise with a Stoma and hopefully encourage others to do it too. 

The play was brilliantly received and started lots of conversation about my condition. The response has been really supportive and positive things have happened from me opening up about my stoma and this made me realise it could help to speak about it. I’m not going to lie, it has been hard talking about everything that happened and reliving it everytime we performed the play but at the same time it has strengthened my resilience and made me feel that I can help others. I want to be able to speak freely and openly about my experience in the hope that it will help with the loneliness people with a Stoma might feel sometimes as I know I felt it a lot. 

My name is Steve a.k.a Redeyefeenix and I have a stoma.

Step Up for Stoma 39 Challenge Fundraiser 

About the Author

Steve is the founder of the Beats Bus Records a record label that has a mobile recording studio for outreach work discovering young talent and used to teach Hip-Hop to communities in and around Yorkshire and the Humber that are more deprived than others and struggle to access the Arts, giving young people hope and aspirations whilst teaching them the values and elements of Hip-Hop alongside some learning and development and confidence building classes. Beats Bus Records is now an award winning community organisation that teaches the elements, values and true history of hip-hop to date they have won eight Awards for their community work the latest being “Music Tutoring Business 2021” from Yorkshire prestige awards.
Steve is part of the Sounddelivery Media Spokesperson Network. 

@redeyefeenix

The post Steve Arnott: The hardest fight of my life – living with a Stoma   appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

The Beyond Pills Campaign launched by the College of Medicine calls for Government intervention on over-prescribing with recommendations and reports following the government’s National Overprescribing Review Report. The campaign looks at solutions of prescribing medication as a last resort rather than the first. It describes social prescribing as one of the key factors in a person’s health and wellbeing. Social prescribing is a non-clinical way of helping people to get more control over their health. Social prescribing link workers take referrals from local agencies and help individuals connect with a range of activities typically provided by voluntary or community organisations, including things like the arts, cricket, swimming, gardening, cookery and learning projects. 

This campaign has six calls to action: 

• Improving medical and healthcare training. Social prescribing and a psychosocial approach to treatment needs to be embedded throughout the curriculum
• Addressing financial incentives within the NHS. Financial incentives in the system should centre around community health. For those patients already on a cocktail of pills, medication reviews and appropriate deprescribing need to be emphasised
• Increasing the number of social prescribing link workers. Primary Care
• Networks need to employ more link workers to enable access to social prescribing for everyone who could benefit
• Increasing support for the voluntary sector. Government departments need to fund and support voluntary initiatives that encourage healthy communities
• Empowering individuals and communities. Informing individuals about social prescribing and collaborating with volunteers involved in social prescription and local health creation and showcasing benefits
• Further systematic research. Mobilising the research community to develop a fully-fledged programme review into topics including the therapeutic efficacy of social prescribing

Having benefited and used an art class to not only get me off the medication, but to give me my life back and allow me to thrive with my health conditions, I am only too happy to help and back this campaign.

There are some practical tips for professionals to extend appointment times for medication reviews, stating they should be at least 30 minutes long. Whilst there are several thousand clinical pharmacists who have been asked to focus on medication reviews, there are still some 8000 GP practices that have some way to go to achieve at least one clinical pharmacist. Ideally, there should be six or seven per primary care network (PCN). Whilst this seems encouraging it is still some way to start addressing the issues and really looking at the patient’s medication, why it was prescribed and if this really is the best way to treat the patient.

Anyone can of course ask for their medications to be reviewed, but another issue that might need addressing is the electronic summary care record (SCR). Doctors can see and write in this record, but the community pharmacist can only read it. It is not always stated what medications have been prescribed for what condition. If we are employing community pharmacists for medication reviews we must allow them the access and information to provide a comprehensive and trustworthy review. 

The use of social prescribing link workers is a much more personalised way of dealing with a patient holistically. The link workers look at the practicalities of the patients’ lives, rather than just their conditions. They have the time to listen, respond, signpost and action any issues that might not be medical. My concern with link workers is the sporadic nature across the country. They are employed by Primary Care Networks (PCN), local authorities and through contracts via NHS trusts. This lends itself to a postcode lottery where some areas get the gold standard and others are left struggling to bumble along. I would like to see a standard of practice across all employed agencies to offer equal services to all.

I had some reservations about link workers in the beginning, but they have proved their worth especially throughout covid and lockdown where they kept people connected and checked on the most vulnerable, to remind them they were not alone.

