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Source E:                               Politics and politicians

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Source E:                               Politics and politicians

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The ‘diverse directors’ scheme for Top Boy, which brought in four promising directors to shadow the show’s directors for eight weeks each, across pre-and post-production and filming itself.

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Casting kids from the estates over professional actors, which helped to give the show its bleak realism.

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"Luxury? This is worse than prison, man." Ashley Walters is penned into a tiny faux-wood panelled trailer, parked on the edge of a shopping centre car park. This is Top Boy base camp in east London, where production trucks chug and the crew flits back and forth from shooting scenes in Dalston's Ridley Road Market. Walters, who plays Dushane, the titular Top Boy of Channel 4's returning drama series, has spent the day doing what actors do most: waiting around. Waiting for his scenes, waiting for the right light, waiting mostly, as it turns out, to see if Top Boy 2 will draw the attention and acclaim it did the first time around.

"It's relatable," Walters enthuses. "The majority of kids I speak to that are living that life will say that we hit the nail on the head, and you very rarely get that, especially with UK TV drama. There's always that romantic Hollywood element to it. But people appreciate Top Boy because it is what it is. A lot of stuff I've done, especially things like Bullet Boy, it's never usually people coming from that area or that lifestyle that buy into it."

Much was made of Top Boy's tower-block authenticity, but timing, too, had its part to play; the first series arrived, serendipitously, soon after the London riots in 2011, and gave an honest account of inner-city life for young people with no jobs, no prospects and no power beyond their own postcode. It was neither patronising or try-hard - the usual twin criticisms of self-defining gritty urban dramas - and it cast kids from the estates over professional actors, which helped to give the show its bleak realism.

"[Broadsheet journalists] go crazy over this sort of thing, but Top Boy got respect," says Walters, who, at 31 and father to five kids, has mellowed since his brief brush with pop stardom (and trouble) at the turn of the millennium with So Solid Crew. "I must admit, this season I've had to really search a bit." He laughs as we talk about Top Boy's commitment to scripting that rhythmic inner London patois just so. "My oldest is 13 and he hasn't got a clue about that lifestyle, but he knows what's cool. I'll say a lot of things that are late-90s slang and he'll say, 'Dad, no. You don't use that word any more.'"

Walters and Kane Robinson - also known as grime artist Kano, and who plays who plays Dushane's right-hand man Sully - both credit Top Boy's writer Ronan Bennett for his lack of ego in allowing the cast to ad-lib around his script. "He's brilliant," says Walters. "He writes it how he sees it, and then it's down to us to breathe some life into it and make it our own."

Inspiration for Top Boy notoriously came about after Bennett witnessed a 12-year-old dealing drugs in a Tesco car park. Bennett, who has lived in Hackney for more than 25 years - and witnessed its rapid chichi gentrification on the one hand, and its grinding poverty on the other - found himself compelled to write about the experience and embedded himself for two years with local drug dealers.

'I'm inspired by the fact that for every kid we see committed to crime, there's kids determined to go to uni and not follow their peers'

"The stories of kids getting into gangs isn't the only thing going on out there," says Robinson. "Ronan's also telling stories of single mothers raising kids, trying to run a business, rents being too high, shops getting shut down."

Top Boy series two is an even more conscious indictment of David Cameron's Britain, of the post-recessionary welfare cuts that are stretching the gap between London's rich and poor ever wider.

Walters is unequivocal when I ask him about the wider social message of the show. "Politics isn't about helping people, it's about maintaining whatever people have got, whatever it takes to maintain their position at the expense of us," he says. "It's down to communities and ourselves to change things first and foremost. I'm inspired by the fact that for every kid we see committed to crime, there's kids determined to go to uni and not follow their peers. I think doing something proper and sensible is becoming more popular now, rather than taking the easy road."

