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Even if Dominic Cummings does get revenge on Boris Johnson, it isn't guaranteed to bring him redemption - inews

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Even if Dominic Cummings does get revenge on Boris Johnson, it isn't guaranteed to bring him redemption - inews

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The positive feeling of redemption can often be undermined when individuals instead want to seek revenge

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#BWWPodcastUK - Black Women Working Podcast

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#BWWPodcastUK - Black Women Working Podcast

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http://www.tinyletter.com/BlackWomenWorking

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How trauma became the word of the decade - Vox

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How trauma became the word of the decade - Vox

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The very real psychiatric term has become so omnipresent in pop culture that some experts worry it's losing its meaning.

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Trauma-informed care in mental health: why we need it and what it should look like https://t.co/HGBlxk8feA

#TraumaInformedCare #MentalHealth

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Trauma-informed care in mental health: what should it look like

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Trauma-informed care - Aneta Zarska on research showing what TIC should look like, by asking people with experience of mental health difficulties.

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Trauma-informed care in mental health: why we need it and what it should look like https://t.co/HGBlxk8feA

#TraumaInformedCare #MentalHealth https://t.co/qnfKHITxM8

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From nightmares to PTSD: Covid stokes UK health care staff crisis - AFP News

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From nightmares to PTSD: Covid stokes UK health care staff crisis - AFP News

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Long shifts working in intensive care and the risk of catching Covid and passing it on to his wife and children left Joan Pons Laplana exhausted.

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PTSD: Ex-soldier builds castle as mental health rehab space

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An ex-soldier has built a castle in the south Wales hills as a space for veterans and others suffering with mental health issues.

Mike Allen, who served with 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh regiment until 2014, including in Afghanistan, suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder when he returned and found he wanted to live away from society.

In 2019, he set about building a castle or fort in the hills at Mynyddislwyn, near Blackwood, Caerphilly county, on donated land using 100 tonnes of locally-collected stone and wood from damaged trees.

Mike said building it had been a "big coping mechanism" for him and it has attracted some 2,500 visitors, including veterans, the bereaved and people with special needs.

"What we've found is they can go through large stories with a lot more ease when they are up there because the surroundings are so peaceful," he said.

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Ex-soldier builds castle as 'escape' from PTSD

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Mike Allen created the space as a "coping mechanism" and to help others with mental health issues.

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Look familiar? How rapid tests changed the pandemic

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Lateral flow tests are now part of life for much of the UK. Billions of pounds of public money have been spent on test kits. Has it all been worth it?

Earlier this week, 38-year-old Hailing Hackney unwrapped the last lateral flow test in her kitchen cupboard. "I was feeling tired, but then I'm always feeling tired," she says. "I saw my best friend over Christmas and her son had tested positive, so I thought I should just check."

Like so many others across the UK, she was surprised when a faint line started to appear on the white testing strip. Later that evening her symptoms began - a mild headache and a runny nose.

Hailing runs Sparkle Nails & Beauty in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. She had a full list of customers coming in for treatments after New Year and had to quickly rebook all of them.

It was just lucky I found out so quickly

Hailing Hackney
Nail bar owner

"I take two tests a week because I see so many people as part of my job," she says. "It was just lucky I found out so quickly."

The whole point of mass testing like this is to break chains of transmission - to keep Hailing away from her customers at a time when she might be infectious but have no obvious symptoms.

"I'm serious when I say they have been the single most powerful tool in reducing transmission of the virus," says Irene Petersen, professor of epidemiology at University College London.

The idea of population-wide Covid testing on this scale was first revealed in leaked documents in the autumn of 2020. The plan was to use millions of cheap, throwaway lateral flow tests that could give a result in 15 minutes, rather than the more sensitive PCR tests which had to be sent off and processed in a laboratory.

But Operation Moonshot - as it was called by the government - got off to a bumpy start. There was alarm about the rumoured £100bn price tag, while some of the early results of a large pilot in Liverpool raised questions about the accuracy of the tests themselves.

When twice-weekly rapid testing was rolled out in secondary schools in the spring of 2021, there were worries that large numbers of pupils would be incorrectly told they had the virus - a so-called "false positive" - and sent home. Some scientists said the school programme could do "more harm than good" and leaked emails claimed it could all be scaled back.

But data now suggests much of that concern was misplaced. Since March, 183,939 pupils in England have tested positive on a lateral flow test at home and then had a sample sent off to a laboratory for a follow-up PCR test. In total 89% of those swabs returned the same positive result.

The proportion of false positives does increase when the prevalence of the disease falls in society. But the weekly rate of those positive lateral flow tests later confirmed by PCR has never fallen below 50% and has been above 84% since the start of the school year in September.

No medical test - not even one conducted in a laboratory - can ever be 100% accurate. Some schooling was disrupted unnecessarily but - overall - those real-world results were better than some had first feared.

Alexander Edwards, associate professor in biomedical technology at the University of Reading, says it "quickly became clear" that if the tests were used as instructed, "you don't tend to get large numbers of false positives".

Get-out-of-jail free?

Gradually those same rapid lateral flow tests have become part of everyday life. To begin with they were rolled out in healthcare settings, workplaces and sporting events. Then in April, the programme was extended to the general public. Boxes of seven tests could be delivered free, or picked up from a pharmacy.

But false positives are not the only possible drawback with mass testing on this scale. Some scientists are concerned that the public are often far too trusting if their lateral flow test comes back negative.

"It is absolutely not a get-out-of-jail free card, and you do need to continue to take precautions like mask wearing and social distancing," says Prof Sheila Bird from the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge. "It is helping to weed out some, but certainly not all, of the true positives."

On social media over Christmas it wasn't hard to find posts from people who said they were clear on multiple rapid tests taken at home - even with Covid symptoms - only to test positive on a more sensitive PCR test processed in a laboratory.

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An analysis of the lateral flow kit used in Liverpool showed it only detected around half of people without symptoms who - on the same day - returned a positive PCR result. But those PCRs can pick up old genetic material from the virus left in the body even after the infectious period. Prof Petersen says that rapid lateral flow tests are far better at spotting the cases most likely to pass Covid on to someone else.

A peer-reviewed paper she co-authored in October found they were 80% effective at detecting any level of active Covid infection and even better at picking up the most infectious individuals.

Quite how well lateral flow kits perform against Omicron is still unclear. Experiments showed the main brands used in the UK did successfully detect all 15 of the samples infected with the new variant. But a small study published in the past week, and based on different kits used in the US, raised fresh concerns - finding that some Omicron cases could be infectious for several days before being detected by rapid tests using nasal swabs.

Scientists say the lesson is - if possible - to test just before you socialise and think of a negative lateral flow as a solid guide rather than something that can ever rule out a Covid infection.

Health authorities budgeted £4.7bn this financial year for mass testing in England with the bulk of that going to suppliers of the kits - most of which are manufactured in China. Whether all that money is worth it is something epidemiologists are likely to be arguing about for many years. Untangling the effects of rapid testing from all the other Covid measures - from mask wearing to self-isolation - is extremely difficult and open to some interpretation.

A recent analysis of the first Liverpool pilot, which has not yet been peer reviewed by other scientists, found that the early roll out of mass testing in the city was linked to a 32% fall in Covid hospital admissions, and relieved significant pressure on the NHS. Parts of that first pilot scheme have now become government policy - for example using daily rapid tests as an alternative to quarantine for some people.

Some scientists would like to see ministers go further and use lateral flows to completely replace expensive PCR lab tests - both for those with and without Covid symptoms.

"The PCR programme is such a complete waste of resources. It's there because it was the only thing we had at the beginning. It should be phased out sooner rather than later," says Prof Irene Petersen at UCL.

Others think that as the Omicron wave passes, it is time to wind down the mass testing programme completely.

Education secretary Nadim Zahawi told the BBC there are currently no plans to ask people to pay for lateral flow tests, amid speculation that the free service could be scrapped if Omicron infections decline. He said an extra 425 million tests are due to be made available this month with further shipments expected after that.

Allyson Pollock, professor of public health at Newcastle University, says tests should be part of a clinical diagnosis or targeted at places like care homes and hospitals, where people are working with vulnerable groups.

"The cost of mass testing has been staggering," she says. "The best advice is if you have symptoms is to simply stay at home until you are better, and that way you will avoid spreading Covid, flu and a host of other viral infections.

"All tests create harms. Tests can give false reassurance on the one hand, and on the other can create false alarms and unnecessary isolation."

Is testing here to stay?

Whatever happens to the pandemic itself though, scientists think mass testing may have opened the door to other more efficient ways of detecting disease in the near future. A new generation of lateral flow tests are going into production - designed to detect not just Covid but different forms of influenza and other viruses at the same time.

Some scientists think we could all soon store a supply of rapid tests or "viral thermometers" in the medicine cabinet to help diagnose sickness far more quickly.

"We have drugs which can reduce the severity of influenza, for example, but they need to be taken very soon after infection," says Prof Alex Edwards. "You might be able to have a system where a vulnerable person can get tested and get the drugs immediately. It would be great to see a positive outcome like that from this very negative pandemic."

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Look familiar? How rapid tests changed the pandemic

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Lateral flow tests are now part of UK life, with billions spent on test kits. Has it been worth it?

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UK Covid death toll has passed 175,000, says ONS

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The UK's main statistical body has reported more than 175,000 deaths involving Covid since the start of the pandemic.

The ONS has reported 176,035 deaths where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate since March 2020. The figure differs significantly from the government's official count - which exceeded 150,000 deaths over the weekend - which requires patients to have had a positive test within 28 days before their death.

The ONS figures are considered to be more accurate but because of delays in death registration they are not as up-to-date as the government figures. The 175,000 total was passed on 20 December 2021, but owing to these time lags, the ONS figures have only now been confirmed.

This latest release takes the 2021 death toll to 81,037, down from 94,998 in 2020. However, the figures for more recent dates may still be revised upwards, especially because the number of deaths registered in the last week of the year will have been affected by the Christmas and Boxing Day bank holidays, which means they will not yet have been recorded.

A total of 3,891 people have died of Covid since the first case of the Omicron variant was discovered in the UK on 27 November. The average lag between infection and death is 16-18 days and can be up to eight weeks, according to the ONS, so the Omicron death toll may increase further in coming weeks.

The number of deaths this winter has not yet come near the peak of previous waves despite a huge surge in Omicron cases. On 29 December, 246,000 new cases were confirmed, smashing previous records and taking the seven-day average figure to 192,000.

There were more than 7,000 deaths in November and December last year, compared with about 30,000 in November and December 2020.

Kit Yates, co-director of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath, said: "We can expect both of these [death] figures [from the ONS and the government's official count] to continue to rise for some time, reflecting the huge rises in infections that we've seen and the fact that cases have moved up the age ranges impacting more vulnerable older people.

"Even so, we wouldn't expect to see deaths get close to the disastrous figures we saw at this time last year and during the first wave, when we saw over 9,000 deaths a week. In large part this is due to the vaccination/booster programme, which has delivered good protection against severe disease and death.

Of the deaths registered in the last week of December in England and Wales, 582 mentioned Covid, or 6.9% of all deaths, a decrease on the previous week when there were 852 deaths, or 6.5% of deaths in the week to Christmas Eve.

Between the beginning of the pandemic and the end of 2021 there has been a crude Covid death rate of 262 deaths per 100,000 people in the UK, rising to 291 per 100,000 population in Wales, home to the highest proportion of people aged 65-plus of the UK's constituency countries.

The figures come as the government is considering cutting the mandatory isolation period for people infected with Covid-19 from seven to five days after a number of sectors have been affected by staff shortages.

Boris Johnson said: "The thing to do is to look at the science. We are looking at that and we will act according to the science."

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UK Covid death toll has passed 175,000, says ONS

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Figure of 176,035 differs significantly from government's official count - which exceeded 150,000 at weekend

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London hospital boss says he may lose 1,000 staff over Covid vaccine mandate

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A London hospital leader has said he may lose 1,000 staff to the Covid vaccination mandate, but hopes admissions from the Omicron wave have peaked in in the capital.

The chief executive of King's College hospital NHS trust, Prof Clive Kay, told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme that his organisation was working urgently to encourage staff to come forward for vaccination to avoid redeploying or losing them.

About 10% of the 14,000 staff at King's College hospital are yet to be fully vaccinated ahead of a mandate for all NHS staff who work directly with patients that comes into force on 1 April.

Losing more than 1,000 staff would be the most extreme outcome and there had been an increase in the number of people who still required vaccination coming forward, Kay said.

"I don't want, at this stage, to predict or give any numbers. We're having conversations with staff, line managers are having conversations with staff, we have a helpline," he said. "Ultimately if individuals choose not to, it's their choice, their personal choice.

The impact would depend on which areas the unvaccinated staff worked in, he said. "We'll have to address that as we pass through the coming weeks. We will re-organise as we need to."

He said respiratory wards were busy but less so than during previous waves, and that he hoped the case numbers in his hospital from the latest Omicron wave had peaked. "I hope we can see the finishing line ... but I'm not certain," he said.

A critical care consultant at King's College hospital told the health secretary, Sajid Javid, during a visit to the facility that he refused to be vaccinated because he believed he had immunity from a previous infection with the virus. Steve James said he faced dismissal if he did not come forward for vaccination.

Kay did not comment on the case, but said the hospital was doing all it could to encourage staff. "We we must treat them with kindness, with compassion," he said. "We must give them every single opportunity to talk through if they don't want the vaccine, if they'd like to talk, if they need any help or clarification but ultimately, it is their choice."

He also predicted that some doctors would leave the profession as a result of the unprecedented strain of working through the pandemic. "Some of the things they have seen and experienced and the things they've had to go through, I think will last a very, very long time, if not forever," he said. "I do fear that some of them will decide that, actually, they don't want to stay."

His comments came as the statistician Prof David Spiegelhalter said it was hard to envisage another big rise in Covid intensive care admissions and deaths.

"The cases are not going up as fast as they were and may have stabilised over the whole country, but [they are] at very high levels and they're not going to come down rapidly," he told Times Radio.

Spiegelhalter, from the University of Cambridge, said daily infection rates could still hit 500,000, which would have had a devastating effect without the protection afforded by vaccines.

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London hospital boss says he may lose 1,000 staff over Covid vaccine mandate

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Head of King's College NHS trust concerned that 10% of 14,000 workers are not fully vaccinated

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Covid: UK records more than 150,000 deaths

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More than 150,000 people in the UK have now died within 28 days of a positive Covid test since the pandemic began.

A further 313 deaths were reported in the government's daily figures on Saturday, taking the total to 150,057.

The UK is the seventh country to pass 150,000 reported deaths, after the US, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.

The prime minister said every death "is a profound loss to the friends and communities affected and my thoughts and condolences are with them".

Boris Johnson added that coronavirus had taken a "terrible toll on our country" and "our way out of this pandemic is for everyone to get their booster or their first or second dose if they haven't yet".

Some 146,390 new cases have been recorded in the UK, with the more transmissible Omicron variant driving a surge in infections.

The number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test has also begun to rise, with the total of 1,271 in the past seven days up 38.3% on the previous week.

The impact of vaccinations means Covid hospital admissions and deaths are not rising as quickly as during previous waves.

However, hospitals remain under pressure due to rising admissions and Covid-related staff absences.

In Scotland the number of people in hospital with Covid has increased by more than 50% in the last week, according to new figures.

Camilla Claridge, from Oxfordshire, lost her grandmother to Covid in February last year and on the night of her funeral, she learned that her father was also dying with the virus.

"We buried nan and we came home from the funeral and then we were woken at one o'clock in the morning from a phone call to say that it was time to think about saying our goodbyes," she said.

"It was horrendous. The ICU, you walk in and there's just beds of people lined up with machines breathing for them.... I didn't even recognise [my dad] because of all the tubes."

"It's hard to even imagine 150,000 people, families who have gone through what we're going through," she added.

Prof Andrew Hayward, who is a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said the death toll was "absolutely tragic".

"I think we could have done better," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. "I think some of the deaths are even more tragic for the fact that many of them were avoidable if we had acted earlier in the first and second wave."

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described the news as "a dark milestone for our country".

"Our thoughts are with all those who have lost someone, and we thank everyone supporting the vaccination effort," he wrote on Twitter.

"We must ensure the public inquiry provides answers and that lessons are learned."

The prime minister has promised to launch an independent public inquiry into the government's handling of the pandemic in the spring of this year.

Jo Goodman, co-founder of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign, said the "country needs answers as to why we have suffered one of the highest global death tolls".

"This is ever more urgent as deaths from the Omicron variant continue to surge, with little apparently being done to address this. The public inquiry cannot begin its work soon enough," she added.

Official figures count coronavirus deaths in different ways.

The Office for National Statistics records the number of deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned as a cause on the death certificate, even if the person had not been tested for the virus, with a total of 173,248 deaths recorded up to 24 December.

In January 2021, the UK was the first European nation and fifth country to pass 100,000 reported Covid deaths.

Six weeks later the UK had seen another 25,000 deaths.

But the combined effect of vaccine rollout and lockdown slowed the growth of the death toll throughout the rest of the year.

The UK's reported Covid death rate is 225 deaths per 100,000 people. By this measure, it has the 28th highest reported figure of any country, according to Johns Hopkins University.

It's almost a year since the UK recorded 100,000 deaths. Most of those came in two waves - a sharp sudden surge in the spring followed by a slow, sustained rise in the autumn and winter of 2020 into 2021, largely before vaccines were available.

On 8 December 2020, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan made history by being the first person to receive a Covid jab as part of the UK's national rollout.

Vaccines have been the real success story of the pandemic, weakening the link between infections and serious illness and deaths from the virus. But some fatalities are still inevitable.

Today, the total number of deaths in the UK stands at more than 150,000. It is a sobering reminder of why societies cannot ignore Covid. It hasn't gone away.

A government spokesman said: "Every death from this virus is a tragedy and our sympathies are with everyone who has lost loved ones.

"We are thankful for the collective national effort and the hard work of frontline health and social care staff and volunteers for administering vaccines to tens of millions of people and keeping people safe. Their tireless efforts have saved thousands of lives."

However, he added "the pandemic is not over" and urged people to "play their part" by getting vaccinated.

It comes after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said a fourth Covid jab was not needed for most people yet.

Data suggests that three months after getting a booster dose, protection against hospital admission remains at about 90% for people aged 65 and over.

The JCVI said the priority therefore remained to get first, second and third doses to people who have not already had them.

The prime minister has said he hopes England can "ride out" the current wave of infections without further restrictions, although he acknowledged parts of the NHS would feel "temporarily overwhelmed".

England is currently under Plan B restrictions, which includes mandatory face masks in most public indoor spaces, Covid passes for entry to some large venues and advice to work from home where possible.

We have gathered tributes to more than 770 of those who have died with coronavirus. Below are words of remembrance from friends, family and colleagues.

The tributes are displayed at random, which means that you will see different faces each time you visit this page.

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Covid: UK records more than 150,000 deaths

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The UK is the seventh country to pass this number, after the US, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.

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You're not doomed to get Omicron - by Erin Kissane

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There's a ton we still don't know about Omicron, but we're starting to build a solid picture of what it looks like when it hits US and UK communities. I'm sending this without proofing it because it looks like we're likely to lose power from today's round of gale warnings, so please forgive any howlers.

First, a quick summary of where we are:

1. Despite a testing capacity crunch, the US recorded more than 4 million official cases in the past seven days. Our seven-day average is now more than double the peak of last winter's massive surge. The UK recorded about 1.3 million cases over the same period.

2. In the UK, where vaccination rates are quite high, Omicron is about one third as likely to put people in the hospital than Delta. Emergency room visits are also reduced with Omicron, but more modestly. This matches up well with hospitalization data from South Africa. In the US, there are about 121k people hospitalized with covid, and that figure looks likely to keep rising toward last winter's peak of about 140K people. We're already over the summer's Delta-driven hospitalization peak. Omicron isn't putting nearly as high a proportion of people in the ICU as previous variants have, but the absolute numbers are still straining many hospitals. (If you're in the US, you can look up your local and regional ICU situation here.)

3. Many people who are unvaccinated, elderly, immunocompromised, or otherwise vulnerable are getting really ill, and a lot of other people are getting sick enough that they need a couple of days on an IV under observation to pull through. Healthcare workers, who have put their physical and mental health on the line to fight back wave after wave of covid, are getting sick. The result isn't something we like to talk about, but where the need for care overwhelms the pool of available caregivers, patients (and healthcare workers) suffer.

Each of us will have a different experience of the current surge based on where we live, what vulnerabilities and protections affect us, and how we think about risk. But even so, there are some hopeful signs that affect just about everyone.

It's really easy to feel fatalistic about getting covid right now-I absolutely did at the beginning of the Omicron outbreak. But although the variant is super transmissible, it's increasingly clear that we're not all doomed to get it right now.

The data so far shows that Omicron outbreaks spike extremely quickly and then burn through and start subsiding. The risk of transmission is high during outbreak peaks, but people with boosters (and those with recently completed two-shot mRNA series) stand quite a good chance of avoiding Omicron infection, especially if they're able to wear N95 or equivalent masks, maintain good ventilation, and cut out non-essential activities for a few weeks.

If you can do that for just a few weeks while Omicron blows through your area, your individual risk will start to decline. And at the same time, hospitals will start getting breathing room back, so if someone in your family does happen to get sick enough to need an IV or oxygen, they'll be able to get it. (And I say this a lot, but if your area is experiencing an Omicron surge, this is a great time to drive carefully and postpone risky activities.)

At the same time, healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, and frontline workers of every other kind can cut their risk and still face overwhelming viral loads. Hundreds of thousands of kids too young to be vaccinated-or whose parents won't allow them to be vaccinated-are going to be exposed. Many people with disabilities and chronic conditions that make them extra-vulnerable are going to get covid and need medical care. Some of these people are going to need hospital beds over the next month or so, and it's on the rest of us to try to keep those beds open for them if we can.

One of the most psychologically difficult parts of the pandemic's first year was that even for those spared serious illness or deaths in the family, the lockdowns and school closures that we expected to be sprints turned out to be more like ultra-marathons combined with zombie attacks. Here is the good news: From everything we've seen in early outbreaks, Omicron is not that. Not in South Africa, not in London, and probably not in the US. As outbreaks light up throughout the US, our national numbers will probably rise for awhile yet, but national trends don't really matter that much to our individual experiences, and we can hope to see cases to start dropping yet this month in early Omicron hotspots.

This matters a lot. Where schools are closing because too many teachers and staff are sick to run the school, we are not looking at month after month of zoom hell. Omicron seems to be the thing that we expected covid to be when it first arrived in North America and Europe-something we can get through if we buckle down and take care of each other for a few weeks while outbreaks spike and subside. And despite governmental blunders, vaccination rates keep rising, the testing crisis is eventually going to ease as supply rises to meet demand, and promising new therapeutics are on the way.

None of this is easy. We've all been through various kinds of collective and individual trauma for two years, and going back through things we believed were behind us feels awful. But there are lights ahead and a lot of people trying to take care of each other no matter where we are.

Love,

Erin

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This surge is probably a sprint, not the kind of marathon that's worn us all to shreds

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More than a feeling: why our emotions are crucial to the way we think

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More than a feeling: why our emotions are crucial to the way we think | Leonard Mlodinow

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Emotions enhance our process of reasoning and aid decision-making, says the author and physicist Leonard Mlodinow

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Burnley's Pastor 🤬: ‘If I lock this door, he dies’

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Every seven seconds - on average - a person was referred for NHS mental health support in England in September. In Burnley, that comes as no surprise to Pastor Mick - a drug-dealer-turned-lifesaver during Covid - who each day meets people struggling to survive.

This article contains several references to suicide.

Joanne was shaken to her core 18 months ago when her partner, Robert, died suddenly.

"It feels like it's my fault, because I didn't get the help quick enough for him," she says.

Robert's mental health deteriorated during the first lockdown. He couldn't cope with being stuck at home and developed suicidal thoughts.

Joanne says she rang a mental health team two weeks before his death asking for help - and was told someone would ring Robert the next day. But she says the call never came.

Two weeks later, Robert took his own life.

Joanne is speaking to us in Pastor Mick's new home in the heart of Burnley town centre - a former gym that closed during the pandemic. The building has been reborn as his church - and is called the Church on the Street.

It's a big space. The original showers, lockers and mirrors are still there, but there are crucial new additions. There's a giant wooden cross by an altar and four new office rooms in the corner - used as a private quiet space for qualified mental health counsellors.

It was Joanne who found Robert's body. Later that day, she got a call from the mental health team she'd contacted a fortnight before.

"They were like: 'Can I speak to Robert?'