Whilst I’m realistic that not everybody will benefit from social prescribing, the side-effects of an art class, football group, knitting, or singing (for example) are negligible to the side-effects of overprescribing of medications. With creativity offering cradle to the grave projects, with no religious, cultural, sexual or prejudices of any kind it is easy to see why it can (and should) be used so widely to assist in improving the strain on the NHS.

About the Author

Debs Teale is an advocate of creativity in health following her own remarkable journey. She advocates creativity as an additional service to improve wellbeing and offering hope and aspiration. She has a passion to promote everyone having a voice and a choice in their own care, something she felt lacked in her own journey. Debs believes everyone has something to bring to the table, even if it is just themselves. She is a Trustee at the National Centre for Creative Health as well as a member of the Social Prescribing Network and Social Prescribing Academy. Debs is part of the our Spokesperson Network Programme. 

www.TheDebsEffect.co.uk @The_Debs_Effect #SDMNetwork

A version of this article was first published by the College of Medicine and Integrated Health.

The post Debs Teale: Why we need to look #BeyondPills   appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

I was in emergency care from six months old. Kay and Andy opened their home to foster me. I have grown up with them and their children who are my foster brothers and sisters. 

When I was five there had to be a decision made as to whether I would be adopted or stay and live with my foster carers. I had my adoption photos taken and the social workers were trying to find a family. Kay and Andy made the decision to not put me up for adoption, or to adopt me, but to continue to foster me on a long term placement. They felt I wouldn’t get the support I needed if I was adopted by another family and my life would be disrupted. 

They felt by staying as my foster carers they would be able to give me what I needed and have support themselves. The family had really become attached to me and they didn’t want me to be adopted by another family as it would mean a lot of change and new things for me. I was really settled. The Social Workers asked me and although I was only five, I wanted to stay with them.

Looking back it was the right decision. I stayed with them and I continued to be supported and loved by them. When I was a bit older I used to go and meet potential foster carers with Kay at the group – they could ask questions, talk to me and see my life. I’m not sure if they did become carers but I hope they did. 

Kay and Andy still support and help me even though I have left home they are still a big part of my life. I honestly feel I wouldn’t be where I am without them. 

Not only can fostering make a difference to someone’s life, it can save someone’s life like it did mine. If I didn’t not go into care when I did, I would have not survived. I had broken ribs and had to have an operation on my eye because I was shaken as a baby. I also had really bad nappy rash. I am so glad I was in care, otherwise I wouldn’t be sharing my story with you today. It is also the reason I chose the profession I am in, now working in a nursery. I want to look after children and protect them like I was by my foster parents. 

In England there are around 80,000 children in care and only around 45,000 foster carers. Coventry, where I live, is doing well at getting more foster carers but still they need more people. People who want to open up their homes just like Kay and Andy did for me. If this is something you are thinking about I want you to know the difference it can make to someone’s life. It’s not easy, you will have to go through upsetting situations but it is worth it. 

About the author

Beckie is a Nursery worker and was part of the Story of Us; a series of storytelling workshops delivered by Sounddelivery Media as part of a programme led by Reform the Norm.  Reform the norm is an influential collective of Coventry’s City of Culture Trust plus four organisations at the forefront of work with the city’s most impacted communities and city recovery plans. – Grapevine, Central England Law Centre, Positive Youth Foundation and Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre.  

Listen:   In this audio interview Becky shares her experience of having a learning disability, her experience of foster care and life during the pandemic.

The post Beckie Clark: Why we need more foster carers – my story  appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

I’m Jazz, and I have a neurogenic stammer caused by surviving a stroke at the age of thirteen and having had to relearn to open my mouth and produce vocal sound again. The stroke also meant that I lost a lot of muscle tone, which caused flaccid dysarthria, something that I’m still stuck with despite having relearnt most other things- walking, for instance. I can’t say my full name- Jasmine Moreton- fluently because I usually prolongate ‘M’ sounds, but I’ve always been known as Jazz and I roll with the punches. BBC’s Felicity Baker made an entire TV film stemming from the fact that she can’t say her name, and that’s when I realised that it’s a notable trait.