Walters knows first-hand how damaging that "easy road" can turn out to be. Later, during a panel talk at the BFI, he and Robinson ponder how their childhood struggles might have informed their characters. "I dabbled in that scene," Walters says coyly, while Robinson falls about laughing. "Dabbled?" He rocks off his chair. "Dabbled?!"

But despite his stretch in prison (18 months on a firearm offence in 2001), Walters knows he's one of the lucky ones. "Kids now are smarter than I was back in the day, I'm wary of them," he says, suggesting that social media has allowed gang activity to become more sophisticated. He explains that in a block near his home in Angel, north London, crime is rife. "There are a lot of 15-year-olds that have still got stuff to prove and want to make a name for themselves. And that's where we come in and say, 'You've got a lot to lose. Your life's not just about London Fields or Homerton, you need to branch out.'"

For all that Top Boy strives to portray its characters as regular people, who "go to church on Sunday, take care of their mums", is there a danger the show could perpetuate stereotypes? "I'm sure there is," says Walters, matter of factly. "There was a danger when I was in So Solid and we made 21 Seconds. But we're just showing a slice of life." He leans forward: "I think it's good to show that these humans are doing things they know are wrong, but they are normal people."
Series two of Top Boy starts 20 August on Channel 4

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Ashley Walters and Kano: 'Top Boy hit the nail on the head'

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"Luxury? This is worse than prison, man." Ashley Walters is penned into a tiny faux-wood panelled trailer, parked on the edge of a shopping centre car park. This is Top Boy base camp in east London, where production trucks chug and the crew flits back and forth from shooting scenes in Dalston's Ridley Road Market.

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A review of Top Boy from an international viewers point of view.

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In the process of considering this essay, I came very close, if only in my head, to describing the Channel 4/Netflix drama Top Boy as "authentic." I stopped myself only when I remembered that I am, in fact, a middle-class white dude living in North Carolina, and actually have no idea what is authentic or not as it pertains to the estates of east London. ("Estate" being, in this case, the equivalent of the American projects, and not a sprawling manor where the lord and his buddies go on fox hunts). So I'll refrain from any judgment on that front, while holding on to this: it feels authentic.

It feels more than authentic, actually, in the way it places you in an unknown world with no apology and very little preamble, and immerses you in an unfamiliar but irresistible dialect coupled with stories that are all the more riveting for the way information and context is released in small drips to slowly fill out the universe. Compared to something like the fourth season of Fargo, which is obsessed with history and backstory to the point that it oppresses the narrative, this is a subtle show, in which the social milieu is uncovered gradually alongside the narrative to render the heartbreak all the more intense.

The story behind the show is a strange one. It was written and created by Ronan Bennett, who in his Northern Irish youth was accused of robbery, murder, and bombing, and spent time in the infamous Long Kesh prison with other suspected IRA members. From there, he moved into English academia, and was eventually hired to work for Labour politican Jeremy Corbyn. He became an author and screenwriter, and despite the brilliance of the first two series of Top Boy, which came out in 2011 and 2013, Channel 4 opted to cancel the show after just eight episodes. That seemed to be the end of the story, and it was-for six years. In the interval, the rapper Drake watched the first two seasons while on tour, and loved it so much that he led the charge to pitch a third season to Netflix. Getting the greenlight for the original series had been a long and arduous process, but with Drake on board, Netflix was sold in under an hour. And in 2019, at long last, the third season-ten episodes, this time-aired on the platform, and the first two seasons, under the name Top Boy: Summerhouse were re-added. Today, all 18 episodes can be found on Netflix, and a fourth season is already in the works.

The most common comparison you'll see is to HBO's iconic crime drama The Wire, and there's something to that, in the sense that it's a story of a largely poor, black population and the inner-city drug trade that scars their communities. Unlike The Wire, the cops here are peripheral, and the focus is almost entirely on the people of "Summerhouse," the fictional estate where most of the action plays out. Top Boy tackles social ills like poverty, mental health, drugs, and capitalism just as effectively as its American predecessor, but it does so in a slightly different way, with slow revelations through character arcs rather than the (sorry) Dickensian sweep of David Simon's show, which relied a bit more on monologue-adjacent explanations. Here, the story is at the forefront always, and you're asked as a viewer to participate as seriously as the writers; there's no Lester Freamon or Jimmy McNulty to explain how things work.