"I said, 'He's not here no more... he's done the damage.'"

Joanne says the woman on the phone apologised and said they had been very busy. "She said 'I'm so sorry to hear that, I wish I could have got back sooner.'"

Although Joanne doesn't blame the mental health team, she believes Robert could have been saved with early help. "I think he'd have been all right - he'd have still been here."

More than a year on, Joanne is still haunted by death. Each word brings back painful memories, but she wants to share how she is feeling. "I can see the flashbacks. I can see him every day in my head - when I get up, when I go to sleep."

She says one day everything just became too much for her. "I rang Pastor Mick and he told me to come down. He's been great."

Church on the Street has been Joanne's salvation. She says it's a place where she and her family feel safe - and she's not the only one. Hundreds of others come here each week looking for hope.

Sadly, Joanne's story is one Pastor Mick is all too familiar with. When Robert died, he says, two other young men took their lives in streets close to Robert's home. At the time, Mick was regularly handing out food parcels in a car park in Burnley.

"I just couldn't believe what was happening. I knew I'd have to do something more and that I needed somewhere - a home - to deal with the mess and devastation left behind by Covid."

Inside Mick's church - we spent a month there on and off - there's a friendly open-door policy. Mick wants others who have had troubles to find hope - just like he has. In his 20s, Mick was a drug dealer consumed by cocaine and violence. He has now found faith and feeds the poor.

The church is expanding quickly - it has its own food and clothes banks. Mick also liaises with the police, housing organisations, the local council and drug rehabilitation services.

Watch - The Cost of Covid: A Year on the Front Line

"What we are doing here is free. The hot food is free, the coffee is free, the tea is free, the counselling is free," he explains. "We are keeping people alive. Sometimes it just puts it off for another day, but it's another day of life, a lot of them die."

Mick is particularly concerned about the lack of access to mental health care for the most vulnerable - people who find it difficult to see their GPs, let alone get access to a bed in a support facility.

"The help available is negligible, the mental health system is on its backside."

Mick blames the Covid lockdowns and the many months of restrictions for making issues worse. In Burnley, he hears stories of people who, in isolation, have spiralled down - turning to drugs and alcohol.

In September 2021, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust says it recorded the highest monthly number of so-called "Section 136" detentions in its area. That's when police detain a person and take them to a place of safety if they appear to have a mental health disorder. There were 196 - more than six a day.

In response, the trust says it has expanded its street triage services for people in crisis - in partnership with the police and ambulance services.

Mick says every other person he meets is struggling with a mental health issue - whether it be anxiety, paranoia or just being unable to cope with everyday life. After a busy day, he closes the church - but then, just before he locks up, his phone rings.

It's another person in need of help - called John. We can make out some of the conversation. He sounds manic, lost and angry and is threatening to kill himself. He believes there has been a great injustice and people are out to get him.

Mick talks to John calmly and compassionately.

"Come and see me. I'm here, I'm waiting for you. There's a brew here for you, we can talk it through."

The deal has been agreed. John won't attempt to take his life and Mick will hang on for him.

"[If] I lock this door, he dies, that's a fact - so the door has to stay open."

When John arrives at the church, he's shouting, sweating and struggling to breathe. It's upsetting to see.

"I know who they are," he says, shaking uncontrollably. "They've been so horrible and nasty towards me. I've just had enough, it's been going on too long."

Mick gently guides him over to the middle of the room.

"Come on, I want you to take a deep breath," says Mick, holding John in his arms. "Take a really deep breath... All right... So tell me what the panic is?"

Fifteen minutes later, John is calmer. His breathing has stabilised and, with a cup of tea, he's eating a slice of warmed-up meat and potato pie. John tells us that just before his crisis he had called his GP panicking for a prescription - but had been told to call back in 48 hours.

John is thankful - there was nowhere else for him to go. "Nobody else has listened - he's the only one," he says pointing at Mick.

Mick says if it hadn't been for BBC reports on his charitable work at the end of 2020, many people in Burnley wouldn't know they could turn to him - and finding a home for his new church might not even have been possible.

"This place is breathing new life, it's helping people. The people who don't make it through the door die."

We catch up with John the next day. He's smiling and like a different person.

"You don't know what to think, what to do, who to speak to," he says. "People look at you like you belong in a lunatic asylum when you speak about your mental health."

But John also reveals he hasn't seen a GP all year and has lost faith in mental health care - describing it as "non-existent". Mick has referred John to the local mental health crisis team, but John has been unable to see them.

The Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust told us the use of its mental health urgent assessment centres from July to September 2021 was 75% higher than in the last three months of 2020. It also said that community mental health referrals in August this year - at nearly 600 per 100,000 adults - were nearly 50% higher than England's national average.

Those statistics will come as no surprise to Father Alex who, like Pastor Mick, we first met a year ago. In his church, St Matthew's, pews have been replaced by tables and chairs and a place to cook hot food for those in need.

"We have examples of people waiting 16 weeks when they're in crisis for mental health support," he tells us. "So people are being talked off bridges and given crisis care [phone] numbers."

Looking at Demi Lea and her two children - who have come for breakfast at St Matthew's - you'd never think they were struggling. But Demi Lea says she hasn't done a food shop for months and relies on food banks, charity, and handouts.

She first referred herself for mental health support at the end of 2020, got a phone consultation in June and is now on a waiting list for therapy. But in August, her mental health got even worse after the death of her grandmother - who she used to rely on for support.

"I haven't been able to get on top of things - financially it's been tough," she says. "I can barely function."

Since we met, Father Alex has managed to arrange counselling sessions for Demi Lea. She says she's extremely grateful.

Back at the Church on the Street, we sit down again with an exhausted Mick at the end of a busy day. We chat with him and his colleague Kev - a support worker - about the deaths of two young men, rumoured to have taken their own lives the night before. Mick and Kev are shocked but not surprised - although they caution against speculation.

As we talk, just like the night before, there are more emergencies. Over a 30-minute period, Mick gets three panicked phone calls.

The first is from a mum whose son ran away from home saying he was going to kill himself. The second is from another worried mum whose child is also having suicidal thoughts. Mick says the struggle for these families is to be seen quickly by professionals.

Then comes the third call.

If you've been affected by the issues raised in this report, details of organisations offering information and support for addiction and feelings of despair are available via BBC Action Line.

"I can't cope with life, I just don't want to live any more," says a woman's softly spoken voice. "Nobody has listened, I just want to go to sleep and not wake up."

Mick, head in hands, tries to reassure her.

"I know that feeling," says Mick, "but there is a light that is stronger than the darkness. We'll get you in here on Monday, we'll see you."

He then asks if she has taken any medication. "Yes" comes the reply - enough for an overdose. Kev dials for an ambulance straight away on his phone, while Mick keeps her conscious and talking on his.

"I just don't want to live, Mick, I'm in a dark tunnel and can't get out," says the woman. He pleads with her. "There's always hope. Make sure your doors are unlocked."

Mick stays on the line until the paramedics arrive and make sure she is safe. But how has he ended up taking emergency calls? What happens when he can't answer the phone? Is this more than he can cope with?

He tells us there was a missed call one night when he was asleep - and the caller had left a worrying message. "If you don't answer the phone, I'm going to kill myself."

Unfortunately, that person did take their own life, Mick explains - his voice breaking with emotion.

A few days later when we arrive at the church one morning, we meet a man called Robbie who's 29. He has been on the streets all night, but is now sitting in the office going through his possessions - the clothes on his back and a couple of see-through plastic bags.

He's showing Mick the medication he's been prescribed. During lockdown Robbie struggled and began hearing voices. One told him to jump from a well-known bridge in Burnley. Police managed to get to Robbie just in time to stop him and he was admitted to a psychiatric unit.

Since then, he's received six months of expert care at several psychiatric units in Lancashire - something he says has worked well. But yesterday, he was released without accommodation arranged. He says he was told to head to Burnley Borough Council's housing department, but by the time he got there it was closed.

"I just ended up walking around town all night and then as soon as this place opened I just came to Pastor Mick," says Robbie. "Without this place I'd be dead."

Mick is incandescent. He's angry that the money spent on Robbie's care has now been wasted. "He's been released from a psychiatric unit to the street with enough drugs to kill an elephant. It's a tragedy, it doesn't need to be like this."

Robbie begins to get upset. "I feel confusion, suicidal - it's like they've designed it to make me do it because they don't want me here no more. But I'm just trying to better myself. I just want a better life, that's all I want. I'm sick of this."

The next night, Church on the Street paid for Robbie to stay in a hotel. The following night he was placed by Burnley council in a shared room in a B&B above a pub. But within 72 hours he had been readmitted to a psychiatric unit.

During our visits to the church, we talk to Mick's volunteers about the struggle to get mental health support for those who desperately need it - including David Allen, a mental health counsellor with more than 20 years' experience.

"It's not just here in Burnley, it's all over the country. And the ones that suffer most are always at the bottom of the pile. They just feel left behind because they can't get any help." Many self-medicate - he says - with drugs and alcohol.

All of a sudden, in the street outside the church, there's another tense moment. Women scream after a man collapses. "He's OD'd. Help, he's overdosed outside."

Pastor Mick moves quickly. There's now quite a crowd gathered - with children circling on bikes. Two police community support officers are talking into their radios.

But Mick was the first on his hands and knees, talking to the unresponsive man and checking for a pulse. He rushes inside and asks Kev for the Naloxone, a medicine that rapidly reverses the effects of an opioid overdose - such as heroin.

By the time Mick gets back to the man - needle in hand - the panic is over. The emergency medication wasn't needed and the man is back on his feet. Nevertheless it was still a traumatic moment for Mick - and he becomes emotional.

"People don't like to see [moments like] that but that's the reality of every city and every town in this country," he says. "And I'm sorry if it offends people, but they're dying, and they can all be saved, every last one of them."

Pastor Mick and his colleagues are proud with what they have achieved this year - but they also fear what the pandemic might yet bring in terms of mental health problems.

Health economist Dr Luke Munford - from the University of Manchester - says an alarm bell is ringing in many poorer areas of the UK. Urgent and emergency mental health referrals to crisis teams in East Lancashire almost quadrupled when you compare July 2019 to July 2021 - he told us - but the picture is "similarly stark in other deprived parts of the country".

The Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust says it's receiving £11.6m of NHS funding over three years to help improve community mental health services.

Pastor Mick's transformation from violent drug dealer to lifesaver during a pandemic is profound - a personal redemption. "To be able to serve people who are dying has become the biggest privilege of my life," he says. "I feel the best I've ever felt in my life, I feel free. It's made me a better, stronger person - a softer, gentler person."

NHS England told us they urge anyone who requires help with mental health to come forward.

If you've been affected by the issues raised in this report, details of organisations offering information and support for addiction and feelings of despair are available via BBC Action Line.

Photographs by Phill Edwards

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Burnley's Pastor Mick: 'If I lock this door, he dies'

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Emergency mental health referrals are soaring in East Lancashire - and in Burnley, former drug dealer Pastor Mick is offering a lifeline to those who can't always get the support they need.

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200,000 UK children could be made homeless this winter, warns Shelter

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200,000 UK children could be made homeless this winter, warns Shelter

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Charity says that ‘Thousands of families are teetering on a cliff-edge’

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Charity says 16,000 UK children could be exposed to domestic abuse at Christmas

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Almost 16,000 children in the UK could be exposed to domestic abuse this Christmas, a leading research charity has estimated, calling on ministers to commit to funding specialist support services in the new year.

The tragic cases of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, two young children murdered in their homes, have recently cast a spotlight on the risks of domestic abuse to children.

The Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), a charity that advocates effective early intervention to improve the lives of children, said the Christmas period could be particularly stressful for families, which may lead to more domestic abuse.

It is estimated that 3.2% of under-11s and 2.5% of 11- to 17-year-olds are exposed to domestic violence, which EIF said equated to 15,948 over the two-week festive period, which would be a rise from 15,006 the previous Christmas.

The Home Office is expected to publish a domestic abuse strategy in 2022, after the Domestic Abuse Act received royal assent this year.

Dr Jo Casebourne, the chief executive of the EIF, said: "Given the numbers of children affected by domestic abuse, it is vital that we fully understand how best to help them.

"The domestic abuse strategy must focus on improving services for child victims of domestic abuse. There are longstanding gaps in provision for families, including in relation to the availability of prevention services and long-term therapeutic support, support for babies and very young children and culturally specific interventions for minority groups.

"That's why we are calling on safeguarding minister Rachel Maclean to ensure that the domestic abuse strategy includes a commitment to fund and evaluate the most promising support, in order to build crucial evidence of what works for families affected by domestic abuse."

Early in December, the case of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes shocked the country. The boy was subjected to a sadistic campaign of cruelty by his stepmother and father. He was physically assaulted, poisoned with salt and forced to stand in isolation for up to 14 hours a day in the months leading up to his death.

Emma Tustin, 32, was sentenced to life with a minimum of 29 years for the murder of Arthur, while his father, 29-year-old Thomas Hughes, was given 21 years in prison for manslaughter.

The national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel announced it would examine the circumstances leading up to Arthur's death.

Findings from a report on the death of 16-month-old Star Hobson will also feed into the national review.

Star suffered weeks of "neglect, cruelty and injury" from her mother's partner, 28-year-old Savannah Brockhill. The toddler died of cardiac arrest after being punched or kicked by Brockhill in September 2020 using "massive force" on a par associated with "a road traffic accident". Brockhill was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years, while Star's mother, Frankie Smith, was jailed for eight years after she was found guilty of causing or allowing the toddler's death but cleared of murder and manslaughter charges.

The EIF said children who had experienced domestic abuse were significantly more likely to experience abuse in their own adult relationships, to misuse drugs or alcohol, and to have lower levels of wellbeing.

In a report earlier this year, the charity identified a significant lack of evidence on what support works to effectively help children who have experienced, or who are at risk of experiencing, domestic abuse.

The safeguarding minister, Maclean, said: "Nobody should feel unsafe in their own home and we are determined to ensure all victims of domestic abuse, including children, get the support they need.

"That is why this year we are providing over £3m to specialist services for children experiencing domestic abuse which is enabling a range of therapeutic support and early intervention schemes for children impacted by this devastating crime.

"The new Domestic Abuse Act is fundamentally transforming our response as it recognises children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right and our upcoming domestic abuse strategy will set out our plan to tackle all forms of this crime, including that experienced by children, in due course."

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Charity says 16,000 UK children could be exposed to domestic abuse at Christmas

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Early Intervention Foundation calls on ministers to commit to funding specialist support services in new year

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How to mentally prepare for the prospect of another lockdown - New Statesman

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Watch: George Bonanno joins Sophie Mcbain to discuss how to mentally prepare for the prospect of another lockdown.

Maybe you are finding it hard to even read stories about the new omicron variant. Maybe the memory of Britain's last winter lockdown and catastrophic second wave still feels too raw. Maybe you're healthy, wealthy and lucky enough to have had a "good pandemic" and so you wonder why you nonetheless feel so bad. You've been burnt-out and exhausted for months, and now there's this new sense of dread. Maybe you're wondering if you'll be able to cope with another peak in cases, new restrictions - another lockdown, even.

George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, has spent four decades studying how people respond to loss and trauma. While studying bereavement in the Nineties he noticed that researchers focused almost exclusively on bad outcomes: people studied those who suffered prolonged, debilitating grief, or conditions such as PTSD. But what about those people - the majority, in fact - who do not suffer long-term psychological damage, even after the most horrific events? Perhaps one of the most remarkable features of mankind is how often terrible adversity doesn't break us. Before it became a self-help buzzword (and later still, a dirty word in certain circles), Bonanno pioneered the study of resilience.

His latest book, The End of Trauma, draws on his work with 9/11 survivors and people who have suffered life-changing injuries to chart what defines resilience. What might his findings teach us about how to prepare for the next phase of the pandemic?

His first observation is that resilience is not a character trait, it's something you do. "We tend to assume that being resilient is a specific type. And they have four or five magic traits - you see this lots in the media," he told me, when we spoke by video call. "These different traits that are often bandied about in these articles and books, they are useful tools. So being optimistic is a useful tool. Being social and having connections with other people is definitely a useful tool. But... each time we found in our research, over and over, that these tools are simply not enough."

Instead, the key to resilience is flexibility. Resilient people adjust their coping mechanisms according to the challenge at hand. They might stay optimistic until they understand they need to accept very bad news. They are sociable until they realise they'd feel better with time alone. Resilience doesn't mean stoicism, or not feeling things, instead it means finding ways to process hard emotions and deal with the difficulty. And so, if you're feeling exhausted by the news, that doesn't mean you're not being resilient. "The pandemic has presented myriad challenges along the way. It's been two years of different kinds of challenges. And each time, we have to figure out: what's happening? What do I need to do to get through this? And that's why it's kind of exhausting - but that's what gets us through," Bonanno said.

Coping doesn't have to look good, Bonanno observed. Maybe some people can manage their pandemic emotions solely through virtuous activities like yoga or nature walks, but most of us will at times resort to alcohol or junk food or rubbish TV. Bonanno calls this "coping ugly", and he's all for it. "It doesn't have to be pretty what you do. It doesn't have to be considered by some expert to be the right thing to do. It just has to work," he said. "Most experts on coping won't say: "Have a drink tonight. I think you should drink a lot tonight!" ... But if it works for you, if it takes your mind off things, if it distracts you, if it makes you feel relaxed - do it."

He recommends taking a strategic approach to tackling our fears and anxieties. We should sift through our mess of ill-defined emotions and work out what our greatest concerns are: is it a sense of exhaustion? Financial anxiety? Health anxiety? And then you can begin to find ways to manage those concerns, adjusting strategies if they aren't working. Bonanno is a believer in self-talk, the cheesy but scientifically-supported practice of egging yourself on. Keep telling yourself it'll be OK - because the chances are, it will be.

If this doesn't feel like the magic bullet you're after, that might be because there are none. Often, there is no avoiding difficult emotions. But researchers at Bonanno's Loss, Trauma and Emotion Lab, who have been studying the psychological impact of the pandemic in the United States, China, Poland and Israel have found a familiar pattern: at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a rapid increase in people reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression. But over time, there was no rise in the number of people suffering from serious psychological conditions, and the majority of people continued to score low on measures of anxiety and depression. He doesn't see the pandemic as a "traumatic event"; for most people it has been experienced as a "mild to moderate chronic stressor", which means there are a number of people reporting slightly higher levels of anxiety and depression, or physical ailments associated with stress.

But, if motivational self-talk might be your thing, the lessons Bonanno has learned from a career studying resilience could be a good starting point. Right now, the news of a dangerous new variant might feel like too much to handle - "but that's how it felt from the beginning. And we got through it. We got through it again and again through each wave..." he told me. "We don't have much choice. So we'll get through it. We always do. Humans always do."

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How to mentally prepare for the prospect of another lockdown How to mentally prepare for the prospect of another lockdown

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Lessons in resilience from a professor of clinical psychology.

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My therapist told me that for those of us working to address inequities, biases and harms in academia, our work comes out of our rage, our pain, and our marginalization, and you can’t sit in that constantly like others in the academy. That shit hit my chest.

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Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D. (she/her)

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My therapist told me that for those of us working to address inequities, biases and harms in academia, our work comes out of our rage, our pain, and our marginalization, and you can’t sit in that constantly like others in the academy. That shit hit my chest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D. (she/her)

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Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D. (she/her)

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My therapist told me that for those of us working to address inequities, biases and harms in academia, our work comes out of our rage, our pain, and our marginalization, and you can’t sit in that constantly like others in the academy. That shit hit my chest.
— Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D. (she/her) (@adapperprof) December 6, 2021

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My therapist told me that for those of us working to address inequities, biases and harms in academia, our work comes out of our rage, our pain, and our marginalization, and you can’t sit in that constantly like others in the academy. That shit hit my chest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.includes.users[].name
Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D. (she/her)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
My therapist told me that for those of us working to address inequities, biases and harms in academia, our work comes out of our rage, our pain, and our marginalization, and you can’t sit in that constantly like others in the academy. That shit hit my chest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
My therapist told me that for those of us working to address inequities, biases and harms in academia, our work comes out of our rage, our pain, and our marginalization, and you can’t sit in that constantly like others in the academy. That shit hit my chest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.author.name
Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D. (she/her)

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Life after death: how the pandemic has transformed our psychic landscape

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e have been asked to write about the future, the afterlife of the pandemic, but the future can never be told. This at least was the view of the economist John Maynard Keynes, who was commissioned to edit a series of essays for the Guardian in 1921, as the world was rebuilding after the first world war. The future is "fluctuating, vague and uncertain", he wrote later, at a time when the mass unemployment of the 1930s had upended all confidence, the first stage on a road to international disaster that could, and could not, be foreseen. "The senses in which I am using the term [uncertain]," he said, "is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of interest 20 years hence, or the obsolescence of a new invention, or the position of private wealth-owners in the social system in 1970. About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know."

This may always be the case, but the pandemic has brought this truth so brutally into our lives that it threatens to crush the best hopes of the heart, which always look beyond the present. We are being robbed of the illusion that we can predict what will happen in the space of a second, a minute, an hour or a day. From one moment to the next, the pandemic seems to turn and point its finger at anyone, even at those who believed they were safely immune. The distribution of the virus and vaccination programme in different countries has been cruelly unequal, but as long as Covid remains a global presence, waves of increasing severity will be possible anywhere and at any moment in time. The most deadly pandemic of the 20th century, the Spanish flu at the end of the first world war, went through wave after wave and lasted for nearly four years. Across the world, people are desperate to feel they have turned a corner, that an end is in sight, only to be faced with a future that seems to be retreating like a vanishing horizon, a shadow, a blur. Nobody knows, with any degree of confidence, what will happen next. Anyone claiming to do so is a fraud.

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At such a time, only so much faith can be placed even in the governments who have shown the surest touch in dealing with the pandemic. Anyone living under regimes whose acts have felt measured and thoughtful has watched with dismay the death-dealing denials of national leaders from India to Brazil. No country is exempt, which is just one reason why the monopoly of vaccinations by the privileged countries is so manifestly self-defeating. If the wretched of the earth are not protected, then no one is. An ethical principle - one that, in an ideal world, should always apply - is pushing to the fore, taking on an unmistakable if ghostly shape. Nobody can save themselves, certainly not for ever, at the cost of anybody else.

In the UK, we legitimately rail against an incompetent government whose repeated refusal to take measures called for by its scientific advisers has given us one of the highest Covid death tolls of the western world. It is guilty of negligence, but of also violating the unspoken contract between government and governed, by leaving the people alone with their fear. Though officially denied, the policy at the outset of the pandemic and reviewed this summer, seems to have been " herd immunity". If the idea has been so disturbing, it is not just because it runs the risk of a virus run rampant and mutating into vaccine-resistant variants, or because of the sinister undercover calculations of the acceptable level of the dead that it entails. Perhaps even more distressing, the avalanche of deaths that it appeared to sanction reminds us of the reality that death can happen at any time and eventually comes for us all. "Let the bodies pile high," words allegedly spoken (though officially denied) by Boris Johnson, have lingered in the atmosphere and leave any vestiges of safety in shreds. A stalled economy, whose serious consequences must indeed be recognised, is - or so we were officially told - more alarming than mass deaths.

Sigmund Freud once stated that no one believes in their own death. In the unconscious, there is a blank space where knowledge of this one sure thing about our futures should be. If the pandemic has changed life for ever, it might therefore be because that inability to countenance death - which may seem to be the condition of daily sanity - has been revealed for the delusion it always is. To be human, in modern western cultures at least, is to push the knowledge of death away for as long as we can. "There used to be no house," the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin wrote in his 1936 essay The Storyteller, "hardly a room, in which someone had not once died." In modern life, on the other hand, he argued, dying had been pushed beyond the perceptual realm of the living, although his diagnosis did not of course include the destitute nations or anticipate the impending war.

In the midst of a pandemic, death cannot be exiled to the outskirts of existence. Instead, it is an unremitting presence that seems to trail from room to room. One of the as yet unanswered questions of the present moment is how soon the vaccine rollout, among the privileged nations, will allow hospitals to return once and for all to curing and caring for life rather than preparing for death, so that doctors and nurses will no longer be faced with the inhuman choice between cancer and Covid. "Not today," one palliative care nurse found herself saying in the midst of the first wave, to patients cut off from their loved ones, the terror visible in their eyes, when they asked her if they were going to die. "Not today" - she did not even pretend to know more.

hat on earth, we might then ask, does the future consist of once the awareness of death passes a certain threshold and breaks into our waking dreams? What, then, is the psychic time we are living? How can we prepare - can we prepare - for what is to come? If the uncertainty strikes at the core of inner life, it also has a political dimension. Every claim for justice relies on belief in a possible future, even when - or rather especially when - we feel the planet might be facing its demise. This is all the more visibly the case since the pandemic has allowed the bruises of racial, sexual and economic inequality in the modern world to rise mercilessly to the surface of our social arrangements for everyone, unavoidably, to see.