Felicity’s film, I Can’t Say My Name: Stammering in the Spotlight, sticks in my mind because I hadn’t heard a disfluent voice in a position of authority in the media until that point. Hearing stammering on the BBC made me feel hopeful that society might be changing to be more accepting of stammering. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened yet:  generally, disfluency’s media portrayal exists in comedy, or to represent somebody extremely vulnerable or that has a Learning Disability, often as a news item. The other media trope is that of the stammerer whose life is terrible until they finally become fluent, which resolves all their issues (here’s looking at you, The King’s Speech). This is unhelpful because it firstly gives the illusion that if a stammerer just tries a bit harder, they too could find fluency. Secondly, it implies that stammering is the stammerer’s biggest problem, when it may well be the tip of the iceberg of- in my case- neurological damage or multiple disabilities: an audible disability that just means that I need time to talk, whereas the complexity of the human brain means that I have multiple other disabilities that often go unnoticed because many people switch off as soon as they hear my voice.

We stammerers seem to be the last taboo on the radio, despite King George VI’s best media efforts between 1925 and 1952. I used to assume that this is because the audience can’t see us, can’t read our lips, and don’t therefore know that we are normal people with jobs and families and lives outside of disability but, since being commissioned as a BBC New Creative during lockdown, I have learnt that the media is fearful of dead air- gaps in broadcast that interrupt programming- because the audience might walk away or change channel.

Stammering charity, STAMMA (the British Stammering Association) are currently campaigning to see and hear more people that stammer on television and radio, in roles that aren’t simply focussed on stammering. #NoDiversityWithoutDisfluency is, in my opinion, a really important campaign because up to 3% of adults (and up to 5% of children) stammer, yet we are rarely represented in the media. I say rarely because I currently have an audio piece commissioned by Rural Media on BBC Sounds: Discordance, an autobiographical drama. I propose that, if stammering was normalised in the media, and stammering voices were heard in people’s everyday lives, wider society would become more understanding and inclusive, and people that stammer would hear things like “Oh, you don’t understand what I’m saying to you, poor thing” far less frequently.

I would like to propose that we embrace disfluent speech in broadcast media for the following reasons.

Firstly,  Speech and language are two entirely separate things, enabled by different areas of the brain. People with disfluent speech can, therefore, be both incredibly insightful people and fantastic linguists- especially since we spend so much energy on finding ways to avoid words that are harder to say!

Secondly, the media has an incredible amount of power with regards to the issues and voices that the public is exposed to and could therefore help to normalise disfluent speech rather than literally marginalising certain voices.

And finally it’s notable that people- including, in fact, certain politicians- with less intelligent things to say than I, are given airtime in situations where disfluent voices are not. Perhaps if people like me were listened to, society might become more inclusive.

I for one am proud of my disfluent voice and diverse speech. Although my stammer and dysarthria are hidden until I start to speak, excluding voices like mine from the media due to our disfluency is still disability discrimination. We can all help to change this through welcoming ‘disabled voices’ to the airwaves and all of society.

About the Author

Jazz Moreton is an interdisciplinary artist who has multiple disabilities as a result of surviving a stroke as a teenager, and a passion for activism and equality. She strives to use her enthusiasm for the Arts to create work that has the power to ignite action and discourse around the many inequalities that people with disabilities endure on a daily basis. Since graduating with First Class Honours in Fine Art from the University of Gloucestershire in 2017, she has worked in audio, performance, and traditional visual arts, and has exhibited and performed in Coventry, Brighton, and London. Jazz is passionate about using her experiences as a person with multiple disabilities, along with her creative ability and drive for genuine equality, to create positive social change through art and the arts. Are you going to try to stop her?

Jazz is part of our sounddelivery media Spokesperson Network.  https://www.sounddelivery.org.uk/spokesperson-network/  #SDMNetwork 

www.jazzmoreton.com

@JazzMoreton

The post Jasmine Moreton ‘Disfluency: neither seen nor heard? #NoDiversityWithoutDisfluency’ appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

In London, relying on Universal Credit or Housing Benefit to live in the private renting sector (PRS) frequently means taking a flat at or just above Local Housing Allowance rates, which for many people is a tiny, isolated room far from family and friends. During lockdown, when you can’t go out, this tiny room with a hob by the bed, becomes the entirety of your world.

As part of our Tenants Voice project funded by Nationwide Foundation, we’ve been working with clients who have been through homelessness and are now housed in the PRS. As individuals and in groups we’ve been looking at the issues they face and what would need to change to make their lives better. We took Lockdown as an opportunity to bring this together with our policy work on Universal Credit, while using these online groups as a way to counter some of that isolation people were feeling.

We brought in Jude from sounddelivery, to train us and our group on how to tell their stories online, and campaign for change. Jude had only run one training workshop online at the time, and Z2K hadn’t run groups that way at all, so we weren’t sure how it would go: at the start, we had to teach many people (including ourselves!) how to use Zoom. It was a balance between the increased convenience of joining a group from inside your home, and the difficulty of taking part for those unused to the technology.