The first two series, which I'll write about vaguely to avoid spoilers, centers around Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson), two Summerhouse natives who start off with a little power and want much more. Their shared ambition is to rise within the amorphous hierarchy and become the "top boy" of the London drug trade. Their foil is Ra'Nell, a young boy whose mother suffers from severe depression and who harbors a dream of playing soccer at a professional level. Ra'Nell has an uncommonly stiff backbone as he resists getting sucked into the crime that pervades his life, but the lesson of this show is that there's no escape-not for him, his sympathetic friend Gem, or even for someone like Dushane whose success leads him to dream of distancing himself from the streets that reared him. (The end of Season 2, especially, highlights the speed at which things can fall apart even for the most successful criminal.)

The environment has an ironclad hold on them, and through their eyes we see how a mutated, criminal version of capitalism hangs over them like a dark cloud, even while the forces of legal capitalism, like gentrification, strive to cast them deeper into economic misery while lining the pockets of rapacious outsiders. The tragedy of their lives is that it's not impossible to imagine something different; it's only impossible to achieve it.

That may paint a dour picture, but it's worth saying that just like The Wire or The Sopranos, the story operating a level above the sociological bog is captivating to the extreme. Characters flit in and out of the universe, and the casting is so strong that even the cameos are memorable. And the dialogue-well, it's hard to say enough about the dialogue. It's a common joke among Americans that British shows are unintelligible even when they're speaking posh queen's English, but I'm here to tell you that if you don't watch this show with subtitles, you'll have absolutely no idea what anyone is saying. Even with subtitles, you'll start out confused. But it's a beautiful confusion, and all the more beautiful when it resolves, because the writers have captured a kind of brutal poetry. Watch, for instance, this scene, which admittedly involves a character who speaks the most arcane and indecipherable Jamaican-infused dialect on the entire show:

The gist of that discussion, as you may or may not have gathered, is that Jamie (a prominent character beginning in Season 3) has a new drug supply that he wants to sell to Cam, but Cam doesn't like the price he's offering and tells him he'll think about it. But the way I just wrote about it is infinitely more boring than how it plays out here, with the rapid-fire slang, the posturing, the machismo. Take this line from Cam: "Bruv allow them prices there fam, what you think you're tough and all a them things there brother, can't come to them prices with bad man rudeboy." It's gorgeous, and whether it represents a real slice of how people actually speak in London or whether the writers are just inventing or taking liberties with the language, it's irresistible.

And that's the joy of this show. The characters and their trajectories capture you totally even as you realize they're crafted by the world around them, and that world is the reason they're going to break your heart. To walk this line, between a human story of hope and the fatalism of a hard life in a hard place, requires an artistic deftness that is as uncommon as it is rewarding. Top Boy never lets you down easy, but it never lets you down.

Watch on Netflix

Shane Ryan is a writer and editor. You can find more of his writing and podcasting at Apocalypse Sports, and follow him on Twitter here .

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.

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top boy on netflix is far more than just the british wire

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Top Boy on Netflix Is Far More than Just the British Wire

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In the process of considering this essay, I came very close, if only in my head, to describing the Channel 4/Netflix drama Top Boy as "authentic." I stopped myself only when I remembered that I am, in fact, a middle-class white dude living in North Carolina, and actually have no idea what is authentic or not as it pertains to the estates of east London.

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Source C:                    Institutions and Industry

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Source C:                    Institutions and Industry

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Ronan Bennett's inspiration for Top Boy and why the show is embedded in social realism.