The misery of impoverished peoples, black men gunned down by police on the streets, women trapped in their homes during lockdown, assaulted and murdered by their partners - all these realities, each with its history of racial and sexual violence, are pressing harder on public consciousness, as they move from the sidelines on to the front page. The psychological terrain is starting to shift. Alongside the terror, and at least partly in response, a renewed form of boldness, itself relying on longstanding traditions of protest, has entered the stage - a new claim on the future, we might say. One by one, people are calling out the systemic forms of discrimination that are so often passed off as the norm. People will no longer accept denials that the problem exists, such as the UK government-commissioned Sewell report, published in March, which rejected the fact of institutional racism; or tolerate the more deeply entrenched hatreds, as expressed in the visceral rage and threats against the marchers of Black Lives Matter; or leave unchallenged the studied indifference towards injustice that makes people turn aside and casually assume that this is just how the world is and always will be.

Volunteers helping at a hospital morgue during the pandemic in Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images

Meanwhile, it becomes more and more obvious that endless growth and accumulation of wealth involves an exploitation of humans and resources that is destroying the planet. First, in the pandemic, caused by the virus crossing the barrier between humans and other animals, which many scientists believe was caused by interference in the food chain. This in itself is a consequence of large-scale industrial farming and the wildlife trade, which are boosting the production of deadly pathogens. Second, in the bodies of people in flight from war zones, washing up on the shores of the so-called "developed" nations. Then, in the droughts, floods, wildfires, superstorms, heatwaves, earthquakes and hurricanes, under pressure of climate disaster, as if life on the planet had already reached the end of days. "We were terrified of this new disease," said Maheshi Ramasami, senior clinical researcher on the Oxford AstraZeneca team, who recently described their slow realisation of what they were facing. "There was one moment when somebody said to me, 'Is this what the end of the world feels like?'"

Today, everything is telling us that we cannot go on making all the bad decisions that have been made in the name of progress. Being driven - working harder and harder, making more and more money - is not a virtue or some kind of ethical principle to adhere to, but a sure sign of greed, panic and decay. Shooting yourself into outer space, as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have raced against each other to do, is a narcissistic sideshow put on by obscenely wealthy men. That they are men is surely key (the last gasp of the phallus and all that). The sky is no limit. "Expansion is everything," wrote Cecil Rhodes, mining magnate and prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896, "I would annex the planets if I could."

Rhodes advised the British government that the export of instruments of violence to Africa in order to secure their investments was a holy duty. He also passed laws to drive black people off their land, limiting the areas where they could then settle. The laws he put in place are considered by many historians to have provided a foundation for what later became apartheid. Rhodes' statue at the University of Cape Town was brought down by student protests in one of the most resonant political actions of the times, but the one outside Oriel College in Oxford is still standing. Either way, the organising principle and fantasy - colonising the universe to infinity - endures. "We know there is life on Mars," the associate administrator of Nasa's Science Mission stated in 2015, "because we put it there." The process is known as " forward contamination" - you destroy at exactly the same moment that you make something grow. Last March, one of Elon Musk's SpaceX ships crashed back to earth in Texas. "We've got a lot of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it's cool," he is reported to have observed a few years previously. The explosion scattered debris over the fragile ecosystem of state and federally protected lands in the Lower Rio Grande valley, a national wildlife refuge that is home to vulnerable species.

It is surely no coincidence that such Faustian pacts are being struck when the fragility of life on earth has never been more glaring. These intrepid space explorers remind me of the stinking rich individuals who try to barter with the boatman on their way to the island of the dead in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. Bezos is said to be pouring millions into Altos Labs, a Silicon Valley gene reprogramming company searching for the secrets of eternal life. They think their money will save them, while the bodies of the less privileged crumble and fail (the sums already spent on these space extravaganzas would pay for vaccines across the world for everyone). This much seems clear. If we want to prepare for a better, fairer, life - if we want to prepare for any kind of future at all - we must slow the pace and change our relationship to time.

o what happens if we enter the realm of psychic time, the inner world of the unconscious where the mind, which we can never fully know or master, constantly flickers back and forth between the different moments of a partly remembered, partly repressed life?

This is a vision of human subjectivity that completely scuppers any idea of progress as a forward march through time. The British psychoanalyst DW Winnicott, writing in 1949, described a patient who had to go looking for a piece of their past in the future, something they could barely envisage in the present, and which, when it first happened, had been too painful for them to fully live or even contemplate. Seen in this light, the relentless drive to push ourselves on and on, as if our lives depended on it - killing us, more likely - reveals itself as a doomed effort to bypass inner pain. The first hysterical patient in the history of psychoanalysis - analysed by Freud's colleague Josef Breuer - fell ill as she sat nursing her dying father, overwhelmed by an inadmissible combination of resentment and sorrow. Her anger at the suffocating restrictions of her life was a feeling that, as a young Viennese daughter, she could not allow herself, at least consciously, to entertain. Even without a pandemic, it is rare for such agonising ambivalence towards those we love and lose to be spoken. There is a limit to how much we can psychically tolerate. This remains the fundamental insight of psychoanalysis, never more needed than today.

When Boris Johnson slipped under cover of night to visit the memorial wall along the Thames, avoiding daytime mourners, an act generally seen as an insult to all those whom the wall is designed to commemorate; or when he blustered and refused for 18 months to meet the bereaved families of people who have died of Covid-19, he was refusing public accountability, while at the same time making a statement, no doubt unintentionally, about what he could not bear to countenance. (He has now met and assured them that there will be a public inquiry, for which, somewhat unpromisingly, he will take personal charge himself.) He was also revealing the gulf between official life and the inward life of the mind. Grief brings time shuddering to a halt. As beautifully rendered by poet Denise Riley after the death of her son, it is time lived without its flow. When you are grieving, there is nothing else to do but grieve, as the mind battles against a knowledge that no one ever wishes to own. Even the term "the bereaved" is misleading, as it suggests a group apart, and something over and done with, as if you can neatly place to one side and sign off on something that feels, for the one afflicted, like an interminable process (which must feel interminable, at least to begin with, if it is ever to be processed at all).

The Covid memorial wall in London. Photograph: Getty Images

Seen in this light, Johnson's "boosterism", his boyish insouciance, appears as a psychological project in itself. What must be avoided at all cost is any glimmer of anguish. Anything can and must be managed. Everything is going to be all right - a mantra of which the irreality has never been more glaring. All that matters is the endlessly deferred promise of good times ahead. Hence too, I would suggest, the evasions and obfuscations on everything from climate breakdown, to "levelling up", to social care - for none of which there appears to be anything sufficiently ambitious or well-resourced to be dignified with the word "plan". The same goes for the fiasco of " freedom day" on 19 July this year, when most remaining pandemic restrictions were lifted in the UK, a day people in England were exhorted to celebrate. For many in the UK and across a tensely watching world, it felt instead like an occasion for dread. "Needless suffering", "disastrous myopia" is how observers from New York to the capitals of Europe have described UK government recklessness as case numbers have steadily risen close to their highest levels since then. Each time, the same pattern. The political reality of the moment is ignored by subduing the difficult forms of mental life that would be needed in order to face it.

In one of his most famous statements, Freud described the hysterical patient as suffering "mainly from reminiscences". From that moment on, psychoanalytic thought has committed itself to understanding how flight from the past freezes people in endlessly repeating time, robbing them of any chance for a life that might be lived with a modicum of freedom. You have to look back, however agonising, even if it goes against all your deepest impulses, if you are to have the slightest hope of getting to a new stage. This, too, has become more obviously true as people are crossing over from the space of intimacy and privately stored memories to tell their stories in the public domain. When women step up - and it is mainly if not exclusively women - to recount harrowing tales of sexual abuse from bygone years, it is part of a bid to claim the past as the only way of allowing a future to emerge no longer blocked by violent memory. During lockdown, psychoanalysts reported a flood of untold memories from their patients, as if the physical distance and reduced intimacy of the virtual session, combined with the sheer urgency of the moment, were finally giving them the courage to speak.

ne glance at today's culture wars will confirm how central this type of reckoning is to our ability to understand the political urgencies of the present. What is causing the most trouble, and provoking the strongest rebuttals and hatred, is the fearlessness with which the damaged, disadvantaged and dispossessed are calling up the legacy of the past as their passage to a viable future. Their resolve to combat historic and entrenched injustice is surely exemplary. Most vocal of all has been the anger unleashed by the project to bring down the statues of imperial magnates - beginning with Rhodes - or to acknowledge that colonial Britain was involved in the slave trade at all. At the time of abolition, British slavers were bought off by the government with compensation worth $17bn. Those funds have massively increased over hundreds of years, leaving the next generations to enjoy levels of prosperity that - not surprisingly and even in the face of incontrovertible scholarship and evidence - they have been reluctant to accept was sourced in ill-gotten gains. When The Legacies of British Slavery, the University College London database charting this history, first opened in 2016, within days it was flooded in almost equal measure by those wishing to know the truth of the past and those wishing no less fervently to deny it.

"My terror of forgetting," wrote the Jewish scholar, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, "is greater than my terror of having too much to remember." He was writing in the 80s, at a very different moment, when it was a subject of public debate as to whether Klaus Barbie, the Nazi war criminal, should be put on trial. A friend had sent Yerushalmi a poll from Le Monde newspaper, which had asked its participants whether the word "forgetting" or the word "justice" best summed up their attitude to the events of the war and the occupation of France. Is it possible, Yerushalmi asks, that the opposite of forgetting is not memory, but justice? My point here has been to answer "both", that they are in fact inseparable. There can be no struggle for justice without a vision of the future, so long as we do not lose sight of the worst of the past. We all need to become the historians of our public and private worlds.

Funeral pyres on the outskirts of Bangalore, India, in May 2021. Photograph: Jagadeesh Nv/EPA

One place to begin would be to make room for the complex legacies of the human mind, without the need to push reckoning aside. Past wrongs would not be subject to denial, as if our personal or national identities depended on a pseudo-innocence that absolves us of all crimes. Let the insights of the analytic couch percolate into our public and political lives and, no less crucially, the other way round (we need to acknowledge the weight of historical affliction on our dreams). In my ideal scenario, social trauma and injustice would not be seen as belonging to another universe from our most wayward fears and desires. Instead, they would both find their place at the negotiating table, as we tentatively begin to draw the outlines of a better world. Meanwhile, taking responsibility for failure in relation to the pandemic would help: the cry for redress, for official investigations, or simply for public acknowledgment of the avoidable disaster that millions have been living, from the UK to India to Brazil. Though none of this will bring back the thousands who should not have died.

In psychoanalytic thought, failure and fragility are a crucial part of who we are (only by knowing this can we make the best of our lives). Failure, too, has the strongest political resonance today, as many of us now anxiously wait to see if the idea will be allowed, in any meaningful or lasting way, to enter the collective political mind. Will the collapse of the western powers in Afghanistan be a gamechanger? Or, despite widespread agreement that we have been witnessing a catastrophic failure of policy, will any such recognition turn out to be a fleeting gesture, no more than a pause in the preparations for endless war? Squabbling over whether the US is a "big" or "super" power - according to the UK defence minister, only a country willing to exert global force has a right to the second epithet - is hardly reassuring.

So, how will the pandemic be lived when it is no longer - as we can only hope - at the forefront of people's consciously lived lives? How will it be remembered? Will it be a tale of vaccine triumph, with no mention of the murderous injustice of unequal global distribution; a story of government negligence and accountability; or an acceptance of the ongoing grief for the dead? Responding to a suggestion to make the memorial wall permanent, the artist Rachel Whiteread suggested it should be "left just to be and then gradually disappear. To have its quietness." You cannot, she stated, memorialise something that is still going on; a more permanent memorial will need distance and time. When we reach that point, the challenge will be to resist the temptation to brush everything under the carpet, as if the best hope for the future were to go back to normal and blithely continue with matters as they were before: push death aside, treat swaths of the Earth's inhabitants as dispensable, drive the planet to its end. On the other hand, a world that makes room for memory and justice would be something else. There is still everything to play for.

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

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Life after death: how the pandemic has transformed our psychic landscape | Jacqueline Rose

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The long read : Modern society has largely exiled death to the outskirts of existence, but Covid-19 has forced us all to confront it. Our relationship to the planet, each other and time itself can never be the same again

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Join over 3,000,000 people improving their mental health and living a happier life by journaling with stoic.

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Version 2024.7

dear stoics.

this update brings the option to switch back to the old button UI for mood check-ins instead of new sliders.

it will also add:

- new iMessage stickers
- journaling suggestions in reflections. you can add them in morning/evening reflection personalization.

best,
m.

Unwind with your new favourite journal

I have only had this app for a two days on a free trail. It's very good, it has everything you need on it. I think if you commit to doing it every morning and night then you will see how freeing the art of letting your thoughts release will be. It won't solve your problems but it is a great tool for those struggling with day to day things or maybe even complex stuff. I have autism and mental health struggles along with personal issues like breakups etc. THIS HAS BEEN SO HELPFUL. it organises my thoughts and feeling by asking reflective questions that lets your body release tension unknowingly. There are quotes that pop up everyday and you can have prompts on how you feel about them or be asked a random question. There are mental health days that explore topics you want to talk about, there's also an in-depth soul crushing way to explore why you feel a certain way by repetitively being asked why that is. Once you start, you can't really go back. There's medication and breathing techniques but I haven't really used them to comment! The only thing I would want to add is having a way to plan things more easily :) If this sounds like something you would like I would definitely go for it.

Fantastic App

I love this app, it's my favourite one and the only one that has stuck for using as an online journal. I like the interface and the options provided. It's beautifully designed, love the illustrations and simplicity to it. I'm completely obsessed with the different topics and relating it to stoicism (and others) which I didn't know much about before! When journaling you can pick a prompt of what you'd like the subject to be and they will give some questions to get you started. That can be morning pages, day summary gratitude and many more. I appreciate that you can choose to do more or less on a given day. Lots of opportunities fo reflect. I noticed recently when picking back up the habit that you can look back on previous questions. Also the features when you choose to meditate are great.

Some interesting parts which you could go quite deep. I didn't fully understand what the 'fear setting' task.

All this and I've never had to pay for any extras. I would consider it to support the creators (big thank you) as it's lovely to use. But I appreciated from the beginning the fact that you can still enjoy the app without it!

Really helped me

Although I've only been using this app for around 2 weeks. I have already fallen in love with it. I always struggled keeping a diary and journaling my thoughts as I would become bored and forget to do it. However this app has many useful and engaging features to always keep you coming back. I love how you can note your thoughts on quotes from philosophers and add notes to affirmations. The guided meditations, walk and breathing exercises are truly amazing and overall, I truly adore the way that there are so many things you can do to improve your mental health and your philosophy of life for free (although I do recommend you get the premium as it helps the creators and allows you to plan out and personalise your day). This app has already changed my life for the better. I can only hope that the developers keep adding more amazing features. I'd definitely recommend you get this app, even if you don't have the money for premium.

stoic. journal & diary premium

unlock all guided journals and reflections

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‎stoic is your mental health companion - it helps you understand your emotions and provides insights on how to be happier, more productive, and overcome obstacles. At its heart, stoic helps you prepare for your day in the morning and reflect on your day in the evening. In the process, we also guide...

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Small actions everyday create life changing behaviors. Our mental health tracker and self care journal helps you with goal setting and achieving personal growth! Remente acts as your life coach and provides a bunch of self help tools to achieve self improvement, healthy habits and well being.

Start now with developing healthy habits to improve your self control and live a healthy lifestyle with greater self love, more self help and less stress, anxiety and depression!

Daily Remente
A daily video session with a life coach explaining different concepts of self care and interactive guides for users to learn about and practice mental health and well being.

Goal Setting Guide
Create good life goals to achieve personal growth and development. Remente acts as your life coach and offers guides and tips for goal setting to form a sustainable lifestyle which results in self love and healthy habits.

Day Planner
To learn self help and reach goals you need to plan. The day planner contains a smart and dynamic to do list which plans your day based on your life goals as well as long term goal actions and tasks for self improvement.

Mental Health Tracker
Tracking your life balance is important for your well being and self love and reducing stress and depression. The life assessment tool helps you determine where you should focus your personal development efforts to achieve self control, mindfulness and health.

Self Care Journal
Learn what makes you feel good with the Remente mood journal. By tracking your mood you will understand what consequences your habits have on your mental health. What habits increase your self care? Use the mood journal to find out!

Insights
Integrate with Apple Health to see how your body and mind affect each other.

Expert Goal Plans
Remente has a library full of expertly crafted goal plans to coach your self improvement. They contain detailed plans, tips and information for how to succeed with common well being goals to achieve personal growth and a better lifestyle.

Courses & Articles
A curated collection of articles and exercises written by psychologists, business managers, life coaches and world champions in several fields. We cover a wide range of topics, e.g. sleep optimization, stress management, healthy habits, mindfulness and anxiety relief, self love or tips for better friendships, relationships, dating & sex.

We offer a premium subscription which contains extra features and content that will support your self improvement and personal growth even more. The purchase is handled by your iTunes account. The subscription can always be cancelled or changed by going to the iTunes settings and will be renewed 24 hours before it expires, identical to the one you last purchased. It is not possible to cancel an already purchased subscription.

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Teaches you to love yourself.

This app is an amazing app that will help you focus more on your self and your own happiness. Starting with the fact that it lets you rate your mood and write about your day, and ending at letting you set tasks for your self and motivating you.
It has really helped me to love my self, and learn how to have a better lifestyle. I love the fact that it has motivating texts about how to improve you life quality and how it seems to know what you're feeling like.
At the end of each week, the app sends you a notification and shows you how happy you've been that week, what was bothering you and how you can improve on that.
I recommend his app to anyone and everyone, because writing your feelings down and learning to love your self really will help you gain more confidence and trust in your self. You will feel more secure, and whatever area it is that you are struggling on, I'm sure this app can help.

Superb app - have tried many similar. This is the best

Have tried many to do list apps, well-being, goal setting and this is simply the best of the lot. Tried the freemium version for a few months which had just enough not to get too annoyed with investing it and ability to see benefits of going for the premium version which I have had for the past 2 months. Using this every day - great usability, nicely designed and great features. 5 stars.

Fantastic App for keeping track of progress!

This app is the best app I've downloaded (and I've downloaded a bunch) that lets me keep track of my goals! It lets you break down goals into smaller goals. It's really useful if your goals are measured in many different ways. For example, if you're trying to be healthier you can measure this exercise or healthy eating and still keep it under one umbrella goal with this app.

Thank you for the great review! We're glad that you enjoy Remente, and we're sure you'll love when we release the grouping functionality to the public! Then you will be able to create groups for your goals as well.
Best, Remente Owl Squad

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‎Small actions everyday create life changing behaviors. Our mental health tracker and self care journal helps you with goal setting and achieving personal growth! Remente acts as your life coach and provides a bunch of self help tools to achieve self improvement, healthy habits and well being. Start...

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Nurses' mental health: 'Most people in the NHS, they are sad'

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Nurses’ mental health: ‘Most people in the NHS, they are sad’

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An A&E nurse describes the anguish she’s faced - and how a helpline inspired by Clap for Carers gave her hope.

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Vulnerable children unable to access help due to austerity, says inquiry

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More than a million vulnerable children in England are growing up emotionally damaged and with reduced life chances as a result of billions of pounds of austerity cuts to family support and youth services, according to a cross-party House of Lords inquiry.

The Lords Public Services Committee said the pandemic had accelerated a pre-existing "crisis of child vulnerability" in which increasing number of youngsters and parents were unable to access help before their problems spun out of control.

Too many children in deprived areas were taken into care, excluded from school, suffered from poor health, struggled in the job market or ended up in prison because of the lack of services able to intervene early with at-risk youngsters, it said.

It called for early years spending to be "levelled up" after revealing £1.7bn a year funding cuts to Sure Start, youth and other family support services over the past decade had disproportionately affected children in the most deprived communities.

For example, while Walsall had seen early intervention services reduced by 81%, Manchester by 75% and Liverpool by 65%, relatively affluent Surrey had seen cuts of just 10% and a handful of councils such as leafy Buckinghamshire had even increased early years spending.

Lady Armstrong, the chair of the committee, called on ministers to urgently restore early intervention funding to 2010 levels and publish a national strategy to help vulnerable children. "Too many children fall through the gaps, go into care, are excluded from school or end up in prison - all of which costs the public purse more in the long run," she said.

Although the committee welcomed the government's promise to invest £500m in early years services over the next three years, partly through the expansion of so-called "family hubs", the committee said this fell short of what was needed after a decade of massive underinvestment.

Vulnerable children were defined by the committee as aged 0-19 whose lives were not in immediate danger but who without targeted support were at risk of significant harm and diminished life chances. They included children with mental health problems or whose parents were mentally ill, or victims of domestic violence.

While the pandemic had made it impossible to produce formal statistical estimates of the numbers of vulnerable children in 2021, the committee concluded there had been a big increase on the 829,000 vulnerable and "invisible" children identified in 2019 as not in receipt of support from services.

The collapse of council-funded early intervention services between 2010-11 and 2019-20, when spending in England fell by an average of 48%, was linked to a 34% increase in spending over the same period on costlier late interventions such as youth justice, looked-after children's services and safeguarding.

The Local Government Association said the crisis meant many councils were overspending children's budgets by millions of pounds a year. Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, the chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board, said the report was "a stark reminder of the challenges councils face supporting and protecting vulnerable children".

A government spokesperson said: "We're prioritising the wellbeing and safety of children, which is why we announced significant additional investment in services for families at the spending review.

"We're also providing the largest mental health funding in NHS history, alongside our Mental Health Recovery Plan, and support to improve mental health in schools. In addition, we have provided more than £28m to domestic abuse organisations to keep helplines and vital services running."

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Vulnerable children unable to access help due to austerity, says inquiry

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Lords report says problems for 1m youngsters escalated because of the lack of services able to intervene early

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Vulnerable children unable to access help due to austerity, says inquiry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
More than a million vulnerable children in England are growing up emotionally damaged and with reduced life chances as a result of billions of pounds of austerity cuts to family support and youth services, according to a cross-party House of Lords inquiry.

The Lords Public Services Committee said the pandemic had accelerated a pre-existing "crisis of child vulnerability" in which increasing number of youngsters and parents were unable to access help before their problems spun out of control.

Too many children in deprived areas were taken into care, excluded from school, suffered from poor health, struggled in the job market or ended up in prison because of the lack of services able to intervene early with at-risk youngsters, it said.

It called for early years spending to be "levelled up" after revealing £1.7bn a year funding cuts to Sure Start, youth and other family support services over the past decade had disproportionately affected children in the most deprived communities.

For example, while Walsall had seen early intervention services reduced by 81%, Manchester by 75% and Liverpool by 65%, relatively affluent Surrey had seen cuts of just 10% and a handful of councils such as leafy Buckinghamshire had even increased early years spending.

Lady Armstrong, the chair of the committee, called on ministers to urgently restore early intervention funding to 2010 levels and publish a national strategy to help vulnerable children. "Too many children fall through the gaps, go into care, are excluded from school or end up in prison - all of which costs the public purse more in the long run," she said.

Although the committee welcomed the government's promise to invest £500m in early years services over the next three years, partly through the expansion of so-called "family hubs", the committee said this fell short of what was needed after a decade of massive underinvestment.

Vulnerable children were defined by the committee as aged 0-19 whose lives were not in immediate danger but who without targeted support were at risk of significant harm and diminished life chances. They included children with mental health problems or whose parents were mentally ill, or victims of domestic violence.

While the pandemic had made it impossible to produce formal statistical estimates of the numbers of vulnerable children in 2021, the committee concluded there had been a big increase on the 829,000 vulnerable and "invisible" children identified in 2019 as not in receipt of support from services.

The collapse of council-funded early intervention services between 2010-11 and 2019-20, when spending in England fell by an average of 48%, was linked to a 34% increase in spending over the same period on costlier late interventions such as youth justice, looked-after children's services and safeguarding.

The Local Government Association said the crisis meant many councils were overspending children's budgets by millions of pounds a year. Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, the chair of the Local Government Association's Children and Young People Board, said the report was "a stark reminder of the challenges councils face supporting and protecting vulnerable children".

A government spokesperson said: "We're prioritising the wellbeing and safety of children, which is why we announced significant additional investment in services for families at the spending review.