Despite this, over lockdown Jude has run an amazing set of sessions with a total of 12 people attending across 3 months, training participants in using your phone and social media to tell stories including through:

• video for the web
• podcasting and audio storytelling
• social media reporting
• blogging and writing
• storytelling through social media

For us this was an opportunity to amplify the voices of the people we work with directly. And it soon became clear that they had strong ideas about what the problems are and what needs to change to get better. As a result, the group put together a project looking at what Life after Lockdown should look like – developing their own material and bringing together Z2K’s policy experience with their own in-depth knowledge of the system.

Aisha, who took part in the project, found that Lockdown “has been hard”, particularly not seeing people. Mario too, says that “In the beginning it was a struggle with everything”. For Aisha, the online group has been a way to counter the isolation: “It helped me get connected with people again”.

Others, like Abeo, found that meeting people in a similar position enables you to see that “You’re not just the only one going through it… other people are just like yourself and going through the same thing you’re going through”.  Coming together as a groups helps all of us to see that the issues individuals are facing are part of a systemic problem, and one that we can fight together to fix.

The project that we developed out of the group has been focused around participants sharing their experiences, because as Jim says, “to share our lived experiences is the most important way for others to understand the situation you live in”.

Mario sums it up perfectly when he says, “people have different stories, but through their stories people might be touched and feel there is still hope for us to move on. No condition is permanent.”

At Z2K, this takes our efforts to put our clients at the heart of our campaigning on UC and PRS to the next level – we will carry on working with our clients to campaign for change in Universal Credit and the Private Rental Sector. We will continue to hold the Government to account to ensure those we work with and beyond can live with the dignity and respect they are entitled to.

The post Lockdown Life – bringing people together to tell stories for change appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

In this guest blog, Artur and Aida explain that the Covid-19 lockdown has caused upheaval in their family  and the value of  footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to ensure meal vouchers for children in need during the Summer holidays, using his own experiences to trigger change. 

Artur has been unable to work. Aida has been taken on at Asda without any contract. But it is the effect on their children which distresses them most.

Suddenly they stopped everything. Our kids had extra learning for maths and English twice a week. They were busy with it. Football, sea cadets. Suddenly our son cannot play football with his friends. Our daughter who has autism had speech and language. Suddenly they stopped everything.

At least our kids had two days a week at school during the lockdown because of our daughter’s autism and because Aida works at Asda. We pushed the school to take all the kids. Going to school takes the energy out of them, and they can learn. When it all started it was scary for us, scary for the kids. Especially as we have a small place, one bedroom divided into two. We don’t have a garden. It’s not good for their mental health to stay at home.

Marcus Rashford’s campaign to ensure meal vouchers for children in need during the Summer holidays was brilliant of him! The reason he started was because of his background and the area he was brought up. He’s a millionaire now, so for him to do that and at his age is quite brilliant. He knows how to help the kids because of where he came from. It’s a fantastic job he’s done. Our childhood was really tough. We know what he means. Here they help you. But in communist Albania they cannot. We have been in a queue for a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread and things like that. We totally understand him.

Years ago, we knew a mum who had three daughters who said it was more expensive when the kids were at home. At the time we did not understand because our eldest was little, but now we do. The food vouchers are helpful for the families. It’s going towards the necessary things for cooking and eating. It’s less stress on the families. They can concentrate on doing other things for their kids and on what they want for their children.

There are very few children who understand when there is not enough money, they don’t understand what’s going on. Not everyone understands when you are struggling. We had our friend, she is “Not Resourced from Public Funds”, they have no help from the government, we were doing what we could for her.

But it’s hard. Sometimes you are crying so hard you cannot speak. You are crying inside, you cannot tell what you are going through. You have no-one to show you how to get help. I was in a hostel and the conditions were terrible, but when I started to complain, they threatened me. ATD took us on holiday to Frimhurst Family House and it was a break and I remember my son, it was Christmas, he was crying, he said I don’t want to go back, I want to stay here.

It’s not easy. Sometimes people get fed up with their lives and being told to shut up. And I know families who are worse off than me, mums where the kids have been taken away. It destroys the family. They threatened to take away my children. You hear the stories, you would not believe it. What about the mums? Sometimes you don’t know how to say it, it is inside you, but you don’t know how to say it. I am grateful Marcus Rashford understood what his mum went through and he knows to speak out. Speaking about hardships is important because it can help others to comprehend which can help lead to change. Our attitude has changed because of the tough times we have lived through.