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'Hackney, where I live, is like much of inner London. There are streets with nice shops, good restaurants and houses for people who are doing well. But turn a corner and you are in a different world: grim, sprawling housing estates where windows are barred, pit bulls are exercised in the courtyards, and families struggle to make ends meet. There are guns and knives, and people get killed by both.

'One day coming out of the supermarket I noticed a boy of about 12 - one of the "tinies", as I later learned they are called - hanging around the forecourt. An older man approached him. They exchanged a few words and briefly shook hands - I just about saw the money passed over. The boy slid away. A couple of minutes later a second tiny came up on a bike and spat something on the ground. The older man stooped to retrieve it and strolled off. It was a drug deal, five minutes from my home.

'I wanted to know more. I was already thinking about writing about this world, but I knew that if I did I would want to write about it from the bottom up, from the point of view, not of the police, but of the 'tinies' and 'youngers' hanging around the supermarket forecourt every day. But how was I going to get into this world?

'I have a friend of Jamaican descent, Gerry Jackson, born and raised in Hackney. Gerry is a popular and respected fitness coach who has done a lot of work with Hackney kids, encouraging them to keep clear of drug and gang culture through hard physical training. For many kids Gerry is something of a father figure, someone to bring their problems to, who will listen and try to help. I asked him if he would introduce me to kids on the street. Within days he set up the first of many meetings.

'I wanted to hear about the mechanics of drug dealing, but I also wanted to know about these kids' lives. What were their homes like? Did they go to school? What did they think about their parents, teachers and the police? What music and clothes did they like? Relationships? What did they want from life? What were their expectations? How did they view the world? They talked with incredible and surprising candour. Some admitted to carrying guns, others bore the scars of knife wounds - "Yeah, that was the time I was stabbed in the heart", one said casually opening his shirt. Some stories were brutal and frightening, others sad - "I saw my father on the street," a 17-year-old told me, "I hadn't seen him for about six years. We talked a bit but he has problems so I didn't even ask him to stay in touch." Some were unintentionally funny - "I didn't get focused on making money until I was 13," one 'younger' with a captain of industry's soul said wistfully, "all them wasted years!" Others hoped to get out.

'Over the months, with Gerry's help, I came to realise that the lives I had glimpsed on the supermarket forecourt were more complex, deep and rich than I'd imagined. "Just because someone is buying and selling drugs in Hackney," a detective told me, "doesn't mean they're bad people. In parts of Hackney, dealing drugs is how some people make a living. It's part of the fabric of life."

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The inspiration behind Top Boy from writer and creator Ronan Bennett

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'Hackney, where I live, is like much of inner London. There are streets with nice shops, good restaurants and houses for people who are doing well. But turn a corner and you are in a different world: grim, sprawling housing estates where windows are barred, pit bulls are exercised in the courtyards, and families struggle to make ends meet.

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The borough of hackneys imputes on the show and worry about how it reflects residents that live on hackneys estates.

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Top Boy is the real deal - Hackney Citizen

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This article titled "Top Boy is the real deal" was written by Franklyn Addo, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 1st November 2011 17.07 UTC The premiere of new TV drama Top Boy received mixed responses from a broad range of critics before the show had even aired on Channel 4.

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Source F:                                               Trade publication

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Source F:                                               Trade publication

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The return of Top Boy season 3 to Netflix an SVOD and the change in the production process.

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Source I:                                     Other kinds of archived documents

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Source I:                                     Other kinds of archived documents

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The hidden life of a real Top Boy and why the program has done so well.