"We're also providing the largest mental health funding in NHS history, alongside our Mental Health Recovery Plan, and support to improve mental health in schools. In addition, we have provided more than £28m to domestic abuse organisations to keep helplines and vital services running."

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Vulnerable children unable to access help due to austerity, says inquiry

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Lords report says problems for 1m youngsters escalated because of the lack of services able to intervene early

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Lady Gaga reveals using past trauma in new role

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Lady Gaga stars in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci as the wife of fashion mogul Maurizio Gucci, Patrizia Reggiani. Gaga spoke to BBC News about tapping into her traumatic past to improve her performance in the role.
This video has been optimised for mobile viewing on the BBC News app. The BBC News app is available from the Apple App Store for iPhone and Google Play Store for Android.

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Lady Gaga reveals using past trauma in new role

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Lady Gaga stars in Ridley Scott's House of Gucci as the wife of fashion mogul Maurizio Gucci.

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Self-care refers to activities that can be done to ensure physical and mental fitness. Self-care is necessary and important part of every individual's overall health. Let's take a look at some of the main activities you can try.

Just like we practice personal hygiene by taking showers and brushing our teeth, we also need to adopt practices or habits to take care of our psychological health. Here are some tips to engage your mental health, actively prevent mental illness, and promote mental resiliency.

Be mindful of what experiences in life cause emotional pain for you. Some common feelings that may indicate emotional pain include feelings of grief, anger, rejection, or failure. Although we can't always control the cause of our emotional pain, we CAN practice techniques to treat it. Letting emotional pain last too long can lead to depression and other mental health conditions.

Your self-esteem or level of confidence in your ability to accomplish your goals, has an important protective quality to our mental well-being. It's the lens through which we view our self-worth from day to day and it can affect how we respond to different situations. Avoid letting your self-esteem spiral out of control after an experience of failure or rejection. Have self-compassion! If we let negative life circumstances deteriorate our self-esteem we may question our worth in turn creating a false sense of doubt that prevents us from taking advantage of life's opportunities for risk of failure again.

Avoid repetitive negative thoughts

Disrupt repetitive thinking or over-thinking about distressing or negative events in your life by finding a positive distraction. Do something that requires concentration to help prevent ruminating on events situations that are out of your control or in the past. A cycle of repetitive negative thinking can lead to depression and other medical issues like heart disease.

Loneliness and feelings of disconnectedness are serious threats to our mental health. Carve out enough time to regularly connect with a friend or family member, even if all you can manage is a phone call or FaceTime session. Engaging in social activities social activities like book clubs or group gym classes can also have a positive effect on your mental health. Your social connectedness can prevent you from becoming depressed.

Just as we need time with friends, we also need time of solitude to be alone with our own individual thoughts and feelings. Use your time alone to check in with yourself or reflect on a personal experience. Use your time of solitude to destress from the chaos of life. Engage in activities that you enjoy doing alone like gardening, reading a good book, going to the movies, or cooking. There are many ways to find peace and quiet for yourself. Take time each day for yourself, even it's only a few minutes. It's not selfish, it's vital.

Not only does eating healthy and nutrient rich foods help keep your body in good working order, eating healthy can also positively affect your mood. Follow these three main guidelines to increase your energy and boost your overall wellness:

1. Eat plenty of whole foods- fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and reduced fat dairy products

2. Get your protein- lean meat, eggs, fish, beans and nuts

3. Limit the amount of sugar, salt, and saturated fat, and trans fats you consume. These are abundant in processed foods.

4. ​Caffeine and alcohol can worsen or trigger anxiety. It's best to drink water to stay clear, focused, and hydrated!

Doctors recommend getting between seven and nine hours of sleep each night to help us perform optimally at our every day lives. In fact, lack of sleep due to stress or other issues can lead to serious health problems. Click here to learn more about how sleep affects your body. Here is a short list of tips for getting some much needed shut-eye.

Set a bedtime that you stick to most nights. You body loves consistency when it comes to sleep!

Turn off the screens one hour before bed. Use this time to relax away from the stimulants and prepare your body for sleep.

Try to de-stress before bed. Many hours of sleep are lost to restless minds preoccupied with work or other stressful events. Meditate, do some light stretching, listent to soothing music quietly, take a hot shower or bath. Find what works best to put you at ease and in a restful state.

Exercise earlier in the day can help prepare you for restful sleep. However, avoid rigorous exercise right before bed.

To maintain your physical health, it's currently recommended to get your body moving and keep your heart rate elevated for at least 150 minutes per week or to get 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week. And of course, exercise has other great benefits like boosting your energy, improving your mood, and helping you fall asleep.

Have limited mobility? Check out some that may work for you!

If you are new to regular exercise, consult with your doctor before beginning a vigorous exercise routine. Always start slow and build up your capacity slowly to avoid injury.

Sometimes the best feelings come from helping others. Volunteer at your local food bank or soup kitchen, offer to help a friend or family member who may need your support, or donate to your favorite charity.

Stress is the body's way of responding to the mental and physical demands of life. Common stressors (events or situations that cause stress) include daily responsibilities and commitments like work, school, and family. Often cause for moderate to high stress situations include traumatic events, the loss of a loved one, illness or another event that significantly alters your life. Every-day stress, or short term (acute) stress, can motivate us to focus on tasks, set and accomplish personal and professional goals, and can even boost our immune systems and protect us from infection. Conversely, long-term (chronic) stress is the stress of life that wears on for weeks, months, or even years. Chronic stress can have harmful effects on our physical and mental health and can contribute to or worsen serious health problems like heart disease and diabetes and increase risk for mental health issues like depression and anxiety disorders. This is why it's important to learn and implement stress management strategies to prevent chronic stress.

1. Identify your stressors (things that stress you out). Grab a pen and paper. Write a list and designate which stressors you CAN control and which you CANNOT control.

2. Find solutions- for the stressors you can control, write out a couple ways you can alleviate or remove those stressors. For the stressors you cannot control, know that you CAN control how you react to it. Imagine a scenario where you react differently to a negative stressor- does the situation work out for the better in your mind? Try it in real life. Remember, you don't have to find solutions alone. Therapists are trained in helping you find tools to managing your stress.

Are you taking care of your medical needs? In times of bad or negative stress or after a major life event, remember to pay attention to your body. Mental and physical health are deeply interconnected, and it's important to deal with any health issues that may be holding you back. If health issues are a major life stressor or a factor of your depression, consider seeing a therapist who may help you adjust to your new physical reality.

You don't have to do anything in life alone. If you're having trouble caring for yourself for any reason, reach out. Your primary care doctor can provide referrals to therapists or other physicians that can address whatever may be ailing you. Your family and friends can provide support and empathy.

Instructions: Most of us are already familiar with ways to take care of our bodies, but what about our minds? Learn some tips for practicing self-care and improving your emotional hygiene. Once you've finished reading, click the "Completed" button at the bottom of the page.

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Self-care refers to activities that can be done to ensure physical and mental fitness. Self-care is necessary and important part of every individual's overall health. Let's take a look at some of the main activities you can try.

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An emotional support animal (ESA) is any animal that provides comfort to a person with a disability through companionship. Most ESAs are commonly kept domestic animals such as dogs and cats, however, they can also be any species as long as they support a disability-related need.

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Find A Helpline | Free, confidential support. 24/7. Chat, text or phone.

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Key Partners

You don't have to go through this alone.

If you are struggling today, need support with your mental health, or have experienced a traumatic event, consider contacting a helpline. It's free, anonymous and confidential.

What are helplines?

Helplines (also known as hotlines or crisis lines) provide immediate crisis counseling, emotional support and information - for free.

Most helpline phone numbers are toll-free and many helplines are available over text message or online chat. Helplines are often available 24/7, so you can contact them at any time of the day or night.

How will a helpline, hotline or crisis line support me?

Helplines provide a judgment-free space for you to talk through difficult emotions and experiences, receive support, and connect to other resources that can help you. Talking helps, and research has shown that people feel less distressed after contacting helplines.

What can I talk to a helpline about?

However, helplines are available for a wide range of mental health and emotional struggles including anxiety, depression, gender or sexual identity, substance use and much more.

You don't have to be suicidal or in a severe situation to contact a helpline. You might just need to talk, or want information on supporting others.

How do I find the best helpline for me?

In some countries, many helplines are available. For example, if you live in the United States, popular nationwide helplines are the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, Crisis Text Line and TrevorLifeline.

When you search for a helpline on Find A Helpline, our intelligent ranking algorithm will recommend the best helplines for you. You can also further filter according to your needs, and read helpline descriptions to learn more about the service each helpline provides.

Because helplines are free, you can contact more than one service to find the right one for you.

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Find A Helpline | Free emotional support in 130+ countries

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A message from International Association for Suicide Prevention: You have shown great courage in taking this first step towards seeking help. We hope you can use this strength to access the appropriate services who can support you through this difficult time.

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What you will learn - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the Global Context - The University of Glasgow

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Welcome to the University of Glasgow's PTSD in the Global Context online course. A team of experts in global mental health, psychology and psychiatry have collaborated to create these learning materials.

It may be valuable to collate some notes for personal reflection, so please take a moment before starting the course to consider how and where you intend to record your learning notes. Each week, you will have access to a range of activities and a number of 'discussion' steps provide an opportunity to collaborate with peers as you become familiar with key concepts, debates and themes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises the important mental health consequences of trauma and loss. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can occur after a traumatic event. The UN estimates that more than 79.5 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced by violence and conflict. This is the highest number of people affected since World War 2. The mental health and wellbeing of people affected by humanitarian emergencies are becoming increasingly recognised as being important.

Candle in child's hand. Source: Pixabay.com

We hope you will find this course useful, engaging and thought-provoking, and that the knowledge acquired will ultimately give you the confidence to apply your learning to real-world settings and open conversations about this important topic.

The intended learning outcomes for this course are to:

Define trauma and PTSD, and identify core PTSD symptomatology

Understand variations in PTSD rates and presentation across the lifespan and across the globe

Explain the role of biological, socio-cultural and psychological factors in PTSD

Explain pertinent diagnostic challenges in PTSD, and articulate approaches for facilitating help-seeking and recovery

Describe and critically assess evidence-based strategies for treatment and prevention of PTSD

Self-Care

Books, ear buds, from above, lifestyle, hot tea, coffee, routine, daily life. Source: Pixabay.com

Content and concepts discussed as part of this course may be distressing to some people. We would like to emphasise the importance of looking after your own wellbeing when engaging with the course materials. As you review the learning resources consider when it might be beneficial for you to take a short break from your work. The University of Glasgow wants to ensure that all students' mental health is protected. To support students there are self-care activities embedded in some weeks of the course.

Seeking Help From Others

While completing the course, if you're feeling distressed, in despair or suicidal, it's important to tell someone. Please seek help from your doctor, a key worker or family and friends. Helpline services allow you to talk to people in confidence and confidentially. There is a comprehensive list of support options.

'Self-care' are activities designed to support physical and mental fitness. Self-care is an important part of every individual's overall health. It can be as simple as eating and sleeping well, as well as practical activities to help tackle emotional challenges. Given the sensitive nature of this course please engage with self-care activities. Self-care tips are available through the following websites: Blurt it Out and Take 5 to Save Lives.

Discussion

Take a little time to think about a song which inspires, motivates, uplifts, makes you smile or that has helped you through a difficult time. It would be lovely if you would share details of this song with others in the course, simply add the artist's name and the song name to the comments section below.

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Welcome to the University of Glasgow's PTSD in the Global Context online course. A team of experts in global mental health, psychology and psychiatry have collaborated to create these learning materials. It may be valuable to collate some notes for personal reflection, so please take a moment before starting the course to consider how and where you intend to record your learning notes.

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We’ve changed our name to PACEs Connection!  | PACEsConnection

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Hi Jane, I applaud the name change from ACEs, ADVERSE Childhood Experiences, to PACES, POSITIVE & Adverse Childhood Experiences, but it must be noted that there is an inherent positive/negative bias implying those suffering ACEs are lacking and less-than, requiring PCEs to be made well, okay, and "good."

When we experience either ACEs or PCEs, as CHILDREN our brains change.

When we experience Adv.Exp.'s or Pos.Exp.'s in Childhood, our brains morph - of course they do, we are children, and children's brains are always growing - meaning their brains don't as much morph from one form to another as grow differently, right? Wrong - Not actually: In both child and adult the changes that occur, occur by neuroGeneration and neuroDegeneration.

Less expected is that as ADULTS our brains also change.

When we experience Adv.Exp.'s or Pos.Exp.'s in our Adulthood, our brains morph - of course, as adults our brains are not growing as fast as when we were children, but neurons in adult brains are always having to grow to learn and adapt as well as to replace a major portion of those brain cells that are constantly dying as one ages - in children this paring-back is called senescence. Again, the processes in both adult and child are nearly identical, given the many differences between young and old. Not just children's brains, it turns out,, can be very plastic and able to grow new neurons - so although adult's brains aren't always growing, still, in both child and adult the changes that occur, occur by neuroGeneration and neuroDegeneration. In adults of various ages it may be instructive to compare how age affects ones brain plasticity to how age affects ones ability to gain or lose muscle mass. Keep in mind though, how fairly-fast in both adult and child that our muscles can respond to external stimuli and physically change in response to use or lack of use. This is happening to all of us all of the time - to both our muscles and our brains from infant to ancient.

(1) If one experiences ACEs it is important to understand that these experiences neither damage one nor heal one, instead based on and because of these experiences it is important to fully understand and grasp that you are perfectly adapted to the way the world really is. You are p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y adapted to your environment - YOU genuinely are, no B.S., really a-r-e PERFECT.

(2) If one experiences PCEs it is important to understand that these experiences neither damage one nor heal one, instead based on and because of these experiences it is important to fully understand and grasp that you are perfectly adapted to the way the world really is. You are p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y adapted to your environment - YOU genuinely, no B.S., really a-r-e PERFECT.

(3) When one experiences EXTREME LEVELS of EITHER ACEs or PCEs not only are the resulting physical changes, as one would reasonably expect, also equally extreme - the physical and behavioral changes to how one perceives the world are IDENTICAL. I-d-e-n-t-i-c-a-l. These changes vary between individuals only by degree, not in form or direction which is as unvarying as the number of heads most people have, and for the same reason, we all share a largely similar basic biology. Just as one with extreme ACEs can be helped to better monitor ones own behaviors, thoughts, feelings and emotions-the same applies to those "suffering" from extreme PCEs. BOTH extreme ACEs & extreme PCEs exposure results in adaptation to this exposure by changing how one processes information: tending to focus more on near term issues than distant ones; more reactive to threat; more focused on self-interest versus group-interest; more obeisant to authority figures, etcettera. Spread the word

WHY THIS IS SO IMPORTANT - Here is a real-world example of how a proper understanding of ourselves can help us in making better decisions:

I'm in communication with all 67 school districts in Florida. They are bringing down the CPAC-led Governors that are destroying schools & killing people.

My school district of Broward County, 6th largest in US, started the mask rebellion in FL & nationwide, I I'm proud to say. We've been in the national news quite a bit the past few weeks.

On CSPAN this morning (Aug 30) I spoke to the Pres. of Am. Soc. of Pediatrics regarding fact that to promote natural herd immunity in students to increase a populations herd immunity (by culling the sick & elderly) is the textbook dictionary definition of Eugenic GENOCIDE - Period.

It is INEVITABLE that over time HISTORIANS will criminalize Desantis in FL, Trump & Abbott in TX down as being guilty of mass murder & crimes against humanity. INEVITABLE! Desantis will put pedal to the metal as he nears the COVID Cliff and he'll keep it pressed down as he goes over the edge, the whole way down because in his eyes, knowing this inevitability if he doesn't prove COVID a farce, it is an issue of his LEGACY or our LIVES. Period.

46 million children in the US cannot be vaccinated - that is a very big petri dish for a next Desantis-variant. Sigh.

Following is the most recent of a series of correspondences. Broward has a new superintendent and this was sent to the Chair of our Broward School Board and the superintendent both, although perhaps a bit confusingly, refers to the superintendent in the third person...

Is being bullied over masks distracting us from the need to partially or fully be closing our schools, especially the earlier grades?

(1) Are you being provided with what the local official/science-based infection rate is based on regional official random testing? Yes/no?

- BULLYING & RACISM (Colorism) -

This Covid disaster is ALL ABOUT RACE, ELITISM & a deep EUGENIC BIAS that is born of two central False-Science core Beliefs;

(A) That Evolution optimizes, this is False, it does Not, and;

(B) That evolution optimizes by competition, this is also False. Evolutionary success as survival & adaptation is more reliant on Cooperation than on Competition.

This "Bigger Picture" matters. Here is Why -

Bullied brains don't just think differently, they ARE different - our brains are hard-wired to change & morph dramatically and quickly to real-time potential threats to ones life, threats like whenever one suffers being bullied and abused.

Understanding why we have difficulties seeing the big picture, matters.

Our brains being under a constant state of flux, like in this COVID disaster, can make seeing the big-picture difficult to near-impossible in real-time.

We know that early Adverse childhood Experiences, ACEs cause the developing brain to adapt to the way the world really is, and to see things differently. Some things become invisible, others can be greatly enlarged, core values alter, who we are is altered. This biological response is not limited to children - adult brains are also incredibly plastic.

News Flash: ACEs has recently been renamed PACEs - Positive & Adverse Childhood Experiences.

- This was the ACE communities (leadership & pres. Jane really) response to having it pointed out that Positive SUCCESS adapts (morphs, shrinks, grows, physically changes shape, alters) the BRAINS of Child (and Adult!) every bit AS MUCH as Negative ABUSE.

How ones perceptions are altered are IDENTICAL! In both cases, negative and positive, one will, completely unaware, change to focus on & be more reactive, and; more responsive to self v. group; to near v. far; to fast v. slow; to authoritan v. consensenus; to see things as black or white versus gray, etcettera.

Note that these changes are the very things that we believe literally define "who" we are. Yet - "Poof" significant change can occur quickly in both child and adult, mere days and weeks.

When change is also happening to those surrounding one, ones social group, this can dramatically increase both the speed of the change and how invisibile the change is to oneself Indeed, we humans are by far the MOST SOCIAL animal on the planet, not even ants come close. We cooperate in extended social groups of billions ones! These changes are BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED. ones social group and oneself all completely unawares.

This is happening right now to our new Broward County, Florida, superintendent, Mrs. Cartwright, fyi.

Our brains morph so quickly and so severely in fact, that I suspect it may amost no longer still be possible to ask Mrs. Cartwright if she can see that she is making decisions now that would surprise an earlier version of herself, an imaginary copy made prior to her jumping into our boiling pot of water here in Broward. We should ask her - Soon - She may still be able to see herself in the actual process of changing from one way of seeing the world to another, straddling the fence - and her being able to see this change and to understand the biological forces driving it - may hopefully confer to her a larger perspective and increased degree of free-will in bringing about positive change (to end harmful biologically-driven cycles and invisible eugenic biases) here in Broward in fighting the libertarian-extremist eugenic genocide against the young, old, poor, and ill of Florida as he seeks to salvage his Legacy at the cost, so far, of tens of thousands of lives lost here in Florida that were preventable but for his intentional actions, as recorded on video in many speeches, to increase natural (herd) immunity in students by keeping schools open and not allowing mask or vaccine mandates, etcettera.

We have all at one time or another joked about growing up and changing into people as adults that we'd hardly recognize, or worse, be ashamed or disgusted at becoming. Our superintendent Mrs. Cartwright is even now ignoring hard data indicating schools must close NOW - Data that a mere two months ago she'd have grabbed up as a sword & shield to use waging mortal battle, her own life aside, against anyone saying otherwise. We have cute ways to joke about this invisible, unwanted & unasked-for brain morphing, such as saying we are just "being reasonable," "seeing both sides as equal," and "rationalizing." Sigh.

Onwards,

Michael

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We've changed our name to PACEs Connection!

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Hi Jane, I applaud the name change from ACEs, ADVERSE Childhood Experiences, to PACES, POSITIVE & Adverse Childhood Experiences, but it must be noted that there is an inherent positive/negative bias implying those suffering ACEs are lacking and less-than, requiring PCEs to be made well, okay, and "good."

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We don’t live in isolation. Our ancestors’ trauma can affect our health generations later

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If there is one patient who has opened my eyes to my own cognitive bias and who has helped me to recognise the profound effect of the past on a person's health, it is my patient Arama*.

"Hey, what's up, doc?" says Arama as he walks into my consulting room one day. He's weaving a little, his breath reeks of alcohol, his speech is slurred. He wants to get some antibiotics for a chesty cough that he's had for a week.

I've known Arama for years. He's a Māori patient in his fifties and he has the chronic lung condition bronchiectasis. He is a lifelong smoker, with multiple attempts to quit under his belt and, as I have recently discovered, he also drinks excessively at times. He and his partner are living in someone's cold, draughty garage. Over the course of a decade, I have doled out multiple antibiotic scripts for Arama's illness-prone lungs. Each time, I ask him to stop smoking. We discuss using community services to help him reduce his intake of alcohol. He tries, off and on, but finds it hard to engage with them.

I write letters to Housing New Zealand pleading his case - a patient with a chronic lung condition needs better accommodation than a cold garage - but the answer is always the same. Too many people needing a home, not enough houses. I try to organise insulation for his current residence, but find out that he doesn't qualify for this. Arama seems to take on board my advice every now and then, but usually he slips back into old habits.

When Arama is sober, he is funny, self-deprecating, smart-mouthed. He has a savvy street-smart intelligence, an appraising air. He follows complex medical logic better than other patients. He struggles with his addictions; he doesn't want them, yet he keeps coming back to them. He has aspirations for a better life, just like anyone else, but the hole he is in is particularly large and particularly difficult to get out of. His inability to change causes me immense frustration for several years. I know objectively that there are certain measures that can help this patient, so why won't he just take my advice? Aren't some of the changes he needs to make simple enough to do?

clearly remember the revelation on this particular Monday morning that changes my understanding and my attitude towards Arama. He's in a talkative mood, and we get to chatting about this and that. Maybe the alcohol has loosened his tongue and lowered his defences. At any rate, he lets slip an offhand comment: "Yeah, I got a lot of shit growing up. I was molested, eh." I sit back and look at him. I'd been so stuck in my medical frame of mind, diagnosing and fixing Arama's physical complaints, that I hadn't taken enough notice of his "iceberg". That submerged clod of memories, experiences and beliefs we drag around with us, that we rarely show to others, that we may in fact be unaware of. The things we carry from our childhood. The thumbprints of our ancestors on our souls.

A patient rarely presents with their iceberg, but it affects their health in multiple ways and can be more important than the presenting complaint. Yet there's a stigma to disclosing past abuse or addictions. Or the fact that a social situation is unsafe, riddled with violence, beset by vulnerability. It's too hard to divulge emotional pain, easier to talk about physical pain.

This conversation with Arama happens at about the same time that I'm reading up on New Zealand history. All that "forgotten" history. I'd lived in New Zealand for 25 years by this stage, yet this was the first time I was finding out about these events - the land confiscations, the killing of unarmed men, women and children, the smothering of a language. The justifications for violence, the grossly unequal wars that were fought on trumped-up charges. The fact that many sites of historical significance are hardly signposted, even today.

My reading had made me start to think about the generational ramifications of trauma on health. How much of an impact does land loss and loss of culture have on the health of individuals alive today?

When Arama starts to describe his childhood, I am in a receptive frame of mind. The next patient will have to wait. Over the course of today's consultation, and further consults later on, I learn a lot about Arama. I start to recognise that he does not exist in isolation to the things that have come before, or the things around him now. His health and wellbeing are inextricably influenced by his childhood, which in turn is influenced by the lives of his parents, and their parents before them.

He tells me that he was adopted by extended whānau, in a practice known as whāngai. "I was the youngest in the family, and quickly became Dad's pet. This made my older adopted brothers and sisters jealous. Even now, there is still ill feeling."

Arama's adoptive father worked as a truck driver; his adoptive mother was a seasonal orchard worker, and she spoke te reo Māori, "But she never shared this with us, Doc, cos she was strapped for speaking it." His father had fought in the second world war, but he did not talk of his experiences. "I wish he'd shared some of that stuff. I think it really scarred him for life, eh." After returning from the war, Māori ex-servicemen were sometimes left to fend for themselves. The assumption was that they would have access to tribal land - an incorrect assumption, as less than 10 per cent of land remained in Māori ownership by then.

Perhaps owning land and a house would have given Arama's adoptive father a much better shot at life. As it was, he became a heavy drinker; Arama believes now that he had PTSD. Arama says of himself, "I was quite bright when I was young." He remembers enjoying school as a child.