About the authors

Artur and Aida are raising their three children in London where they are involved with ATD Fourth World and the APLE (Addressing Poverty with Lived Experience) Collective.

To read ATD Fourth World’s “Giving Poverty a Voice” blog: https://atd-uk.org/blog/

and the APLE Collective blog: https://www.aplecollective.com/blog-posts/

* Frimhurst Family House is run by ATD Fourth World, it has a unique history of offering vulnerable families respite stays.

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The post I Never Knew the Worth of the Law Centre Until Grenfell appeared first on Sounddelivery Media.

As a young child I always did as I was told, I was rarely in trouble, enjoyed school and never questioned authority. However, as I grew older, I noticed how people were treated differently for the way they looked, where they lived and what they could afford. I noticed the way those deemed to have some power in society had the ability to get away with such treatment. Treatment that differentiated myself and my brother just because of the difference in the colour of our skin. No one would tell me what a ‘good white kid’ I was, but people knew my brother as the ‘naughty black kid’. It wasn’t until I moved out of my small home town that I saw this wasn’t just happening to my brother, but to so many people because of an institutional and systemic problem in society. The years of just doing what I was told are over, I am doing what is right, showing my younger self that it’s ok to speak up and hold authorities to account. I am proud to be part of the team at North Kensington Law Centre, working for justice and fairness, surrounded by colleagues who inspire me every day.

I started volunteering for North Kensington Law Centre in November 2018. I began volunteering on the reception and after a few months I began to volunteer for the Immigration Team and the Crime Team. Through this voluntary work I found my passion for Immigration law. In July 2019, after 8 months of volunteering, I was lucky enough to have successfully gained employment at the Law Centre as a Windrush Compensation Scheme Paralegal.

The Windrush scandal had and is still having disastrous impacts on people’s lives. In a country that claims to be so ‘Great’ it is truly the opposite for those who simply weren’t born here. The international postcode lottery that meant those who came to England to rebuild our country, giving so much and taking so little, fell victim to the hostile environment which lead to the exposure of the Windrush scandal. Lives shattered and still no justice served.

As well as my full-time position at NKLC I manage an Independent Legal Observers team that monitor how the police, police certain events such as Notting Hill Carnival. This team upholds the community’s rights and responsibilities in relation to the police attempts to bridge the gap between the authorities and communities, a bond that was broken due to the Grenfell and Windrush scandals.  I am also the sub team leader for the criminal defence division of Project: Empower, as part of NKLC and for this project, I speak to young adults about their rights and responsibilities on a range of topics from rights at a police station, drug and weapons offences to various laws surrounding consent.

‘Without Law Centres, people may go unheard and their injustices never resolved.’

I, like many other law students during my studies, always had the vision of working in a commercial city law firm, I am proud to say I changed my mind! The bond you create with your fellow colleagues and your clients is something that I believe is unique to Law Centres and the voluntary sector. People work at Law Centres because they care about their clients, they care about access to justice and they want to help. Law Centres are crucial for communities and especially for people on low incomes who may otherwise not receive the legal help they deserve. Without Law Centres, people may go unheard and their injustices never resolved.

The cuts to legal aid introduced by LASPO have caused severe difficulties when it comes to access justice, therefore many services are dealt with on a pro bono basis. However, this is sometimes hard to maintain and as a result Law Centres are closing. For some people, this will never affect them, for others this is a devastating moment in their lives.

It is fair to say that many people may not appreciate the importance of accessing justice, until they need it. Without Law Centres, accessing justice would be impossible for so many people and spreading awareness of Law Centres is a crucial part in maintaining their existence.

I enjoy coming to work every day, and no days are the same. Everyone at the Law Centre works so hard to fight for the justice that people deserve whether it be against their landlord, employer, the Home Office or Police, North Kensington Law Centre helps a wide range of people and I am proud to be a part of the team here.

I can honestly say that the Law Centre has changed my life for the better. The opportunities I have gained through the Law Centre are incredible and knowing that each day that I come into the office I am making a difference to someone’s life, someone who has faced such injustice, is extremely motivating and I am grateful to be in such a position.

About the author

Holly Stow is 22 years old she grew up in Lowestoft a small seaside town and moved to London in 2016 to start University. Holly has recently graduated from London South Bank University with a 2:1 Law Degree. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with friends and family, travelling to new places and attending music events.

This blog was first published on the NKLC blog.

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