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Local gangs shaped my childhood. Growing up as a Black man in London, I found myself accustomed and affiliated to 'gang life'. I experienced firsthand the violence that gang-involved young adults are at increased risk of as victims, perpetrators and witnesses. Now, as an aspiring clinical psychologist, I want the voices of young, Black men suffering with trauma to be heard. Their personal stories can deepen our empathy and understanding of how they feel after experiencing a traumatic event. The UK rap scene affirms their pain, traumas and redemption, so I have scattered lyrics from prominent UK rappers throughout this piece.
The cycle of trauma
'So many man my age have got PTSD and I don't think that it's hit them, If you envision the way that we're living, the things that we had seen, situations that we'd been in': Dave - My 19th Birthday. [I'm pictured with Dave above... he's on the left]

People are quick to marginalise and criminalise young, Black men, but rarely comprehend the vicious webs they are trapped within. Our souls are wounded. We need to heal before this cycle of trauma rolls on to the next generation. We have a long way to go in addressing this, but it is crucial that we do, especially since various factors including the social, political and economic disadvantages faced by Black men leave them at greater risk of developing issues with their mental health.

A UK study found that 90 per cent of male gang members (aged 18 to 34) had been involved in violence in the past five years with 80 per cent reporting at least three violent incidents (Coid et al., 2013). The media coverage shapes the narrative around 'Black on Black' crime, as if this is some form of racial, culturally-induced violence that doesn't occur amongst other groups.

Whenever I hear about violent assault or murder amongst the Black community, I think past those media accounts and the way the stories are portrayed. My mind is drawn to the aspects often omitted. One is the trauma experienced by young, Black men as the result of witnessing or being directly involved within violent activity (Cuff & Matheson, 2015).

Research shows that approximately 62 per cent of Black men have directly experienced a traumatic event in their lifetime, 72 per cent witnessed a traumatic event and 59 per cent have learned of a traumatic event involving a friend or family member (Motley & Banks, 2018). Exposure to trauma through violence is unfortunately a daily reality for many young, Black men (Bertram & Dartt, 2008). One way or another, many young Black men are carrying around the burden of trauma. I see their heavy shoulders. 'Yeah, we know how to handle a threat, but I don't know how I handle the stress, PTSD coulda had me in a mental home but I'd rather a mansion instead': Konan in Abracadabra - Seen it all

PTSD is an anxiety disorder which occurs following exposure to an extremely threatening or catastrophic event like severe violence. Complex PTSD occurs when people are repeatedly exposed to these traumatic events. It is thought to be more severe if the person experienced the trauma for a long time and was alone during the trauma. Individuals with either of these labels may re-experience the trauma, avoid stimuli associated with the trauma and will have increased arousal. This can lead to increased irritability, outbursts of anger, difficulty managing emotions, feelings of shame or guilt and suicidal ideation. Traumatic experiences lead to altered perceptions of safety within everyday life, causing people to remain in a heightened state of threat and panic (Overstreet & Braun, 2000). 'Anxiety every time I hear the door knock I gotta be brave': Little Torment - Stress.

As a result, people who have experienced trauma may cut themselves off from friends and family, and engage in yet more risky behaviours. High levels of PTSD are linked to violent experiences, and the more violence a young person is exposed to the greater the PTSD symptoms (Abram et al., 2004). And so the cycle continues... can we help to break it?
The response
In my personal and professional life, I see young Black men struggling to acknowledge or cope with the symptomology that comes with trauma. That begins with barriers to seeking help in the first place. Black men are approximately half as likely as their White counterparts to use professional mental health services (Hankerson et al., 2011).

One of the biggest factors preventing young, Black men from accessing support, from what I've seen, are the norms and social constructs which govern their response to situations. Young Black men may be influenced by both internal and external expectations to 'man up' or to 'get over it'. They are left to deal with the emotional, psychological and physical ramifications of their traumas alone.

Some young Black men also have internalised cultural beliefs about therapy. They believe that by engaging within therapeutic interventions, they may be 'snitching' if they end up disclosing pertinent details about a traumatic event. That's against the 'street code': they must handle the situation themselves. 'I can't trust the police force': Headie One - Don't Judge Me.