His mother's family were reasonably well educated, but poor. Arama remembers a childhood devoid of opulence or treats, but he felt loved, especially by his father. There was always alcohol in the house, thanks to his father's alcoholism, and parties were a common occurrence. It was at times a chaotic place to be a child. Arama started to get sexually abused by various male relatives from the age of six onwards - an uncle, some cousins.

When Arama was 11, his adoptive mother died of a sudden bleed in the brain at just 48. It triggered a marked worsening in Arama's fortunes: his adoptive father, wracked by grief, left the kids in the care of extended family and went trucking for months at a time. Bereft of both his parents, Arama started to drink - he'd already started smoking at the age of nine. When he was about 14, he remembers getting a severe bout of pneumonia and not getting treated. I suspect this paved the way for his bronchiectasis.

The Unexpected Patient by Dr Himali McInnes Photograph: HarperCollins Publishers

After leaving school, he got a job at a factory. However, he started to drink heavily, with almost daily marijuana use. "I went through a bad patch from 18 onwards. It's like I saw it, so I did it. I felt as if I had it all, friends, booze, parties, but actually I think I was mentally unstable, feeling abandoned by dad. So I drank and drank." Stints in various jobs followed, but most didn't last long as he got swayed by "girls and parties". He tried to do some courses, including learning te reo Māori, but found studying was hard as an adult despite having enjoyed it as a child. He failed all his courses.

"I felt like I was not spiritually or mentally sound enough to learn my own language."

We finish our chat. I'm running 30 minutes late, but I've learned a whole lot more about my patient than I could have during a doctor-led consult.

*Names have been changed

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We don't live in isolation. Our ancestors' trauma can affect our health generations later | Himali McInnes

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If there is one patient who has opened my eyes to my own cognitive bias and who has helped me to recognise the profound effect of the past on a person's health, it is my patient Arama*. "Hey, what's up, doc?" says Arama as he walks into my consulting room one day.

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What have we learned over the last 18 months of collective intelligence pooling that can inform the Global Pandemic Radar and what lessons will help us perfect disease surveillance and respond better to future crises, write @nesta_uk's @leksy_b @KathyPeach https://t.co/7xc2gs4ofA

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Pooling society's collective intelligence helped fight COVID – it must help fight future crises too

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The WHO is creating a Global Pandemic Radar – an example of collective intelligence that must learn lessons from this pandemic.

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What have we learned over the last 18 months of collective intelligence pooling that can inform the Global Pandemic Radar and what lessons will help us perfect disease surveillance and respond better to future crises, write @nesta_uk's @leksy_b @KathyPeach https://t.co/7xc2gs4ofA

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Covid exposes deep, long-established and widely overlooked problems in men’s health - The Telegraph

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Covid exposes deep, long-established and widely overlooked problems in men's health - The Telegraph

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There is a clear need for the development and deployment of male-targeted health promotion interventions to improve disease prevention

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🤬 cases in England and Wales will be hit hard by backlog, says police chief

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Rape and domestic violence cases in England and Wales will be among the worst hit from the growing backlog in the judicial system, and trials could soon start collapsing because of severe delays, the new crime commissioner for England's second biggest force has warned.

Simon Foster, the Labour commissioner for West Midlands police, said underfunding and "mismanagement and reckless neglect" of the justice system over the past 10 years had left it at crisis point, and he had heard of one crown court trial date being set for as far off as 2024 - though the Ministry of Justice denied this.

"It's not justice for the accused, for witnesses, for the victims, and it undermines the credibility of the justice system," said Foster, who worked as a legal aid solicitor for 35 years. "We really ought to treasure our justice system in the same way we treasure our NHS, and I don't think people do."

"It's particularly domestic abuse, violence against women and rape cases that are going to be at serious risk ... as a result of that backlog," he said, adding that it is difficult to sustain long delays to trials when vulnerable people were involved.

"That is a real concern to me. Are we going to see a further fall in prosecution rates as a consequence of trials not remaining sustainable for all that time?"

Foster's comments came ahead of the expected publication of the government's long-awaited review into how rape is investigated and prosecuted in England and Wales. Commissioned two years ago, it was planned to be completed in spring 2020 but was pushed back amid wrangling over how far the proposed actions to tackle record low rape charges and convictions should go.

There are nearly 58,000 outstanding crown court cases and more than 450,000 magistrates court cases in the system, and Foster said urgent intervention was needed to stop cases from collapsing due to the delays.

Andrea Simon, the director of End Violence Against Women Coalition, said the pandemic had exacerbated what was already an unacceptable backlog. "Pre-Covid many rape cases were already taking over two years to reach trial. This will have significant impacts on women and girls remaining engaged with the system."

She said throughout lockdown some women had only found out on the day their trial had been postponed, and repeatedly relisted trials "adds to the retraumatisation of victims and has a major effect on their ability to provide evidence, or even attend trial".

"The issue of lengthy delays in the justice system also impacts victims' willingness to access therapeutic support while waiting, because of concerns those counselling notes could be used in court," said Simon.

"When you set this against record low rates of prosecution for rape, it adds up to a colossal denial of justice to victims of sexual and domestic violence, which disproportionately impacts women and girls."

In the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic, prosecutions for crimes against women and girls fell by more than half compared with 2019, due to the backlog in the court system worsened by court closures and social distancing measures.

The Ministry of Justice insisted it was wrong to suggest that any trials had been listed for 2024, and the vast majority had been scheduled for next year. A spokesperson said:"Outstanding cases in the magistrates court have fallen by around 60,000 since last summer, crown courts are dealing with cases at pre-Covid levels, and we are investing hundreds of millions to further increase capacity and deliver swifter justice for victims."

Foster was voted in to the West Midlands crime commissioner role in May, vowing to invest more in community policing, which he said has been dismantled by austerity cuts over the past decade, as well as a commitment to tackling knife crime and violence against women.

The Conservatives took 75% of the police and crime commissioner roles contested in May, including 10 gains, helping to consolidate home secretary Priti Patel's power over the country's police forces.

Foster said he would use his role to fight for more funding for the force. He said that under the government's plans to put 20,000 police officers back on to the streets West Midlands police would get only just over 50% of the officers they lost to cuts during the past decade.

He said the allocation of new officers would leave more deprived areas worse off. "When it comes to our police officers, there's no levelling up," he said.

The Home Office was contacted for comment.

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Rape cases in England and Wales will be hit hard by backlog, says police chief

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Exclusive: Austerity, mismanagement and 'reckless neglect' has left system at crisis point, says crime commissioner

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Tes' FE leader of the year: What Covid has taught me about college leadership | Tes News

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I was genuinely shocked and honoured in equal measure last Friday to win Tes FE leader of the year. Despite being 45 years old, I rushed off to tell my mum, who, as only mothers can do, rattled my hubris and knocked me immediately back into place by asking, "Is that not your job? What did you win that for then?" The call ended and introspection followed.

As we head towards closing the academic year and into planning and appraisal season, it's an important time to reflect and ask ourselves questions about how well we might have done in our own leadership this year, without reliance on awards.

I often wander around college trying to test the temperature by asking leaders, "Are you winning?" It's important, as leaders, that we know, or at least think about, how we are doing against outcomes set in September. It's also important for teams to know more than ever that they have done a great job and have "won" the year. Some leaders know the answer straight away. Those that have a clear purpose, vision and objective focus. They keep score and communicate it frequently. A constant reckoning of "wins" and "losses" in a mental league table.

Background: Stuart Rimmer wins leader of the year at the Tes FE Awards 2021
More: What I wish I'd known when I first went into leadership
Mental health: 'Difficult' to be a leader right now

The ubiquitous SMART targets have a place and outcomes remain important, but if we spend time reflecting on our performance (our thinking, behaviours, holding our values and definitely our feelings) then, as famous American football coach Bill Walsh suggests, the score takes care of itself. Leadership is an evolution and right now better, or at least further, questions might be "how" did we win? How did we conduct ourselves? What did we learn while we were winning (or losing)?

This year has been intense for everyone but I feel that the learning from the heat of the crucible can be invaluable - but it requires a "forced pause", a deliberate and structured reflection before we allow ourselves to collapse into the summer for recuperation.

What FE college leaders have learned from the Covid experience

A series of questions might help. You could try: how do I feel about my progress this year? What was I most professionally proud of this year? What was the most impactful thing I achieved? What was my contribution? Is there a specific skill I should develop or develop further? Do you feel you lived the college values? Did you find yourself conflicted at any point? What is exciting or energising about next year? What's holding you back? What are you going to do about it? What will you stop doing or reduce next year? What drains your energy (and what will you do about it)?

Also we should reflect more widely on what we have learned about leadership in FE over this past crazy year and how this might help us going into next year.

My top five lessons are:

1. Everyday leadership happens everywhere in colleges - it shouldn't rely on titles.
We have witnessed, more than ever, a year of situationally emergent leadership. People have stepped up when needed and displayed leadership of self and others. We could harness this more in future. Many a reluctant leader has thrived this year and found voice. We should celebrate this constantly.

2. It's all about the team but great teams deserve great leaders.
Teams that went into Covid strong have emerged stronger. Those that went in with poor teamship, weak leadership or poor quality just got worse. When things got tough people looked to leaders to "be there". We need to acknowledge that not everyone wants to be "on the team", but, going forward, the world is now too tough to carry these non-team players or impoverished leaders. More time spent building teams and leaders will always be a wise investment.

3. Leaders struggle, too.
Leaders are far from invincible, despite sometimes being expected to be 24/7 superheroes. There is a place for demonstrating vulnerability but if shown too often, it erodes confidence. This is a careful and deliberate balance. Leadership can be all-consuming and often comes at a personal cost. Getting proactive personal one-to-one support, therefore, is essential. We need to recognise this more next year.

4. Leadership rarely goes to plan or works in straight lines.
Good intentions and strong values might produce good decisions but they can be made irrelevant if execution is poor, and this can then generate unpredictable results. Less time spent Zoom chatting and more spent really communicating will help. Perhaps we could be more compassionate and accept that leading teams is rarely neat and sequential.

5. Sometimes you have to abandon the original objective to meet higher purpose.
Through the year I've had to park some college ambitions to slow the pace, focus on emerging issues or go back to basics. When this has happened, it often relates to seeing leadership as a service and answering the question, what do the team/staff need right now? This can be frustrating and conflicting, and it requires acceptance but leads to better longer-term outcomes. The right approach this year, I feel, will be remembered beyond our Covid year.

Stuart Rimmer is principal and chief executive at East Coast College and Tes FE leader of the year 2021
Overall, there's nothing new here - perhaps just new for me. Leadership is human. It's messy. It's complex. It's unpredictable. It's hard. But it's also rewarding: a journey of learning and imperfection and service to others remains a great privilege. So, in your moment of a "forced pause", did you win this year? How did you win? How can you serve better next year? I genuinely think this year anyone in a leadership role deserves an award,

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Leader of the year: What I learned in 2020

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I was genuinely shocked and honoured in equal measure last Friday to win Tes FE leader of the year. Despite being 45 years old, I rushed off to tell my mum, who, as only mothers can do, rattled my hubris and knocked me immediately back into place by asking, "Is that not your job?

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‘It’s not like you were in a war, love’: the ignorance surrounding an MP with PTSD

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At the beginning of the pandemic, I reread Mrs Dalloway. I wasn't the only one - something about the novel seemed to resonate; as Evan Kindley noted in the New Yorker last April, the spectre of Spanish flu hangs subtly but perceptibly over it. I had first read it as a student - probably, on reflection, mere months before a terrible thing would happen to me, during which I expected I would die. This event changed the configuration of my mind and, in myriad unforeseeable ways, my entire life. It also, it turns out, changed the way in which I'd read Mrs Dalloway. Its portrayal of a shell-shocked mind, which I had noted but not fully appreciated before, seems all the more authentic, visceral.

I was not in a war, and neither - to my knowledge - was Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, who is taking several weeks off on the recommendation of her doctor, after a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. The military legacy of that mental health condition haunts it; some of the comments about Whittome's diagnosis have been truly despicable, and they largely have the same timbre: "It's not like you were in a war, love." The political blogger Paul "Guido Fawkes" Staines stooped to a new low with a post titled "Nadia's shell shock shows politicians need life experience". "Parliament may be daunting though nothing akin to the trenches of the First World War," it read. Aside from a concerning lack of empathy, the writer has no knowledge of the background to Whittome's diagnosis, nor the medical expertise to make such claims. But no matter. To a certain kind of man, who has never fought in a war himself, there is no greater glory than armed conflict. (Virginia Woolf knew about hollow glory. In Mrs Dalloway, Septimus "went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square", and returns numb, suicidal and plagued by memories and hallucinations.)

Military metaphors have been rife throughout the pandemic, which has seen PTSD diagnoses increase, especially among frontline staff. And for good reason: experts on defence mental health are studying the effects of the pandemic, particularly in terms of "moral injury" (perpetrating, failing to prevent or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations, leading to feelings of guilt and shame). Veterans' groups have offered support to NHS staff. The staff themselves speak of being "on a battlefield". Dr Julie Highfield - a clinical psychologist who works on an ICU supporting staff and patients - told me that the prevalence of complex or type 2 PTSD among staff (which comes about after repeat trauma, as in cases of child abuse or war) had given her a new understanding of what it must be like to be a veteran.

These conversations, the research and the continued presence of trauma in the media made me think that perhaps we were getting somewhere with regard to the stigma of PTSD. There seemed to be a greater understanding of symptoms and treatments, to the point where books about trauma were in the bestseller charts and people were even making memes about it. After the insurrection at the Capitol, the American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke powerfully about how she had feared for her life and how, as a sexual assault survivor, trauma compounds trauma.

It felt as though we were moving further away from some of the attitudes that I encountered when I was at my worst, which ranged from "at least you didn't die" to "in my day we just got on with it" - in the case of the latter, the "Blitz spirit" myth is being dismantled, with researchers finding that "people developed serious psychosomatic conditions, including involuntary soiling and wetting, persistent crying, uncontrollable shaking, headaches and chronic dizziness". The ground was shifting, finally, or at least it felt that way.

But the "culture wars" infect everything, including the perception of mental health. Any sensible person knows that trauma is all around us. They have either experienced it themselves or witnessed it: look at the prevalence of birth trauma - all the women who have experienced the sight of buckets of blood on the floor of the delivery room, all the men who have seen their partners and their babies almost die. Then you have the prevalence of rape and sexual assault, racist and homophobic hate crimes, child abuse, domestic violence. Add to that the health and social care professionals who have seen death this past year on an unimaginable scale. Add to that the men in small towns who spent their youths trying to avoid being beaten to a pulp, who still keep one eye on the door of the pub.

You don't have to have been in a war to have felt the fear of death. It is part and parcel of being human, as is the fact that it leaves a lasting mark on some of us. Not everyone who experiences trauma will go on to develop PTSD, but the chances are that you know someone who is living with it. A common thread among people with the disorder is the sudden realisation, the dawning that the symptoms they experienced were actually indicative of something, and that it was treatable. And there's a sense of allyship, too. Instead of dividing trauma victims into the worthy and the unworthy, the experience of post-traumatic stress carries the potential for solidarity between veterans and others who develop it.

Earlier this week, amid the maelstrom of social media vitriol regarding Whittome's diagnosis, I saw a post from a veteran, offering to talk to anyone who was wrestling with trauma. If only everyone could show such kindness.

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'It's not like you were in a war, love': the ignorance surrounding an MP with PTSD | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

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The vitriolic reaction to Nadia Whittome's diagnosis shows how far we are from understanding trauma, says Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

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The Devastating Impact of Coronavirus on Students

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Violence against women ‘a pandemic’, warns UN envoy

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A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.

This week marked 10 yearssince the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

Yet despite 46 countries signing the treaty, the world has become gripped by a pandemic of violence against women, exacerbated and exposed by Covid-19, according to a UN envoy.

"The Covid pandemic revealed what was happening before," said Dubravka Šimonović, UN special rapporteur on violence against women. She said across the world there had been a stark increase in calls to domestic violence helplines, reports of women missing or killed, and a lack of safe places for those fleeing abuse.

"We have a pandemic of violence against women that was not addressed properly in a huge number of states," she said.

The rise in violence against women and girls has been mirrored by a political backlash against the convention - the first international legally binding framework to prevent domestic violence, protect survivors and promote equality.

In March, to widespread domestic and international condemnation, Turkey, the birthplace of the convention, announced it would be pulling out of the treaty from July.

Turkey's withdrawal from the convention capped years of escalating anti-feminist, anti-women and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric by its politicians, including the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Erdoğan has publicly and repeatedly stated that he does not believe in equality between men and women and his government has increasingly linked women's safety to remaining at home with their families and having more children.

"We lost a safety net," said Elif Ege, of the women's refuge organisation Mor Çati in Istanbul. "The Istanbul convention was not implemented properly at all over the years ... but it doesn't mean it was completely ineffective; it was a significant tool in the hands of feminist organisations."

In Ukraine there has been strong opposition to the signing and ratification of the convention from religious groups who perceive it to be a threat to "family values".

Women protest outside the National Palace in Mexico City on International Women's Day with placards showing names of victims of femicide. Ten women a day die in Mexico from gender-based violence. Photograph: Mahe Elipe/Reuters

Halyna Fedkovych and Marta Chumalo from Women's Perspectives, a Ukrainian women's rights organisation, said they had received twice as many calls for help and women faced increasing barriers to accessing justice. They point to a recent case in which a woman with a 15-month baby had been beaten by her husband. When social services arrived, they berated her and called her a bad mother because the floor was dirty.

Miroslava Bobáková, co-director of the Slovak-Czech Women's Fund, said in Slovakia, which has also signed the treaty, the convention is increasingly seen as "an essence of evil". The situation in the country is especially dire for single mothers, women living in poverty and those from the Roma community.

In Mexico, 10 women are killed on the basis of gender every day. In Peru between March and July 2020, there were 11,000 instances of violence against women, according to the ministry of women, with almost 30% of those attacked under the age of 18.

In Egypt, which has never signed the Istanbul convention, there have been increasing attempts to silence feminist activists for violating so-called family values.

"Not having a public sphere to discuss things brings violence," said Mozn Hassan, of the women's rights organisation Nazra. Both Hassan and her organisation face repeated harassment by the state.

Yet campaigners and women's rights groups have insisted that the Istanbul convention remains a powerful weapon in the fight to end gender-based violence.

"Despite the pushbacks we do see improvements," said Šimonović. "Even before the ratification, the 34 states who signed [the convention] have had to implement new laws to protect women."

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Violence against women 'a pandemic', warns UN envoy

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A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners. This week marked 10 yearssince the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

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‘Hell on earth’: bereaved families on the battle for a Covid inquiry

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or families whose loved ones died due to Covid-19, and who have been calling on the government to hold a public inquiry for over a year, Boris Johnson's announcement of a statutory inquiry to start next year came as a bittersweet landmark. Jo Goodman, whose father, Stuart, 72, died last April, and who co-founded the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group almost exactly a year ago, said their campaign had been vindicated, but the battle with the government has caused them "trauma upon trauma" and left a legacy of mistrust.

While the announcement was "a huge relief", the group warned that the inquiry was starting too late, and called on the government to involve bereaved families in key decision-making, including the choice of chair and terms of reference for the inquiry. Elkan Abrahamson, a Liverpool-based solicitor who has worked for free on the group's behalf, first wrote to Johnson on 11 June last year, calling for a rapid public inquiry, naming 56 bereaved families. The group emphasised the need for an immediate, "rapid review" inquiry, so that lessons could be learned to avoid a second wave of the virus. Goodman said it was devastating for families to see thousands more people die in the winter, and the group still believes the inquiry should be set up immediately.

"In that first letter, we raised so many issues, including the discharge of people from hospital into care homes, the adequacy of test and trace, the timing of lockdown, that were not resolved by the second wave," Goodman said. "Bereaved families had experienced other issues, such as inadequate advice from the NHS 111 service, and people being infected in hospitals. But the government refused to hold a rapid inquiry, and Boris Johnson refused to meet us, and it was terrible to see so many more people die and families suffer."

A member of the public writes on the National Covid Memorial wall Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Until Wednesday, the government had consistently refused to commit to a formal, statutory inquiry, while saying there would be some form of inquiry but never specifying when it would happen. The government did not even respond to the families' initial letter for five weeks, despite a reminder. When it did come, the reply was not from Johnson or the health secretary, Matt Hancock, but from a senior civil servant, Lee McDonough, at the Department of Health and Social Care. Last July he set out what has effectively remained the government's position until this week: "At some point in the future there will be an opportunity ... to look back, to reflect and to learn lessons. However, at the moment, the important thing is to focus on responding to the current pandemic."

The families had asked for a meeting with Johnson and Hancock, but McDonough said they were too busy dealing with the pandemic to do so. Abrahamson and the group's barrister, Pete Weatherby QC, who is also working pro bono, warned the government that it may seek a judicial review of its refusal to hold an inquiry, arguing that it has a legal duty to do so under article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights. That requires an "effective investigation" when people have died in circumstances where the state had a duty to safeguard their lives.

Leshie Chandrapala, whose father (pictured), Ranjith Chandrapala, 64, died from Covid last May, said the campaign for an inquiry alongside grieving was creating a 'ticking timebomb' Photograph: Leshie Chandrapala/Reuters

The government responded by rejecting the argument that article 2 had been breached or that an immediate statutory inquiry was necessary to learn lessons, and refused to agree to waive its own legal costs if the group did apply for a judicial review. That forced the families to seek crowdfunding and apply for charitable grants, and they raised £50,000 to support the need to pay the government's legal costs if they did go ahead with a legal challenge. The recent story, denied by Downing Street, that Johnson said in November that he would rather "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" than order another lockdown, caused the families further anguish.

"For us it has been trauma upon trauma," Goodman said. "Our loved ones died from this virus in circumstances that we believe were avoidable. Then we have had to put our grief on hold and fight for the truth, and answers. It has been a further trauma to be fobbed off and ignored, and have our sensible request for an inquiry refused, until now.

"The group has grown to 4,000 members and it is incredible to finally see this announcement; my mum and I had a little cry when we heard the news. But because of how we've been treated, we still feel mistrustful, and insistent that we need to be fully involved, including in the choice of chairperson and the areas the inquiry will address."

Leshie Chandrapala, whose father, Ranjith, a London bus driver, died from the virus last May, said she had suffered "absolute hell on earth" due to losing him, then having to fight for details about his working conditions on the buses during the pandemic, and for his death to be accepted as a workplace fatality. She said it was vital for families to be "involved and consulted" in the inquiry from the start.

"I don't know what 'to cope' means any more," Chandrapala said. "I am trying my best because I was brought up by my dad to be responsible, honest and not let people down. However, doing so alongside grieving in a pandemic, and campaigning, is creating a great big mental health ticking timebomb which will no doubt explode by the time this is all over."

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'Hell on earth': bereaved families on the battle for a Covid inquiry

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or families whose loved ones died due to Covid-19, and who have been calling on the government to hold a public inquiry for over a year, Boris Johnson's announcement of a statutory inquiry to start next year came as a bittersweet landmark.

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Almost 5m people now waiting for hospital treatment in England

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Almost 5 million people in England are waiting for hospital treatment, and more than 400,000 have already seen their surgery delayed for at least a year, NHS figures reveal.

Doctors warned that the huge numbers were "stomach-churning" and showed that Covid's disruption of normal care had left patients in pain, agony and fear about their health.

"Following the most difficult year many of us have ever faced, we are now heading into another crisis - the number of people on waiting lists at record levels, coupled with exhausted doctors," said Dr Rob Harwood, the chair of the British Medical Association's consultants committee.

"Today's statistics are a reminder that despite Covid hospitalisations falling, the health service now faces a challenge of almost equal magnitude."

The pandemic's disruption of hospital services means that in March 4,950,297 people in England were on the NHS waiting list for treatment that under the health service's constitution it should provide within 18 weeks. That is a record high, and means that 251,949 people have been added to the list in a month.

Similarly, the number of people who have been forced to wait 52 weeks or more for their care has topped 400,000 for only the second time since records began and stands at 436,127.

"We must not forget that behind these stomach-churning numbers are ordinary people who have been forced to put their lives on hold," said Tim Mitchell, a vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Clearing the backlog created by Covid would "take many years", he added.

Health charities warned that many of the 5 million people will be suffering pain, anxiety and fear about their prospects and that some could see their health worsen and become harder to treat. For example, 620,003 people with arthritis are on the list, of whom 92,165 have been waiting more than a year for surgery, often a hip or knee replacement.