Some will self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. It is common for young, Black men to use cannabis to help numb their feelings and symptoms. There is a strong relationship between violent injury, trauma and substance use. 'Just to get away I take a toke': Stormzy - Lay Me Bare. 'Mummy telling me I need a counsellor 'cause I'm drinking too much and there's smoke in my lungs': Ramz - Think Twice About Suicide

Some will isolate and withdraw into their homes, avoiding people and the streets. 'Took a little break from the game, started praying, man, I had to get my mind right': Stormzy - First Things First

Some will escape their residential areas and stay with other family members, with the hope of appeasing their feelings of anxiety. 'How can this be home when I feel I wanna flee here?': Headie One - Don't Judge Me

Some will walk around with weapons in order to feel somewhat safer. 'To be safe, I gotta pick my gun up, Just in case cah they just might run up, They want me dead and I just can't let up, That's just the usual': Abracadabra - How we living

Some will be forced to remain in their environment, surrounded by triggers and reminders of the trauma. They may also face possible retaliation of serious injury or death. People will arm themselves or recruit friends to exact revenge (Rich & Grey, 2005). 'They took an L but made sure the next letter coming was M': Ghetts - Window Pain. 'Billy died but I've been sleeping better, and that's ever since an opp went to sleep forever': Fredo - Ready

Retaliation appears to be the most probable response after people have witnessed a friend or loved one be killed. 'Retaliation is a must when I buck my opps there's no remorse': Dutchavelli - Bando Diaries
Safety, strength and self-esteem
We need to do better as a community to ensure their needs are being met. How are we providing a safe space for young, Black men to discuss their traumas? 'Torn between seeing a therapist or a pastor, Think about it, Heaven or Hell, what would you rather? I've lost friends I still hope to see in this life after': Chip - 0420; R.I.P Black The Ripper.

How are they coping with what they've seen and done? 'How can I talk about killing my opps and in the same breath say Black Lives Matter? My issues are deep rooted': Ghetts - Mad About Bars S5: E7

What sense are they making of these experiences? 'I don't know why me and dem oppers started beefin, do I blame me or the Willie Lynch theory?': Headie One - Don't Judge Me.

If cultural context is important when seeking mental health care, what provisions are in place for young Black men to access support from mental health professionals? How will professionals bridge the gap to identify and understand the intricacies that get people entangled within gang life and violence? Representation is powerful: 6 October 2020 was the first time I saw and was lectured by a Black male clinical psychologist.

Mental health services have a troubling relationship with us; we are undertreated in the community but yet over-represented on psychiatric wards. We are more likely to access services through coercive pathways and less likely to access help ourselves. Interventions need to take all this into account in establishing a sense of safety, strength and self-esteem.
'Some of you may know, I'm currently going through mental health problems. As a young black boy it was, or should I say, it is very tough to come out and tell people that, you know, you're going through those things, Some may look at it as embarrassing or such a scary thing to do, cos you don't know if people will understand what you're actually going through': Ramz - Before it's too late Systems
Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory explains how an individual is located within a nested structure of 'systems'; influenced by their social context and relationships with others such as family, friends and institutions. At the micro level, psychoeducation around relaxation skills, coping strategies and emotion-regulation could be helpful before trauma-specific aspects are addressed (Cohen, Berliner & Mannarino, 2010). But the intervention can't stop there! We need to be cognisant of the mesosystems, exosystems and macrosystems surrounding young Black men: to work with them to understand their struggles and the rationale behind harmful behaviours. We also need to better understand the impact of the violence and subsequent trauma on the family system overall. 'I come from where the mothers are worried, sun comes up and their sons haven't come in': Ghetts - Proud Family

To facilitate help-seeking we must work more collaboratively with the Black community, support volunteer organisations and provide better community in-reach programmes. Targeted campaigns enlisting the help of role models could also help raise awareness around trauma. At the macrosystem level, we need legislation and policies created to foster mental health care, specifically focusing on the adverse outcomes and traumatic experiences of young, Black men. At this level we also need to be addressing the narrative that surrounds this group. We are more than the threatening, fear-inducing stereotypes forced upon us. We need culturally-sensitive, curious psychologists who show humility. We need to involve them and the Black community in service development, so we are creating interventions which are relatable for this population (Lindsay, Strand & Davis, 2011): 'with' them and not 'for' them. 'No more betrayal, we need permanent changes, so we can move forward without turning back pages': Headie One - Don't Judge Me
Think twice
I believe we live in an unequal society with racial injustice, and some young Black men have learnt to adjust within this society to make life easier. Yet when they do wrong, we neglect the community and psychological approaches which could help to break the cycle. I have known victims, perpetrators and witnesses of violent and traumatic events. I do not see these men as 'less than', yet I feel our society has de-humanised them. 'Like what have I done to deserve this life?, I got brothers in the pen that will never see again, Got my brothers dem servin' life, And I know that you think that it serves 'em right, But I come from a place where you burn or die, Or we turn and ride, So don't blame us when we turn to the dirt we tried, I just pray we fly': Stormzy - Don't Cry For me

So think twice when you next walk past a young, Black man with his hoody up. Think twice about the feelings and possible anxieties this stirs in you. Think about the traumas they may have endured. We all have a responsibility to provide the nurture and support that may be lacking in the lives of our young, Black men.
'I didn't choose to be me, so why discriminate me?': Headie One - Don't Judge Me
Ron Dodzro

Twitter: @NDodzro
Key sources
Abram, K. M., Teplin, L. A., Charles, D. R., Longworth, S. L., McClelland, G. M., & Dulcan, M. K. (2004). Posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma in youth in juvenile detention. Archives of general psychiatry, 61(4), 403-410.

Bertram, R. M., & Dartt, J. L. (2009). Post traumatic stress disorder: A diagnosis for youth from violent, impoverished communities. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 18(3), 294-302.

Cohen, J. A., Berliner, L., & Mannarino, A. (2010). Trauma focused CBT for children with co-occurring trauma and behavior problems. Child abuse & neglect, 34(4), 215-224.

Coid, J. W., Ullrich, S., Keers, R., Bebbington, P., DeStavola, B. L., Kallis, C., ... & Donnelly, P. (2013). Gang membership, violence, and psychiatric morbidity. American journal of psychiatry, 170(9), 985-993.

Cuff, R., & Matheson, F.I. (2015). Women, trauma & incarceration: What they say, how we work.

Hankerson, S. H., Fenton, M. C., Geier, T. J., Keyes, K. M., Weissman, M. M., & Hasin, D. S. (2011). Racial differences in symptoms, comorbidity, and treatment for major depressive disorder among black and white adults. Journal of the National Medical Association, 103(7), 576-584.

Lindsay, G., Strand, S., & Davis, H. (2011). A comparison of the effectiveness of three parenting programmes in improving parenting skills, parent mental-well being and children's behaviour when implemented on a large scale in community settings in 18 English local authorities: the parenting early intervention pathfinder (PEIP). BMC Public Health, 11(1), 1-13.

Motley, R., & Banks, A. (2018). Black males, trauma, and mental health service use: A systematic review. Perspectives on social work: the journal of the doctoral students of the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work, 14(1), 4.

Overstreet, S., & Braun, S. (2000). Exposure to community violence and post‐traumatic stress symptoms: Mediating factors. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70(2), 263-271.

Rich, J. A., & Grey, C. M. (2005). Pathways to recurrent trauma among young black men: traumatic stress, substance use, and the "code of the street". American Journal of Public Health, 95(5), 816-824.

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Local gangs shaped my childhood. Growing up as a Black man in London, I found myself accustomed and affiliated to 'gang life'. I experienced firsthand the violence that gang-involved young adults are at increased risk of as victims, perpetrators and witnesses.

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Source A:                                                       Institutions and Industry

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Source A:                                                       Institutions and Industry

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BAFTA Awards: nominated and won by Top Boy.

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Source G:                        Politics and politicians

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Source G:                        Politics and politicians

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How Black, Asian and minority ethnic viewers (BAME) are reflected in PSBs and SOVDs.