Tracey Loftis, the head of policy and public affairs at the charity Versus Arthritis, said: "Many of these people are living in pain every day and although it is clear that those who are vulnerable to coronavirus must be prioritised, it's important that those who are waiting for treatment are not forgotten and continue to get the support they need."

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: "These shocking levels of unmet care needs risk serious illness and permanent disability for thousands of people. This is a devastating verdict on 11 years of underfunding, cuts, understaffing and neglect of social care that left both health and care services weakened and exposed when the pandemic hit."

The already ballooning list looks set to become even bigger soon. Hospitals report that people who did not seek or could not access care for non-Covid conditions such as cancer and heart disease are now visiting their GP and being referred on to their local hospital, thus swelling the list.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said: "Trust leaders are deeply aware of the impact of these delays for patients. A trust leader told us that, at the moment, for every case they clear another two referrals come through. While this remains the case the waiting list will continue to grow."

The sheer number of people on the waiting list, the speed at which it is growing and frustration at such long delays risk becoming a political problem for Boris Johnson. Downing Street stressed last weekend that "tackling backlogs and improving patient care will be a critical priority for the remainder of the parliament".

Asked about NHS waiting times during a visit to Co Durham, the prime minister expressed confidence that the NHS "can cope" with the huge numbers needing care.

"There's no question that the NHS now faces a huge backlog. It's a massive national challenge but I also know that a great, great national institution that has proved itself capable of rising to the most phenomenal challenges.

"It was never overwhelmed by Covid, it hasn't been so far and I know it can cope with the backlog", he said.

NHS Providers and the NHS Confederation, which also speaks for trusts, have warned that it will take three to five years to tackle the backlog and get waiting times back on track. Some hospitals are putting on extra sessions of surger y in the evenings and at weekends to minimise long delays. But hospitals are also limited in what they can do because many staff are exhausted after Covid.

Hopson warned that the £1bn the government has given the NHS to deal with the problem may be spent by the autumn. NHS organisations are pressing for ministers to commit extra billions over the next few years, over and above the services core funding and already agreed cash to cover extra Covid costs.

NHS England pointed out that a record number of people with suspected cancer - 232,084 - had received an urgent checkup by a specialist in March despite Covid's impact on hospitals. Progress at restoring normal services is also running ahead of schedule, Prof Stephen Powis, the organisation's medical director, said.

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Almost 5m people now waiting for hospital treatment in England

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Almost 5 million people in England are waiting for hospital treatment, and more than 400,000 have already seen their surgery delayed for at least a year, NHS figures reveal. Doctors warned that the huge numbers were "stomach-churning" and showed that Covid's disruption of normal care had left patients in pain, agony and fear about their health.

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Kathryn James and Christine Nightingale (2004) Discovering Potential: A practitioners guide to supporting improved self-esteem and well-being through adult learning. Leicester. NIACE

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Kathryn James and Christine Nightingale (2004) Discovering Potential: A practitioners guide to supporting improved self-esteem and well-being through adult learning. Leicester. NIACE

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Author- Yes, it is Kathryn and her colleague Christine.

See in particular chapters 6, 7, and 8. Pages 59-85

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Anti-racist values and practice.

The concept of Brave spaces is an important value and way of working expressed wonderfully by the organisation Charity So White at https://charitysowhite.org - well worth a visit

In August 2019 #CharitySoWhite sparked a conversation about racism in the charity sector. The hashtag was born following the discovery of training materials by Citizens Advice titled ‘Barriers to working with BAME communities. A slide included deeply concerning racist stereotypes about communities of colour, reducing diverse groups to generalisations about ‘low levels of literacy’ and ‘intrinsically cash-centred cultures.’

The Charity So White invitation to Brave space by Micky ScottBey Jones.

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Invitation to Brave Space

Together we will create brave space

Because there is no such thing as a "safe space"

We exist in the real world

We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.

In this space

We seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,

We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere,

We call each other to more truth and love

We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.

We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.

We will not be perfect.

This space will not be perfect.

It will not always be what we wish it to be

But

It will be our brave space together,

and

We will work on it side by side.

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Invitation to Brave Space Together we will create brave space Because there is no such thing as a "safe space" We exist in the real world We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.

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 Jonathan Bradley and Margaret Rustin (2008)Work Discussion: Learning from Reflective Practice in Work with Children and Families (Tavistock Clinic Series) 

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 Jonathan Bradley and Margaret Rustin (2008)Work Discussion: Learning from Reflective Practice in Work with Children and Families (Tavistock Clinic Series) 

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Downloaded free e-reader version from https://www.itseyeris.com/book/work-discussion-learning-from-reflective-practice-in-work-with-children-and-families 30-day free trial).

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NHS faces exodus of doctors after Covid pandemic, survey finds

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Thousands of UK doctors are planning to quit the NHS after the Covid pandemic because they are exhausted by their workloads and worried about their mental health, a survey has revealed.

Almost one in three may retire early while a quarter are considering taking a career break and a fifth are weighing up quitting the health service to do something else.

Long hours, high demand for care, the impact of the pandemic and unpleasant working environments are taking their toll on medics, the British Medical Association findings show.

In a survey of 5,521 doctors 1,352 (31.9%) of the 4,258 who replied to a question about whether their career plans had changed over the last 12 months said they were now more likely to retire early than they were last year - more than double the 14% who said the same in June 2020.

Smaller proportions were more likely to take a career break (25%), leave the NHS for an alternative career (21%), work in another country (17%) or become a locum (15%). Some respondents selected more than one option. In addition, half said they were more likely to reduce their hours.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the leader of the BMA, said the high numbers of disillusioned doctors could worsen the NHS's staffing problems and leave patients waiting longer for treatment.

"It's deeply worrying that more and more doctors are considering leaving the NHS because of the pressures of the pandemic - talented, experienced professionals who the NHS needs more than ever to pull this country out of a once-in-a-generation health crisis," Nagpaul said.

One acute specialist doctor told the BMA: "My usual finish time is around two hours after I'm rostered to leave. I spend my rest days catching up on the rest of the emails I don't have time to deal with at work. It's exhausting.

"I've started exploring career opportunities outside of the NHS. I don't know yet if I'll leave clinical medicine but I'm seriously considering it. It's a tough thing to consider. I love the NHS but I know I can't keep up this pace indefinitely. My own mental and physical health will have to become a priority at some point."

Asked what factors had influenced their thinking, doctors cited workload (45%), personal wellbeing (43%), pay (29%), working conditions (22%) and the culture in their workplace (22%).

A GP in Yorkshire said: "In my more than 20 years of training and working in the NHS I have been closest to leaving the job that I love in the last few months. Like most, I've had days where I wanted to stop. I've had colleagues in tears, some scared of what is happening around us and some completely overwhelmed with the avalanche of work that has hit general practice."

An exodus of doctors would make it even harder for the NHS in England to tackle the backlog of care caused by the widespread suspension of normal services during the pandemic. The waiting list for hospital treatment already stands at 4.7 million - the highest it has ever been.

Nagpaul said: "More than half of doctors are afraid of an unmanageable workload to try to deal with the backlog of millions of patients who are waiting for treatment, and most do not feel that their hospital or department will be able to cope with demand. Three out of five doctors are worried about the impact of the backlog on patient care."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "There are record numbers of doctors, nurses and NHS staff [in England] - over 1.18 million - and there are now more medical students in training than at any point in NHS history.

"We are backing our NHS with an extra £7bn for health and care services this year, bringing our total additional Covid-19 investment to £92bn, including £1bn to support NHS recovery by tackling waiting lists."

It released figures last week showing there are record numbers of doctors working in the NHS in England. There are more than 123,800 doctors, almost 6,300 more than a year ago, and more than 303,000 nurses, more than 11,200 up on last year, it said.

Bur surveys by medical staff groups show persistent and often widespread shortages of staff in significant areas, which can lead to patients waiting longer than they should for diagnostic tests and treatment including cancer care, heart operations and other surgery.

For example, a survey last week by the Royal College of Radiologists showed that a shortage of radiologists, who analyse scans, is delaying care, including cancer treatment.

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NHS faces exodus of doctors after Covid pandemic, survey finds

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Thousands of UK doctors are planning to quit the NHS after the Covid pandemic because they are exhausted by their workloads and worried about their mental health, a survey has revealed. Almost one in three may retire early while a quarter are considering taking a career break and a fifth are weighing up quitting the health service to do something else.

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Gender at Work: bringing back the heart: the gender at work action learning process

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Gender at Work: bringing back the heart: the gender at work action learning process

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Infographic: 'I thought it was just part of life' 

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Infographic: 'I thought it was just part of life' 

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Beyond the Cliff | Laura van Dernoot Lipsky | TEDxWashingtonCorrectionsCenterforWomen

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Feminist activism and self care - from the Gender at Work podcast series

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Feminist activism and self care - from the Gender at Work podcast series

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'I thought it was just a part of life' Understanding the Scale of ViolenceCommitted Against Women in the UK Since Birth. Key facts. 

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'I thought it was just a part of life' Understanding the Scale of ViolenceCommitted Against Women in the UK Since Birth. Key facts. 

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https://www.victimfocus.org.uk/womens_experiences_violence_abuse_study

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Paul Gilbert's Compassionate Mind website

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Paul Gilbert's Compassionate Mind website

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Recommended by Jane at our session on 5.5.21.

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The Compassionate Mind Foundation

Established as a charity in 2006, The Compassionate Mind Foundation (CMF) is the home of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and Compassionate Mind Training (CMT), and the leading provider of trainings and research.

Compassionate Mind Training

Compassionate Mind Training helps us to understand, and work with, our tricky brains. It builds our abilities to use our bodies to support our minds, and develop the courage and wisdom to address our life difficulties and flourish. The compassionate mind tries to live to be helpful not harmful.

International Affiliate Centres, Peer Support & Supervision Networks, Discussion Lists and
Special Interest Groups

The Compassionate Mind Foundation is an international network of practitioners and researchers dedicated to the promotion of CFT and CMT. We have a number of international affiliate centres, as well as regional peer support and supervision networks, and special interest groups focusing on the application of CFT and CMT to particular specialist areas.

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Established as a charity in 2006, The Compassionate Mind Foundation (CMF) is the home of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and Compassionate Mind Training (CMT), and the leading provider of trainings and research. Compassionate Mind Training helps us to understand, and work with, our tricky brains.

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Donna Coleman died after Covid ran riot at Burnley College. Should it have been open?

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he joke went: it was impossible to get Covid at Burnley College. The virus didn't exist there. All through September, October, November and December 2020, as more and more people came down with Covid yet the further education (FE) college stayed open, Donna Colemanwould make this gag to her sisters, Steph Coleman, 38, and Vicki Coleman, 45. She spoke to them on the phone every day. "It was a running joke," Steph says. "'Who's come down with Covid now?'"

Although the sisters laughed about it, in truth they were alarmed. Donna was a member of the teaching staff at the college in Lancashire. She worked with teenagers who had been kicked out of school, as well as long-term unemployed people, helping them to continue their education or find work. (Steph and Vicki had previously workedat the college, too, although they had left by September 2020.)

On these calls, Donna repeatedly told her sisters that she was frightened about going into work. She felt that the college's Covid safety protocols were inadequate. Students weren't social distancing in the corridors. The staff room was packed. "She told me that there wasn't much difference between pre-Covid and now," Vicki recalls. "I asked her: 'Do you feel safe?' She said: 'Not at all. There's too many people in the place.'"

Steph, who lives nearby in Clitheroe, urged her sister to complain, but Donna was fearful of repercussions. "I told Donna: 'They're not taking their duty of care seriously,'" she says. "'It's going to take something bad to happen to somebody here for them to [take it seriously].'" Vicki, who now works in sales and lives in Rawtenstall, also in Lancashire, offered to put in a complaint to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on her sister's behalf, but Donna demurred. "She said: 'You can't, because we have the same surname. It will come back to me and I will lose my job,'" says Steph.

As the term wore on, Donna began going for regular Covid tests. She had to pretend she had symptoms, but she thought the lie was better than accidentally spreading Covid around the college. "We are not safe," she wrote in a WhatsApp message to a colleague on26 September. She considered reporting the college to her union, the University and College Union (UCU), but the feedback form asked for a name; Donna was too scared that her complaint might be traced back to her.

Although she didn't realise it, Donna wasn't the only person expressing concerns about the college's Covid measures. Marie Monaghan, a regional support official for the UCU, which represents FE workers, had been raising the alarm with Burnley College for months - about social distancing and the college's adherence to guidance around self-isolation for students and staff - and getting nowhere. "I get paid to look after people," Monaghan says. "And I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to do my job properly and protect them."

Monaghan's efforts were not fruitful. Burnley College remained open with what she believed to be inadequate safety protocols in place. Waves of infection crashed through the college, which by the latter half of the autumnterm was in a tier 3 area of England. The first Covid outbreak was in October. At least 22 individuals were required to isolate. At the end of November, there was another outbreak. At least four members of staff tested positive for Covid in the foundation and community studies (FACS) department, where Donna worked and where many students were teenagers with additional needs, such as learning difficulties.

Donna kept going to work, kept calling Steph and Vicki to express her concerns, kept going for Covid tests. Then, in mid-December, there was a third outbreak. At least 12 people tested positive. Donna's head of department had to close FACS, as so many people were off sick. Donna was one of them. She fell ill on 11 December and tested positive on 14 December. At home, members of Burnley College teaching staff messaged each other in dismay. "The place is a giant petri dish," one staffer messaged Donna. "It's sweeping the staff room again," responded Donna, who said she had a fever and an aching head. She couldn't eat and spent most of her time sleeping. When she was awake, Donna urged colleagues to get tests. "Everyone needs to go remote or shut it down," Donna wrote in one message.

Still, Donna wasn't fearful for her life. She was only 42. Mostly, she was upset that she would have to spend Christmas on her own. (Donna lived alone and was in a support bubble with her mum and dad.)She was angry that what she had predicted for months had finally come to pass. They had made light of it on the calls, but it wasn't funny. "It was a running joke," Steph muses, sounding dazed. "It's not a laughing matter now. Because of what happened."

onna was born in Bolton, but her family moved to Haslingden, 10 miles north, when she was seven. Her dad was a builder and her mum worked part-time in a newsagent. In addition to Steph and Vicki, Donna had an older brother, Danny, now 44. Donna was an adorable slip of a girl with a blond pageboy bob, who was bullied by her older siblings. "We'd hide at the bottom of the stairs with slices of bread, covered in jam, and smack them in her face and make her cry," says Vicki. "We were horrible. That's probably why she got to be so ballsy."

It is curious that Donna went on to work in education, because she hated school. Primary was OK, but Donna loathed secondary school. "My mum battled with her to get her to go," says Steph. "She hated the work and thought it was pointless." Steph and Donna shared a room in the family home. They squabbled over silly things - Steph was forever stealing Donna's Jean Paul Gaultier perfume and Lancôme Juicy Tube lip glosses - but were inseparable, more like a married couple than sisters. "Steph and Donna did everything together," says Vicki. "They were like husband and wife."

Donna would lie on her single bed, reading Smash Hits through thick Deirdre Barlow-style glasses. She had an 80s permand liked to play about with makeup, but wasn't much for boyfriends or dating, preferring instead to boss about her little sister and interfere in her life. "I would always tell her: 'You're not my mother, you know!'" says Steph.

Donna left school at 16. "She always said: 'I just want to work and earn money, buy a car and go on holidays abroad,'" says Steph. Donna's first job was at a factory that hired out wedding suits. "She was paid peanuts, but within a year or so they promoted her into the office," says Steph. After leaving the factory, Donna worked for a food manufacturer, working her way up into the product development team, where she was given the opportunity to do a National Vocational Qualification. Later, she became an in-house training assessor and earned a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, which is how she got into education.

"She cared about the learners so much," says Steph. "They loved her. But she was so strict. She was scarier than the security guards." Donna brooked no disobedience. "She was very straight," says Vicki. "She told them: 'This is what I expect of you,' and they respected her for it.'" But Donna cared for the vulnerable young people she worked with. "She saw herself in the unemployed," says Steph. "She'd worked in a factory and had no qualifications and people thought that was all that she was ever going to achieve. But she'd achieved so much, because she'd been given chances. Donna wanted to give everyone chances. To show them: look, you can do it."

Donna loved to travel, usually with Steph, graduating from girlie holidays in Ayia Napa and Magaluf to cruises and shopping holidays in Las Vegas and New York. "She wasn't much of a sunbather. She always wanted to go out and see things," says Steph. Donna was also ferociously loyal: when Vicki's marriage broke down, Donna moved in with her sister, so she wouldn't be alone. "She wouldn't leave me for a week because I was in such a mess," says Vicki.

Vicki says her sister dedicated her whole life to meeting people. "Helping kids believe in themselves and get on the straight and narrow. Getting an unemployed person their first job in 20 years. That's all she ever did." This is why Vicki is determined to get justice, for the errors she believes contributed to her sister's death. "Donna always used to say,: 'Don't wish badly on anyone. Just wish them what they deserve,'" says Vicki. "She'd want someone to be held accountable for this. And they should be. Because we've been robbed."

n the first wave of the pandemic, schools and colleges closed, except for vulnerable children and those of key workers. Ministers went into the second wave in autumn determined to do things differently. "We cannot let this virus damage our children's futures even more than it has already," said Boris Johnson, the prime minister, explaining why schools would remain open even after England entered a second national lockdown on 5 November.

To keep schools safe, the government issued a stream of guidance to headteachers and college leaders in the run-up to the autumn term. Analysis by the education site Schools Week found that there were almost 100 updates to government guidance to schools in the period February-June 2020, with a quarter of those published in the evenings or at weekends. "It was an incredibly challenging period," says Julie McCulloch, of the Association of School and College Leaders. "There was an enormous amount of guidance coming out."

Burnley College reopened on 15 June to staff, before reopening to students in September. "Corridors were full," says Angela Carlile, 45, a learning support assistant in the FACS department. "When we were in the classrooms, we were told we had to wear visors, but students didn't have to. We were told they were allowed to sit next to each other. The students weren't social distancing." Many of the people Carlile supported had underlying health conditions. "Most of the windows in our department don't open," she says. "Some of the rooms are very small."

Another member of the teaching staff, speaking under the pseudonym Alex, concurs: "Social distancing didn't exist. People were congregating all the time." Alex says that students, who were required to wear masks in the corridors, often wore them under their chin. In at least one staff room, people did not wear masks. Alex does not remember seeing windows in their department being opened. (Government guidance from the time mandated that spaces should be well ventilated at all times.) "It felt like a normal day in the office," says Alex.

Throughout the autumn term, Donna expressed her concerns to Steph. "She told me that there were 25 people in the FACS staff room, all sat back to back or side by side, with no screens in between," Steph says. Alex says that screens were not installed in at least one staff room until November. "We all felt the same," Alex says. "We didn't feel safe." But Alex didn't feel able to speak out. "The problem at college was that people were scared ... my family was telling me: 'I can't believe you're going in,'" says Alex. "But what was I meant to do? I just had to deal with it and hope for the best."

Even the most orderly educational establishment was powerless to mandate that students wear masks correctly or social distance at all times - particularly when dealing with rowdy teenagers. In fact, the government's guidance said "no one should be excluded from education for not having a face covering". But Burnley College's approach when dealing with staff members who tested positive for Covid caused alarm to many members of the teaching faculty that term.

On 29 September, Carlile left work early to go with her father to a hospital appointment. It was bad news. Doctors said he was terminally ill with cancer. On 2 October, a Friday, Carlile received a message from a colleague. The teacher she had supported in class on Monday and Tuesday had tested positive for Covid. The colleague was telling her because they knew about Carlile's dad. "I was really angry, because I thought: 'I should be hearing this from work,'" says Carlile. By Friday evening, Carlile still hadn't been told by the college. She was furious. "That information should have come to me from managers, not from everyone gossiping about it," she says.

I don't like how the college was run ... somebody lost their life, it's really hard to crack on like nothing happened

Angela Carlile

The following day, a Saturday, Carlile called her manager. "I said: 'Why didn't you tell me?'" Carlile remembers. "She said: 'I only found out myself yesterday.'" On the Monday, 5 October, Carlile called HR and informed them that she wouldn't be coming to work because she felt she needed to self-isolate. Later that day, she received an email from Burnley College. "If you had face to face contact (within one metre) of this person, including being coughed on, having skin to skin contact ... you do not need to self-isolate unless you're contacted by the NHS Test and Trace service," the email read. Carlile was told not to share the email with any colleagues or students. Carlile never receiveda notification from test and trace. Carlile's class was not sent home to self-isolate and returned to lessons the following week, despite the fact that their teacher had tested positive for Covid.

This seems to be an inaccurate interpretation of government guidance. Burnley College should have contacted the Department for Education (DfE) and worked with it to identify close contacts of confirmed Covid cases and tell them to self-isolate, rather than relying on test and trace to do the heavy lifting. The guidance read: "You must send home those people who have been in close contact with the person who has tested positive."

Donna also received an email from Burnley College, on 24 September, informing her that a colleague had tested positive for Covid. The email told her to self-isolate and seek a test only if she were displaying symptoms. It also said not to forward the email to anyone. Burnley College had misinterpreted government guidance, failing to notify close contacts of confirmed Covid cases of their responsibility to self-isolate regardless of whether they had symptoms.

By now, Monaghan was really frightened for the staff and students. She had received two complaints from staff, both saying they were being told they didn't need to self-isolate, even though they had been in close contact with infected people. (One of the complaints was from Carlile; the other person remains anonymous.)

On 6 October, Monaghan emailed Burnley College, asking for a meeting. It did not reply to this email. On 9 October, she followed up. "It's my understanding that some staff aren't being made aware of relevant positive cases and wrongly advised to not self-isolate when they would be classified as a close contact," Monaghan wrote. Burnley College subsequently agreed to meet with local union officials, but refused to meet with Monaghan throughout the autumn term.

Monaghan filed complaints with the HSE, on 13 October and 30 October. She raised all her concerns: lack of social distancing on site, failure to make students wear masks, not telling staff they needed to self-isolate when they had been in contact with confirmed cases. The HSE did not take enforcement action.

An HSE spokesperson said: "All concerns raised with us relating to arrangements at the college were looked into. The college provided us with detailed records and after discussions we were satisfied that the college was complying with the relevant published guidance.

"Our enquiries relating to the death of Donna Coleman are, however, ongoing. We remain in contact with Donna's family and have explained what we do, how and why."

Carlile subsequently tested positive, as did her mother and father. Her mother was hospitalised for three weeks with Covid and almost died. "My mum and dad got it from me," Carlile says. She is embittered about the whole experience and has been on long-term sick leave with stress since October. "I loved my job and I loved supporting students," she says. "But I don't like how the college was run ... when it affects people's lives, and somebody lost their life, it's really hard to go back and crack on like nothing happened."

The person who lost their life, of course, was Donna.

s teaching staff fought valiantly to keep schools and FE colleges open during the autumn term, Covid cases spiralled out of control. By 8 October, the daily death toll was higher than it had been on 23 March, when the UK was put into a national lockdown. Five days later, on 13 October, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, called for a "circuit breaker" lockdown over the school half-term in England, to bring cases down. Minutes from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage), published that same day, revealed that the government's scientific advisers had also called for an England-wide lockdown on 21 September, but had been overruled.

The prime minister was adamant: there would be no second lockdown. Such a move would be "the height of absurdity" that would "turn the lights out", he said on 21 October. Meanwhile, case numbers kept going up. By 31 October, there were 21,915 a day in the UK. Finally, Johnson bowed to the inevitable, announcing a national lockdown, starting on 5 November. Yet schools and colleges were to remain open.

Evidence has shown consistently that children and teenagers are at low risk of serious illness or death from Covid. But the same does not apply to the adults who work in educational settings. "Start from the basic principles," says Prof Susan Michie of University College London, a member of Independent Sage and Sage sub-group SPI-B. "You increase risk [of contracting Covid] the more people you have contact with, over longer amounts of time, at close proximity, in indoor spaces, particularly if they are poorly ventilated and people aren't wearing masks. Then ask yourself: what environment combines all those things together? The answer is schools. By definition, it's unsafe."

Data from the DfE, published in January 2021, found that Covid infection rates were 1.9 times higher for primary and secondary school teachers than the general population and twice as high for special school teachers. ( FE colleges were not studied in the dataset.)

Throughout the autumn, scientists sounded the alarm about Covid transmission rates in schools. On 27 November, Independent Sage, in collaboration with the Emergency Advisory Group for Learning and Education (Eagle), published a report calling for stronger safety protocols in English schools. "The situation in schools has become dangerous," the scientists warned, pointing to a 50-fold increase in infections in secondary school students since the start of September. The report urged school leaders to move to a mixture of digital learning with in-person tuition, to make mask-wearing mandatory for all students during classes and for windows and doors to remain open, even in cold weather, to minimise the risks of airborne transmission.

"We were concerned," says Dr Terry Wrigley of Eagle, a co-author of the report. He believes the government obscured the reality of the risks posed to teaching staff in schools because it was determined to keep schools open, come what may. "The government wanted to give the appearance of normality and show that they were doing all they could, and things would be wonderful, until the next crisis. At which point, they took belated action."

Throughout the autumn term, the government continued to insist that keeping schools open was safe, even as Covid cases shot upwards. By mid-December, most of England was under tier 3 restrictions, meaning that leisure and non-essential shops were closed. "When you eliminate everything else - close hospitality, close leisure centres - and all you have left is schools and supermarkets, it must be happening in one of those two places, right?" says the virologist Prof Julian Tang of the University of Leicester. "There's no reason it wouldn't be happening: unmasked students; classrooms of 30 people that are poorly ventilated."

The repeated Covid outbreaks that Burnley College experienced in the autumn term were replicated across the country. Meanwhile, the government put pressure on schools and colleges to stay open with a mixture of cajoling, financial sweeteners and, in some instances, legal threats. "Large numbers of staff were absent and school leaders were saying: 'We don't think it's safe to keep our schools open,'" says McCulloch, from the Association of School and College Leaders.

In December 2020, headteachers and local authority leaders in tier 3 London took matters into their own hands. "The number of cases and deaths were all going in the wrong direction," says Clare Coghill, the leader of Waltham Forest council. "It seemed to be getting worse and worse." After consulting headteachers, Coghill and her fellow councillors took the decision to close schools for Christmas early, on 14 December: "At that stage, rates were doubling every four days in the borough." Greenwich and Islington also advised schools to close early.

The secretary of state for education, Gavin Williamson, intervened. Headteachers received letters reminding them of their legal responsibilities to keep schools open until the end of term. Williamson even launched legal action against Greenwich council, forcing it to abandon its plans to close early. Local authorities were allowed no discretion. "It felt petty," says Coghill.

It was an unedifying spectacle: teachers being threatened with legal action for not keeping schools open in the middle of a deadly pandemic that was running out of control. "You look back and think: how on earth did we get to that situation?" says McCulloch.

onna almost made it through to the end of term without falling ill. One by one, Donna's colleagues developed symptoms. In all, at least 12 staff would test positive for Covid as a result of this December outbreak, causing the FACS head of departmentto close it early, on 15 December.

Despite the outbreak, a Christmas party was held on site on 18 December, the last day of term; this has been verified by the UCU. "Every term they have a 'staff development day'," says Alex. "At Christmas, it's the 'fun' one ... it's like a social, really." At the party, staff were given alcohol and gifts. "If we had known about the party, we would have sent out instructions for people not to attend," says Jo Grady, UCU's general secretary. "To me, that's clearly not an event anyone should be attending and it's not an event that the college should be hosting."

In a video provided to the Guardian, the date of which cannot be verified, about 40 people can be seen dancing in a room at Burnley College. A man plays the saxophone while others jump up and down and wave their arms in the air; at least one person is wearing a Santa hat. With the exception of two women in face coverings, none of the revellers appear to be wearing masks or practising social distancing.

In early December, the college had filmed a promotional video, featuring staff dancing to Justin Timberlake's Can't Stop the Feeling!in Christmas jumpers and Santa hats. In the video, dozens of staff dance arm in arm indoors, not wearing masks. In one shot, five staff are crammed into a car together, also not wearing masks. The video was uploaded to Burnley College's social media channels in mid-December, but has since been deleted. "That video shows they have a poor safety culture, that they can't get their head around the basics. It's like it was a joke to them," says Monaghan. At the time, Burnley was in tier 3 restrictions. Staff should have been on site only for essential work and should have maintained social distancing while they did it. "They were doing parties after my sister was poorly," says Vicki. "It's just shocking."

Burnley College were approached for comment about all the events detailed in this article. A spokesperson said: "The college is in dialogue with the Health and Safety Executive in relation to Donna's tragic death. There are numerous and significant inaccuracies relating to events and individuals within [this] article, but given the matter remains with the HSE it is not appropriate to comment further at this time."

On 23 December, Steph went to Donna's house, to drop her Christmas presents off at the front door. "She was very pale," Steph remembers. "She had lost weight. She looked tired." Characteristically, Donna apologised for not having wrapped Steph's presents; she hadn't had the strength. Donna unwrapped the pair of Kurt Geiger boots Steph had bought her as a Christmas present, but didn't have the energy to try them on. On 29 December, Steph woke up to a message from Donna in the family WhatsApp group. It said: "I don't want to worry you, but I had to call an ambulance, because I couldn't breathe. I'm in Blackburn Royal A&E."

On New Year's Eve, Donna was moved to the intensive care unit. On 3 January 2021, doctors told Donna that she needed to go on a ventilator. Donna sent a flurry of text messages to her family and friends. They were goodbye messages. Donna texted her best friend from work and told her she loved her and to look after her family for her. Donna's last conversation was, of course, with Steph.

A flurry of text messages passed between Donna and Steph on 3 January, just before she was intubated.

Donna: I'm fighting all I can. I just need some help.

Steph: Don't you dare give up. You promised you'd fight.

Donna: I am fighting.

Steph: Just think of it like the best sleep you'll ever have. We'll be here, waiting for you.

Donna: I can't wait to have a hug.

Steph: I love you sis.

Donna: I love you more.

Steph: It's not possible.

Donna read Steph's last message, but never responded. "It was at 4.15pm," Steph remembers. "It's etched into my brain."

s Donna was trying to stay alive on a ventilator, an unseemly debacle was unfolding in classrooms across the country. On 30 December, Williamson pledged to reopen most English primary schools on 4 January, as planned, with secondary schools reopening later, when they had set up mass on-site testing. The National Education Union (NEU), which represents teaching staff, responded with dismay. "We are astonished at today's announcement by Gavin Williamson ... [he] is sending the majority of primary pupils and staff back on Monday to working environments which aren't Covid secure," said the NEU's general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, calling for teachers to be given the Covid vaccine.

The government was unmoving. On 3 January, Johnson insisted that schools were "safe". On 4 January, English primary schools reopened as planned. That evening, Johnson put the country into a third national lockdown and closed schools. It was an absurd farce. Within 24 hours, Johnson had gone from reassuring the public that schools were safe to admitting they may be "vectors for transmission". The mass-testing capabilities that schools had built over the Christmas break, when they could have been putting their energy and resources into setting up remote learning packages, were mothballed.

She'd want someone to be held accountable for this. And they should be. Because we've been robbed

But Donna was oblivious to the chaos. Late in the evening of 3 January, her organs started to fail. On 6 January, Donna's family got the call they had been dreading. "I wanted to hold her hand," Steph says. "She wasn't going on her own." Vicki, Steph and Donna's father were allowed to visit. They felt that Donna wasn't in that sterile hospital room, but had already left her body. "I said: 'Let's do it. Put her at peace.'"

Steph and Vicki each took their sister's hand. Their father held their hands. Doctors turned off the ventilator. "I lost Donna the minute they put her on the ventilator," says Vicki. "When they rang up to say she wasn't responding and her organs were failing, it was like someone just shot me. They tore my heart out that night." After 10 minutes, at 8.45am, Donna died. Steph, Vicki and their father embraced, collected her things and went home.

"It never goes from you," says Steph. "I don't think I've accepted it. The other day, something happened at work, and I said: 'I have to tell Donna this.' And then I realised I can't." She misses her sister the most in the morning, when she is driving to work. They used to talk every morning on Steph's commute. "I always assumed when we were old ladies we'd go on holiday together, go to bingo. I thought my partner would die before me and I'd have Donna."

Between 9 March and 28 December 2020, there were 73 deaths among teaching and educational professionals in England and Wales. One survey from November 2020 of members of the teaching union NASUWT found that nearly half of teachers surveyed felt that the Covid security measures in their schools were inadequate.

Donna was not the only person linked to the December Covid outbreak at Burnley College to die. Her head of department's husband also died of Covid, on the same day.Steph struggles not to feel consumed by rage at her sister's former employers. "It's strong. I have waves of it. I have to stop myself. Because Donna always said: 'Don't wish people bad.'"

But most of the time, Steph just misses her big sister: misses her busybodiness, her unquestioning loyalty, her selfless love. "She's still here in spirit," says Steph. "She's too nosy not to be. She'll be standing behind me, telling me off, for the rest of my life."

The picture of Burnley College accompanying this article was replaced on 27 April 2021 to avoid any possible confusion with the university whose campus it shares.

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Donna Coleman died after Covid ran riot at Burnley College. Should it have been open?

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he joke went: it was impossible to get Covid at Burnley College. The virus didn't exist there. All through September, October, November and December 2020, as more and more people came down with Covid yet the further education (FE) college stayed open, Donna Colemanwould make this gag to her sisters, Steph Coleman, 38, and Vicki Coleman, 45.

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ActionAid’s Ten Principles of Feminist Leadership:  

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ActionAid’s Ten Principles of Feminist Leadership:  

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5. Sharing power
We accept that the ultimate test of leadership is the spaces we create for others to lead. We will work together to establish shared goals and will trust and empower colleagues to share leadership in reaching those goals. Likewise, we will trust and support those in positions of authority to guide us in the best interests of our mission.
6. Responsible and transparent use of power
We will be clear, timely and transparent in making decisions, with appropriate consultation and in the interests of our mission. If involved in allocating resources and choosing partners, we will ensure these choices promote ActionAid's values and aspirations. we will communicate decisions, and the reasons for them, openly.
7. Accountable Collaboration
We will ensure that our goals are clearly defined and mutually owned and hold ourselves strongly accountable for our individual and collective efforts to achieve them. We will measure our achievements by the contributions we have made to team success. We will recognise and value successful collaboration, while addressing poor performance fairly but decisively.
8. Respectful Feedback
We will seek, give and value constructive feedback as an opportunity for two-way learning. We won't wait for formal reviews - instead we practice continuous feedback, to all those we work with. We will work to resolve conflict through active listening, timely intervention and promoting non-violent and respectful communication and behaviour.
9. Courage
We will constantly aim for transformative change, seeking out new ideas and learning from mistakes rather than fearing failure, and empowering those we work with to do the same. When we encounter defeatism or cynicism, we will strive to restore belief in our goals; where there is competition or insecurity over status and turf, we will build trust; and where we find complacency or mediocrity we will help to renew passion and creativity to excel in our mission.
10. Zero Tolerance
We will call out any form of discrimination and abuse of power that we witness or experience in the workplace, and safely enable and support those around us to do the same. We will ensure our own conduct is free from any form of harassment, exploitation and abuse.

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ActionAid's Ten Principles of Feminist Leadership

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ActionAid is a global movement of people fighting for women's rights, social justice and an end to poverty. Our transformative vision of a just world free from poverty, oppression and patriarchy requires transformative feminist leaders: leaders who enable others to lead, building power with them instead of over them.

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The quote from Resmaa Menakem that Jane shared at the end of the session on 5.5.21

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The quote from Resmaa Menakem that Jane shared at the end of the session on 5.5.21

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"Trauma in a person, decontextualised over time looks like personality

Trauma in a family, decontextualised over time looks like family traits

Trauma in a people, decontextualised over time looks like culture."

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We update this after each session with questions you use/suggest /find helpful.

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Dominant ideas method ? for 5.5.21 session 

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Dominant ideas method ? for 5.5.21 session 

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Ian Wright: Match of the Day theme reminds me of stepfather’s abuse - The Times and The Sunday Times

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Ian Wright: Match of the Day theme reminds me of stepfather's abuse - The Times and The Sunday Times

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Generations of fans associate the Match of the Day theme tune with weekends on the sofa enjoying the football highlights. For one of its pundits, however, the music has deeply disturbing associations. Ian Wright, the former England and Arsenal striker, has revealed that the BBC show's soundtrack awakens memories of the "Guantanamo Bay-style" abuse he suffered at the hands of his violent stepfather.

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Renos K. Papadopoulos. (2021). Involuntary Dislocation: Home, Trauma, Resilience, and Adversity-Activated Development. Abingdon. Routledge. 

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Renos K. Papadopoulos. (2021). Involuntary Dislocation: Home, Trauma, Resilience, and Adversity-Activated Development. Abingdon. Routledge. 

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Author is male.

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Top 50 Trauma Blogs and Websites To Follow in 2021

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United States About Blog Resilience at work. What does it mean to be trauma-informed at work? How is it defined and assessed? How do we measure success? What policies, protocols, and training exist? How does becoming trauma-informed change us and our work? We share the nuts and bolts of becoming a trauma-informed organization and our struggles, questions, and successes, too. Frequency 1 post / week Since Aug 2017 Blog acesconnection.com/g/becomin..
Twitter followers 9.7K ⋅ Domain Authority 55ⓘ ⋅ Alexa Rank 233Kⓘ

About Blog A blog by Elisabeth Corey. Elisabeth is a survivor of family-controlled child sex trafficking and abuse. Beating Trauma provides tools and resources for survivors of childhood trauma to take their recovery journey to a whole new level. Frequency 3 posts / quarter Blog beatingtrauma.com/beating-tr..
Twitter followers 21.9K ⋅ Social Engagement 54ⓘ ⋅ Domain Authority 34ⓘ ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.2Mⓘ

Denver, Colorado, United States About Blog A blog on topics a Denver EMDR trauma therapist frequently answers. Are you interested in learning more about mental health? An experienced counselor & EMDR consultant's words may help! Frequency 1 post / month Blog marisolerlacher.com/blog
Twitter followers 4 ⋅ Domain Authority 9ⓘ ⋅

Australia About Blog In this blog, women and their families share their experiences of birth trauma. These stories are shared in their own voice and may be distressing to some readers. We tell these stories because many people find them helpful and it informs us all of the wide range of birth experiences families undergo. Frequency 1 post / quarter Since Apr 2018 Blog birthtrauma.org.au/the-blog
Twitter followers 195 ⋅ Domain Authority 37ⓘ ⋅ Alexa Rank 7.2Mⓘ

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom About Blog The Trauma Research Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit founded in May of 2018, organized to promote clinical, scientific, and educational projects. The purpose of this corporation is to support and conduct non-partisan research, education, & informational activities dedicated to innovative clinically informed projects. Frequency 5 posts / month Since Apr 2020 Blog traumaresearchfoundation.org..
Twitter followers 546 ⋅ Social Engagement 1ⓘ ⋅ Domain Authority 26ⓘ ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.5Mⓘ

San Antonio, Texas, United States About Blog The Coalition for National Trauma Research (CNTR) is a non-profit organization that brings the trauma community together with a unified focus to address the critical need to coordinate our efforts to achieve federal research funding commensurate with the burden of disease and to enhance the infrastructure supporting high-impact, multidisciplinary clinical trials. Frequency 2 posts / month Since Jun 2009 Blog nattrauma.org/kt-tools/traum..
Twitter followers 1.5K ⋅ Domain Authority 45ⓘ ⋅

United States About Blog The team at Attachment and Trauma Therapy provide a warm, positive, and family-oriented style, allowing children, teens, and families a safe place to work through their challenges. Our areas of focus include adoption, attachment, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), depression, sensory processing disorder (SPD), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), selective mutism, and trauma. Subscribe for stories & tips about mental health topics such as anxiety, trauma & more. Frequency 1 post / month Since May 2018 Blog attachmentandtraumatherapy.c..
Domain Authority 9 ⋅

Portland, Oregon, United States About Blog Blog posts sharing trauma-informed environmental, relational, and teaching strategies with step-by-step instructions, real-life examples, how the strategies align with the evidence-based; many including free, ready-to-use resources. Frequency 1 post / month Blog tracyschiffmann.com/blog
Twitter followers 99 ⋅ Social Engagement 4 ⋅ Domain Authority 9 ⋅

Toronto, Ontario, Canada About Blog Edited by trauma expert and clinical psychologist Dr. Robert T. Muller, view curated articles exploring trauma, psychotherapy, and other trauma-related news. Frequency 4 posts / week Since Mar 2019 Blog psychotherapytoronto.ca/trau..
Twitter followers 7.4K ⋅ Alexa Rank 6.6M

Malibu, California, United States About Blog Serenity Trauma Healing Center encourages you to explore the wide range of mental health resources, topics, treatments, and other information found in our blog posts. Frequency 2 posts / month Since Apr 2018 Blog serenitytraumacenter.com/blog
Twitter followers 4 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.7M

Minnesota, United States About Blog The Trauma Professional's Blog provides information on injury-related topics to trauma professionals. It is written by Michael McGonigal MD, the Director of Trauma Services at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, MN. Regions is a Level I Adult Trauma Center, and has partnered with Gillette Children's Specialty Hospital to become the first Level I Pediatric Trauma Center in the Upper Midwest. Frequency 1 post / week Since Dec 2010 Blog regionstraumapro.com
Twitter followers 3.4K ⋅ Social Engagement 1 ⋅ Domain Authority 34 ⋅ Alexa Rank 6.8M

Wisconsin, United States About Blog Welcome to Surviving Childhood Trauma, a place where survivors can connect through experiences. As you move through this site you will find a collection of writing, poetry, and essays covering my journey of recovery from Childhood Trauma. Frequency 1 post / week Since Aug 2017 Blog survivingchildhoodtrauma.com
Twitter followers 544 ⋅ Alexa Rank 6.7M

Denver, Colorado, United States About Blog Philosopher Frank Seeburger's reflections on trauma as it relates to contemporary philosophical issues, especially those of truth, temporality, sovereignty, representation, politics, and the nature of philosophy itself. Frequency 2 posts / month Since Nov 2020 Blog traumaandphilosophy.com/blog-1
Social Engagement 11 ⋅

Toronto, Ontario, Canada About Blog The Trauma & Mental Health Report is a weekly online magazine published out of York University in Toronto. Our aim is to share research-based knowledge on the treatment, prevention, and implications of trauma and mental illness in a manner that can be readily understood by readers. We also draw on primary sources including interviews with survivors, therapists, researchers, and other professionals in the fields of interpersonal trauma and mental health. Frequency 1 post / day Since Aug 2018 Blog trauma.blog.yorku.ca
Twitter followers 7.4K ⋅ Social Engagement 9 ⋅ Domain Authority 81 ⋅ Alexa Rank 4.6K

London, England, United Kingdom About Blog Our mission is to help people who go round and round in treatment to find their path towards health and recovery. Khiron Clinics aim to be that change through providing effective residential and out-patient therapies for underlying psychological trauma, stress, and breakdown. Frequency 1 post / week Since Jul 2011 Blog khironclinics.com/blog
Twitter followers 231 ⋅ Social Engagement 2 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.2M

Toronto, Ontario, Canada About Blog Trauma Practice for Healthy Communities aims to promote health by providing individuals who are experiencing Psychological Trauma, PTSD, Compassion Fatigue, and related mental health disturbances, with access to information, group support, and educational/self-development programs. Frequency 1 post / month Blog traumapractice.org/blog-radi..
Twitter followers 919 ⋅ Alexa Rank 7.6M

Virginia, United States About Blog Read articles by Betty Eastman & Associates with information to help families with emotional pain, behavioral issues, addiction and trauma. Frequency 1 post / day Since Mar 2014 Blog bettyeastman.com/blog
Twitter followers 30 ⋅ Alexa Rank 9.2M

Colorado, United States About Blog Dr. Schwartz has a private practice in Boulder, Colorado providing Psychotherapy, Supervision, and Consultation in Resilience Informed Therapy which applies research on trauma recovery, EMDR Therapy, and Somatic Psychology to form a strength-based, trauma treatment model. She writes on topics of trauma recovery, resilience, embodiment, yoga therapy, and more. Frequency 6 posts / quarter Blog drarielleschwartz.com/ari..
Facebook fans 14.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 778 ⋅ Social Engagement 2.1K ⋅ Domain Authority 34 ⋅ Alexa Rank 489.2K

Boston, Massachusetts, United States About Blog The Trail Guide is a Web-mag intended to support the healing of repeated trauma. It is inspired by exploration, innovation, research, learning, development, nature, art, writing, community work, and all therapeutic activities. Frequency 1 post / month Blog gretchenschmelzer.com/blog-1
Twitter followers 840 ⋅ Social Engagement 9.4K ⋅ Domain Authority 37 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.3M

Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, United States About Blog For struggling students, success is often an elusive dream and failure a painful reality. Lakeside's brain-based, trauma-informed approach to serving young people alters that reality. When students perceive themselves as failures, they can react by withdrawing or acting out. Lakeside offers another option, one that leads to success today and in the future. Our therapeutic schools and services identify and address not only behaviors but also the real reasons students struggle and fail. Frequency 3 posts / month Since Oct 2018 Blog lakesidelink.com/blog/catego..
Facebook fans 622 ⋅ Twitter followers 839 ⋅ Domain Authority 40 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.4M

Menlo Park, California, United States About Blog The SRI Student Behavior Research Team has created this site to provide the latest information about evidence-based approaches to support all student's positive behavior, mental health, and well-being. Our blog posts focus on district, school, classroom, and student-based interventions and impacts, including informal tips, interviews, and findings from our own research and evaluation projects, as well as perspectives from our partners on the ground. We also discuss various relevant and recent 'hot topic' issues in education to bring you fresh information in a direct and digestible way. Frequency 1 post / week Blog studentbehaviorblog.org/cate..
Twitter followers 2.7K ⋅ Social Engagement 2 ⋅ Domain Authority 19 ⋅ Alexa Rank 3.6M

Rockville, Maryland, United States About Blog PTSD: Post-traumatic stress disorder. Read about the latest research findings regarding post-traumatic stress disorder including common causes and new treatments. Frequency 1 post / week Since Mar 1998 Blog sciencedaily.com/news/mind_b..
Facebook fans 1.7M ⋅ Twitter followers 264.2K ⋅ Social Engagement 1.8K ⋅ Domain Authority 93 ⋅

Sarasota, Florida, United States About Blog Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., is a licensed psychotherapist, motivational speaker, and international author who has specialized in the field of compulsive, emotional, and restrictive eating for more than 30 years. She received a B.A. from Boston University, an M.Ed. from Antioch College, and an M.S.W. from Simmons College School of Social Work. She lives, teaches and practices in Sarasota, Florida. She is a co-founder of the Greater Boston Collaborative for Body Image and Eating Disorders and a former member of the Professional Advisory Committee. Frequency 1 post / week Since Jan 2007 Blog karenrkoenig.com/blog/catego..
Twitter followers 587 ⋅ Social Engagement 12 ⋅ Domain Authority 42 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.8M

Westminster, Maryland, United States About Blog Touching Trauma at Its Heart is a blog written by Attachment & Trauma Network's voices a collection of trauma-informed parents, professionals, and educators. Frequency 3 posts / month Since Feb 2019 Blog attachmenttraumanetwork.org/..
Twitter followers 1.8K ⋅ Social Engagement 11 ⋅ Domain Authority 41 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8M

Massachusetts, United States About Blog The Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative's (TLPI) mission is to ensure that children traumatized by exposure to family violence and other adverse childhood experiences succeed in school. The Learning Community Blog features guest contributors and an ongoing discussion with Learning Community Members. Frequency 1 post / quarter Since Jul 2016 Blog traumasensitiveschools.org/c..
Facebook fans 3.4K ⋅ Twitter followers 327 ⋅ Social Engagement 50 ⋅ Domain Authority 42 ⋅ Alexa Rank 6.8M

Charlotte, North Carolina, United States About Blog Montgomery Counseling serves individuals & families in Charlotte, NC. For quick tips, subscribe to our anxiety, trauma, depression therapy blog. Frequency 3 posts / month Since Feb 2020 Blog montgomerycg.net/blog
Twitter followers 3 ⋅ Domain Authority 5 ⋅ Alexa Rank 5.2M

Louisville, Colorado, United States About Blog Diane Poole Heller Ph.D. is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and expert in the field of child and adult attachment theory as well as trauma resolution. Her expertise in trauma healing has benefitted survivors and families of 9/11 and the Columbine shootings, making her a highly sought-after consultant, speaker, and presenter for organizations worldwide. Frequency 3 posts / month Blog dianepooleheller.com/blog
Facebook fans 30.9K ⋅ Twitter followers 152 ⋅ Social Engagement 34 ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅ Alexa Rank 596.6K

About Blog Here you'll find content that focuses on complex trauma research, as well as survivor stories & poetry, and featured articles from clinicians and thought leaders in the world of trauma recovery. Frequency 3 posts / week Since Nov 2019 Blog cptsdfoundation.org/trauma-i..
Twitter followers 4.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.1M

Russian Federation About Blog Philippe Izmailov is an author, NLP practitioner, computer programmer, economist, and teacher. He was born in Russia where he spent his childhood, which was frequently influenced by severe traumatic experiences, together with his single mother, who suffered from mental disorders. He applies his knowledge to develop a self-help method, which he defines as Mindfulness Based Trauma Treatment, and which he successfully employs for his own benefit by dealing with the effects of his psychological traumas. Frequency 10 posts / day Blog post-traumatic-stress-disord..
Facebook fans 294 ⋅ Twitter followers 599 ⋅ Domain Authority 14 ⋅

San Francisco, California, United States About Blog A blog that brings awareness to what trauma is but also to help people with innovative techniques to fight trauma symptoms. Frequency 2 posts / quarter Blog drbabbel.com/blog
Facebook fans 377 ⋅ Twitter followers 683 ⋅ Domain Authority 21 ⋅

Mesa, Arizona, United States About Blog Welcome to our health blog at Arizona trauma Institute. This blog will cover articles related to treatment of trauma, trauma training, consultation, education, seminars and community. Frequency 3 posts / year Since Sep 2019 Blog aztrauma.org/blog
Twitter followers 313 ⋅ Social Engagement 25 ⋅ Domain Authority 22 ⋅ Alexa Rank 7.1M

Arlington, Washington, United States About Blog Your Partner for Protection from Stress, Burnout and Trauma. Greenleaf Integrative is a unique consulting firm that partners with clients to promote the wellbeing of their employees and organizations. Its talented team of experts and tailored wellbeing solutions address the complex drivers and detrimental impacts of workplace stress, burnout, and trauma. Frequency 3 posts / year Since Sep 2017 Blog greenleafintegrative.com/cat..
Twitter followers 67 ⋅ Social Engagement 8 ⋅ Domain Authority 21 ⋅

Sherman Oaks, California, United States About Blog Trauma and Beyond blog offer information about childhood trauma, relationship issues, sexual trauma, and many more topics related to trauma. Trauma and Beyond is a holistic treatment center where trauma focused therapy can help you to address what is at the bottom of keeping you from living a better life. Frequency 10 posts / year Blog traumaandbeyondcenter.com/blog
Twitter followers 86 ⋅ Domain Authority 11 ⋅ Alexa Rank 7.1M

About Blog Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning (TITL) is an umbrella term coined to refer to a trauma-informed approach to college curriculum delivery. For those who are unfamiliar, to be trauma-informed in any context means to understand the role that violence and victimization have played in the lives of many individuals and to use that understanding to improve policies and practices in order to accommodate the needs of trauma survivors. Frequency 3 posts / year Since Jun 2018 Blog traumainformedteaching.blog
Social Engagement 7 ⋅ Domain Authority 17 ⋅

Mansfield, Massachusetts, United States About Blog Trauma Services is a dedicated biohazard cleaning company committed to helping families, businesses, and property owners with remedial situations. Our company brings over 20 years of knowledge, dedication, and experience in the industry, along with professional and certified technicians to serve you in your time of need. Frequency 1 post / quarter Since Mar 2017 Blog traumaservices.com/blog
Twitter followers 18 ⋅ Social Engagement 3 ⋅ Domain Authority 13 ⋅

New York City, New York, United States About Blog My interest in 'children and trauma' was born when I worked at the Childline, an anonymous Dutch telephone service. I was intrigued by children's resilience and perspectives on life. The most important information is that the Trauma Recovery Lab is based at the Child and Community Wellbeing Unit of the University of Melbourne's School of Population and Global Health, in Australia. Frequency 4 posts / year Since May 2011 Blog trauma-recovery.net
Twitter followers 210 ⋅ Domain Authority 36 ⋅

Denver, Colorado, United States About Blog The Center for Trauma & Resilience provides culturally and linguistically responsive programs, health promotion, and crime prevention education. Frequency 1 post / quarter Blog traumahealth.org
Twitter followers 54 ⋅ Domain Authority 28 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8M

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada About Blog The Crisis and Trauma Resource Institute provides exceptional training and resources in the areas of Mental Health, Counselling Skills and Violence Prevention. CTRI provides professional development training to over 20,000 people each year throughout Canada. Frequency 4 posts / quarter Since Apr 2017 Blog ca.ctrinstitute.com/blog-cat..
Social Engagement 622 ⋅ Domain Authority 37 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.3M

Morrisville, North Carolina, United States About Blog We're passionate about helping healthcare organizations get better. Blog posts and articles about Trauma-Informed Care. Frequency 1 post / quarter Blog relias.com/blog/topic/trauma..
Twitter followers 1.8K ⋅ Social Engagement 21 ⋅ Domain Authority 50 ⋅ Alexa Rank 156.1K

Oslo, Norway About Blog Follow Sergism from time to time to get blog posts on PTSD. Frequency 30 posts / year Blog sergism.com/blog
Facebook fans 184 ⋅ Twitter followers 30 ⋅ Instagram Followers 988 ⋅ Domain Authority 1 ⋅

Portland, Oregon, United States About Blog The Breathe Network is a resource and referral network that educates survivors of sexual violence and the general public about the unique benefits of holistic approaches to healing and connects survivors to practitioners who offer trauma-informed, mind-body-spirit oriented treatments in order to support integrated, sustainable healing. Frequency 8 posts / year Since May 2012 Blog thebreathenetwork.org/blog/news
Twitter followers 1.2K ⋅ Social Engagement 162 ⋅ Alexa Rank 1.5M

Sacramento, California, United States About Blog Are you interested in more information about trauma and anxiety treatment? You will find it on this blog. The Trauma Counseling Center of Los Angeles uses innovative therapy techniques to help people heal traumatic experiences and understand their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When you're learning about trauma counseling, you'll also hear about our variety of therapy techniques. Frequency 3 posts / quarter Since Jul 2018 Blog traumacounseling.com/trauma-..
Social Engagement 7 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.6M

Blackwood, New Jersey, United States About Blog Alyssa is a therapist who works with patients to empower them to become the best versions of themselves with the help of her therapy dog, Noel. Frequency 5 posts / quarter Since Sep 2020 Blog alyssascolari.com/light-afte..
Twitter followers 40 ⋅ Domain Authority 9 ⋅

Australia About Blog A trauma therapy practice in Media, PA specializing in the treatment of trauma, PTSD, and grief/loss using experiential trauma therapies including EMDR, psychodrama, and somatic psychotherapy. Frequency 1 post / quarter Since Jul 2016 Blog phoenixtraumacenter.com/blog
Twitter followers 2.3K ⋅

Toronto, Ontario, Canada About Blog Welcome! Trauma Education Essentials offers online courses for health and mental health care professionals on topics related to mental health, including complex psychological trauma. We feature international experts who cover a diverse array of clinically relevant topics, all delivered in a dynamic and engaging format. Frequency 2 posts / quarter Since Dec 2020 Blog traumaedessentials.com/blog-..
Twitter followers 972 ⋅ Social Engagement 4 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8M

Orlando, Florida, United States About Blog Amy Wagner is a mom, dog lover, travel junkie, wellness striver, relationship curator. Read more about managing your mental health and get your life back on track. Frequency 5 posts / year Since Sep 2016 Blog growingbranches.net/blog
Twitter followers 14 ⋅

London, England, United Kingdom About Blog How we feel during pregnancy about transitioning into motherhood, how we birth, and how we are cared for afterwards can all have seismic and long-term effects on how we feel and how we parent. Problems with trauma symptoms, anxiety and depression are unsurprisingly common for parents navigating the choppy waters of fertility, pregnancy, birth, post natal recovery and the first year. I love supporting parents so that they can navigate these challenges and go on and thrive with their families. Frequency 3 posts / year Since Jun 2016 Blog traumaticbirthrecovery.com/blog
Twitter followers 217 ⋅ Social Engagement 147 ⋅

Houston, Texas, United States About Blog PTSD Foundation of America is a non-profit organization dedicated to mentoring combat veterans and their families with post-traumatic stress. Our mission is to combat Post Traumatic Stress and bring healing to our military community. Follow this website as we combat Post Traumatic Stress and bring healing to our military community. Frequency 3 posts / year Since Dec 2016 Blog ptsdusa.org
Facebook fans 16.6K ⋅ Twitter followers 5.7K ⋅ Social Engagement 700 ⋅ Domain Authority 48 ⋅ Alexa Rank 2.8M

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada About Blog A blog by Crystal Arber. Crystal graduated from the University of British Columbia with a master's degree in social work. Crystal is an educator and has facilitated workshops about Trauma-Informed Practice in both the public and private sectors. Frequency 3 posts / quarter Since Aug 2013 Blog worthit2bme.com
Twitter followers 41 ⋅ Social Engagement 1 ⋅ Domain Authority 16 ⋅ Alexa Rank 8.2M

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Top 50 Trauma Blogs and Websites To Follow in 2021

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Best Trauma Blogs. Follow them to get the latest information on traumatic stress from a diverse group of experts in the field, know about a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual's ability to cope up with them, learn about intensive Trauma Therapy, and much more

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Anxiety in women exacerbated by Covid-19
What Works Centre for Wellbeing  analysis of the UK Annual Population Survey to find out what we know about the wellbeing of men and women in the UK during the pandemic.

Turns out, after controlling for other factors that affect wellbeing, such as self reported health and employment status, women:

tend to report higher satisfaction with life and a higher sense of purpose.

report higher anxiety.

On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is not at all anxious and 10 is completely anxious, in the Annual Population Survey data from March 2019-March 2020:

The average level of anxiety for women was 3.3, compared with 2.8 for men.

25.4% of women reported high anxiety (6-10 on the scale), compared with 18.5% for men.

This relationship holds after controlling for other factors that affect wellbeing.

This data has been collected for 10 years, and over this period wellbeing has been gradually increasing for both men and women.

For men, life satisfaction has been increasing slightly faster, closing the gender gap.

At the same time however, men have become less anxious, increasing the gendered gap in anxiety.

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Slides from 21.4.21

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Slides from 16.4.21

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Those in the most senior positions across health care, are generally not from historically marginalised groups, meaning they are unlikely to have to navigate persistent inequity in the workplace themselves, and might also not notice subtler and more pervasive forms of discrimination, including where their own practices are falling short.

However, we cannot 'force' leaders to be inclusive. History tells us that such draconian approaches end up with minimal levels of compliance that change nothing. It is by choice that leaders step into inclusive practice. However, this does not mean that inclusion should be relegated to an optional extra. Discrimination is harmful and these forms of 'institutionalised harm' cannot ethically simply continue without consequences. The NHS is a people business, and all people should therefore matter equally.

Time and again the data paints a picture that disparities are the norm, which means that discriminatory practices and therefore harm persists. We hear these stories constantly from participants on our programmes at the NHS Leadership Academy, where they feel safe enough to share their distressing accounts. Currently, however, these incidents occur with little proper acknowledgement from leadership teams, no apologies and little or no organisational learning, and with the individual managers involved receiving guidance from HR professionals. It is still all too common for those who complain to then be dislodged from their workplaces for speaking up or become so 'weathered' by their experiences that they simply have to leave. This is in stark contrast to those in positions of power, who may have abused that power, as they seem to fall upwards. Deep work is needed to address these inclusion fault lines, which are often compounded by entrenched and uncontested negative stereotypes about those audacious enough to complain.

A further obstacle to progress is the tacit acceptance that leaders are delivering on inclusion simply because they are now talking about it - learning a few more inclusive terms sadly looks as if it is enough evidence for some. But if inclusion is about fundamentally changing the nature of the relationships people have in the workplace across similarities and differences, and progressively eliminating discrimination in all of its forms, this effusive game of words is just not good enough.

So how should leaders be different? A start would be to create safe spaces for people to openly speak about discrimination and exclusion, producing the knowledge that would provide a critical foundation for leaders to begin to 'know' what to do. If this single activity is not present in our organisations and teams, we are simply deluding ourselves by concurrently making claims that inclusive progress is being made - progress according to whose knowledge and lived experience? There is much to learn from this solitary paradigm-shifting activity, as those who face discrimination cannot simply choose not to.

Organisations need to be clearer about leadership accountability, with the 'lived experiences' of their own staff being the most important indicator of inclusion at organisation, department and team levels. Great quality, evidence-based, life-long inclusive leadership development and support for leaders should also be a given and, most importantly, those who understand and experience exclusion, should be leading initiatives to bring about change across HR, organisational development and all other functions. Focusing change strategies around the knowledge created by lived experience is the only approach that can ensure that inclusion initiatives are relevant, effective and sustainable.

HR has the potential to be a change enabler for inclusion. The role of HR professionals across systems that have consistent disparities (for example, between BAME and white staff) should therefore be examined. HR approaches and practices urgently need to be updated in light of what we currently know about the lack of inclusion across the system, with the goal of having no policies or practices that do not support systemically just and equitable outcomes.

Once safe spaces and organisational processes have been established, leaders can then apply themselves to life-long learning, continually asking themselves how to listen to the experiences of those impacted by discrimination and exclusion.

How can I hear without making negative judgements about those who are courageous enough to speak their truths?

How can I hear without denying the messages that are being communicated?

How can I hear without placing covert pressure on people to only tell good news stories?

How can I hear, while asking myself 'what does this story tell me about the culture here, and how can I lead in ways that will transform the lived experiences of my staff'?

How can I hear without assuming there is nothing new that I need to learn?

Listening with humility and humanity is the first and most important attitude shift that must therefore take place.

Speaking truth to power is only one part of a very important equation, the other part is the examination of how power responds to truth. We need to embrace innovation on inclusion, this is what the NHS Leadership Academy's Building Leadership for Inclusion strategy is all about, transformation through leadership development. How ready are we now to learn?

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Inclusive leadership: how ready are we to learn?

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Those in the most senior positions across health care, are generally not from historically marginalised groups, meaning they are unlikely to have to navigate persistent inequity in the workplace themselves, and might also not notice subtler and more pervasive forms of discrimination, including where their own practices are falling short.

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London's Poverty Profile 2021: COVID-19 and poverty in London | Trust for London

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Last year's headline London's Poverty Profile (LPP) report was published as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to take hold. A year on, life has fundamentally changed. Well over 100,000 people across the country have lost their lives to the virus and three national lockdowns as well as constant restrictions on work and social activity have impacted very heavily on our economy and living standards.

This year's headline LPP report takes stock of what we know so far about the impacts in London. The report shows that London has been hit particularly hard compared to many other parts of England, both in terms of its citizens' health and its economy. The report also shows those living on the lowest incomes in the capital are most likely to have been hit hardest.

This can be seen across a range of indicators. For example, infection rates and mortality are higher in more deprived neighbourhoods, and those living on the lowest incomes are most likely to have been furloughed or lost their jobs. While government support has protected many families to some extent, more Londoners are now subject to the benefit cap, and food banks across the capital have increased the number of packages provided by 128% over the course of the last year.

As the COVID-19 vaccine continues to be rolled out, and national and local policymakers turn their attention to economic and social recovery, these findings provide a stark baseline against which the success of policies can be judged.

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London's Poverty Profile 2021: COVID-19 and poverty in London | Trust for London

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Last year's headline London's Poverty Profile (LPP) report was published as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to take hold. A year on, life has fundamentally changed. Well over 100,000 people across the country have lost their lives to the virus and three national lockdowns as well as constant restrictions on work and social activity have impacted very heavily on our economy and living standards.

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Stuart Rimmer. (2021). Voices from the tightrope: The role of distress and the modern further education principal/chief executive

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Stuart Rimmer. (2021). Voices from the tightrope: The role of distress and the modern further education principal/chief executive

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Male author, UK

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'On the tightrope': Distress in further education A new FETL report considers the drivers of distress among FE leaders and asks what leaders can do to cope

High levels of distress are becoming increasingly common among further education leaders, with principals blaming constant changes in policy and regulation, unreasonable expectations, uncertainty, and the threat of sanction, among other factors.

Leaders contributing to a new study from the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL) report being 'on the tightrope' between the external pressures they faced and the need to protect staff from them, between the need to perform and be positive and the need to 'hide' their distress.

Written by Stuart Rimmer, CEO of East Coast College and Visiting Senior Fellow in Leadership and Management at University of Suffolk, Voices from the Tightrope draws on an online survey and eight semi-structured interviews with serving leaders to discover the extent to which FE chief executives and principals are experiencing distress, to defi ne common triggers and to consider what mechanisms leaders can use to ameliorate distress.

The report recommends the development of peer support networks for leaders to allow authentic engagement and mutual support; more effective engagement between corporations and principals/CEOs to ensure that 'workloads are reasonable and sustainable' and principals 'have a wellbeing support package which could include self-care plans, coaching and/or mentoring and training in wellbeing'; and the review of the regulatory regime by senior officials and college representative bodies 'to ensure that unnecessary or unsustainable pressure is imposed through performance frameworks or the culture of their execution'.

Dame Ruth Silver, President of FETL, said: 'It has been one of the purposes of FETL in this latter phase of its operations, to get people talking about self-care and the health and wellbeing implications of leadership. I am delighted, therefore, to welcome Stuart's excellent paper. He offers a well-balanced piece of research, grounded in experience and well as scholarly expertise, and approached in a systemic, self-aware and professional way. Importantly, the tone is critical but not blaming. We have had too much of the culture of blaming in further education. We need instead to foster a climate of care and cooperation in the sector.'

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Voices from the tightrope: the role of distress

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High levels of distress are becoming increasingly common among further education leaders, with principals blaming constant changes in policy and regulation, unreasonable expectations, uncertainty, and the threat of sanction, among other factors.

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Recording of WLN webinar presented by Jane Darougar on 24.2.21.

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An introduction to trauma-informed feminist leadership

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Assessing England’s response to Covid-19: A framework

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Assessing England’s response to Covid-19: A framework

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Authors: Sally Warren and Richard Murray

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5 tips on being a feminist leader

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You Can Bring Feminist Leadership to Work - Here Are 5 Genius Ways to Make It Happen - Everyday Feminism

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Then again, I've also had the extremely good fortune to work for a lot of feminists. One of my first bosses took me under her wing, inspiring a confidence in me as a writer and a communications maven that I'd never tapped into prior.

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Judith Lewis Herman (2001) Trauma and Recovery The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

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Judith Lewis Herman (2001) Trauma and Recovery The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

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Review: "Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war.:
Download the e-book for free using the link below.

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Read Online or Download Trauma And Recovery ebook in PDF, Epub, Tuebl and textbook. In order to read full HQ ebook, you need to create a FREE account and get un

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The final report of the Centre for Mental Health Commission for Equality in Mental Health 

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The final report of the Centre for Mental Health Commission for Equality in Mental Health 

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Published 12 November 2020

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-darougar-16560348/

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Website: https://sites.google.com/view/kjcsassociates/home?authuser=0

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See MHFE Crowd website https://mhfe.org.uk

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Author is a woman, US.

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Author is government organisation, England.

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Author is an organisation, Canada.

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Simon Kelleher. (2021). A framework for leading in FE and skills: 2021. FETL. 

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Simon Kelleher. (2021). A framework for leading in FE and skills: 2021. FETL. 

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Male author, UK.

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A Framework for Leading in FE and Skills_ 2021

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Women authors, UK.

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Women authors, international

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In times of crisis, when institutions of power are laid bare, people turn to one another. Pandemic Solidarity collects firsthand experiences from around the ...

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Men authors, US.

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Author is an organisation, . Australia

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https://citationsy.com/references/WLN_Trauma_informed_leadership

If you are up for collaborating on this public bibliography add a comment below and we'll add you as a collaborator.

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WLN Trauma Informed Feminist Leadership by Catina · A reference list shared on Citationsy

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WLN Trauma Informed Feminist Leadership by Catina on Citationsy

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Male speaker, UK.

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Centre for Mental Health Briefing: Covid -19: Understanding inequalities mental health during the pandemic 

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Centre for Mental Health Briefing: Covid -19: Understanding inequalities mental health during the pandemic 

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Third sector publication, various authors.

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Women authors, International

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check How Transnational Feminist Organizing Offers a Model for the Future – Gender at Work

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Unesco publication. Male authors.

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Women and men authors. US.

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Not sure about this one for this audience?

Woman author. UK.

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Podcast Series, Episode 2: How are artists, activists, and movements on the margins rethinking exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways?

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Podcast Series, Episode 2: How are artists, activists, and movements on the margins rethinking exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways?

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G@W-CREA Podcast Series, Episode 2: How are artists, activists, and movements on the margins rethinking exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways?

Social power and injustice are often expressed and experienced through inclusion and exclusion. This episode explores what constitutes inclusion or exclusion, who are the most excluded groups and identities, and how diverse constituencies are connecting to challenge their marginalisation. The role of creative people in raising awareness about exclusionary politics is also explored.

Participants in this episode are Aruna Rao (moderator), Janet Price, Independent Activist, UK/New Zealand; Thea Khoury, AFEMENA, Lebanon; Gabrielle le Roux, Artist-Activist, South Africa; Nthabisend [Babalwa] Mokoena, Intersex Activist, South Africa; and Dada Ben Azouz, Artist, Tunisia.

Gender at Work and CREA co-developed a podcast series on feminists rethinking politics and resistance, reimagining change and transformation and rebooting struggles and movements. We asked participants at CREA's Re-conference in Nepal - artists, performers, writers, activists, policy makers, film makers and many others from the disability rights, sex worker rights, environmental rights, sexual and reproductive rights and queer movements from around the world - to reflect on a series of provocative questions: How are you responding to criminalization? How are you standing up to threats to critical thinking, freedom of expression, right to organize and protest, and suppression of rights? How are artists, activists and movements on the margins addressing issues of exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways? In the face of progressive terminology, how can we rethink language and terminology so as to shape new strategies, narratives and advocacy? Why and how do we need to reimagine ideas around consent, pleasure and danger? How can we reboot cross- movement alliance building for greater collective voice and impact?

All episodes were recorded at the CREA Re-conference in Nepal in April 2019.
Listen to the episode directly on iTunes here!

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G@W-CREA Podcast Series, Episode 2: How are artists, activists, and movements on the margins rethinking exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways?

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Social power and injustice are often expressed and experienced through inclusion and exclusion. This episode explores what constitutes inclusion or exclusion, who are the most excluded groups and identities, and how diverse constituencies are connecting to challenge their marginalisation. The role of creative people in raising awareness about exclusionary politics is also explored.

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Podcast Series, Episode 3: How can we rethink language and terminology to shape new strategies, narratives and our advocacy?

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Podcast Series, Episode 3: How can we rethink language and terminology to shape new strategies, narratives and our advocacy?

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G@W-CREA Podcast Series, Episode 3: How can we rethink language and terminology to shape new strategies, narratives and our advocacy?

Language is often the medium through which exclusion, stigma and invisibilisation of certain groups, experiences and identities is normalised and justified. This podcast discusses whether and why language and terminology matter, how new words and frames can be created in diverse cultural contexts to claim power, presence and voice, and analyses the hijacking of progressive feminist language by conservative political movements.

Participants in this episode include: Aruna Rao (moderator); Jayanthi Kuru, Independent Consultant, Sri Lanka; Shalini Singh and Srilatha Batliwala of CREA, India; Rudo Chigudu Warrier, Artist-Activist, Zimbabwe; and Cynthia Rothschild, Independent Consultant, USA.

Gender at Work and CREA co-developed a podcast series on feminists rethinking politics and resistance, reimagining change and transformation and rebooting struggles and movements. We asked participants at CREA's Re-conference in Nepal - artists, performers, writers, activists, policy makers, film makers and many others from the disability rights, sex worker rights, environmental rights, sexual and reproductive rights and queer movements from around the world - to reflect on a series of provocative questions: How are you responding to criminalization? How are you standing up to threats to critical thinking, freedom of expression, right to organize and protest, and suppression of rights? How are artists, activists and movements on the margins addressing issues of exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways? In the face of progressive terminology, how can we rethink language and terminology so as to shape new strategies, narratives and advocacy? Why and how do we need to reimagine ideas around consent, pleasure and danger? How can we reboot cross- movement alliance building for greater collective voice and impact?

All episodes were recorded at the CREA Re-conference in Nepal in April 2019.
Listen to the episode directly on iTunes here!

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G@W-CREA Podcast Series, Episode 3: How can we rethink language and terminology to shape new strategies, narratives and our advocacy?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Language is often the medium through which exclusion, stigma and invisibilisation of certain groups, experiences and identities is normalised and justified. This podcast discusses whether and why language and terminology matter, how new words and frames can be created in diverse cultural contexts to claim power, presence and voice, and analyses the hijacking of progressive feminist language by conservative political movements.