In today’s episode of our Someone's Daughter Podcast, we’ll be discussing WOMEN AND JUSTICE. Narince Erkan, president of Durham Rebel Justice Society, will be speaking with Hema Vyas, Life Leadership Mentor and omnipreneurial psychologist; Sue Wheatcroft, Mental Health Activist and woman with lived experience in the justice system; Amanda Hawick, Shetland Councillor and independent business owner; and Susan Pease Banitt, an award-winning author, psychotherapist and pioneer in the field of alternative therapies in psychological healing. You will hear very powerful shares and solution oriented ideas from their fields of expertise.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
In today’s episode of our Someone's Daughter Podcast, we’ll be discussing WOMEN AND JUSTICE. Narince Erkan, president of Durham Rebel Justice Society, will be speaking with Hema Vyas, Life Leadership Mentor and omnipreneurial psychologist; Sue Wheatcroft, Mental Health Activist and woman with lived experience in the justice system; Amanda Hawick, Shetland Councillor and independent business owner; and Susan Pease Banitt, an award-winning author, psychotherapist and pioneer in the field of alternative therapies in psychological healing. You will hear very powerful shares and solution oriented ideas from their fields of expertise.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
We want to change the way you see justice. Welcome to the View Magazine's, Revel Justice podcast. This is the first part of episode 11 from our someone's daughter podcast series. In today's episode, we'll be discussing women and justice Rin Ahan, President of Durham Rebel Justice Society will be speaking with Hema VAAs, life leadership mentor and entrepreneurial psychologist, Sue Wheatcroft, mental health activist and woman with lived experience in the justice system, Amanda Hoick, Shetland counselor and independent business owner. And Susan Pease Bennett, an award-winning author, psychotherapist, and pioneer in the field of alternative therapies. In psychological healing, you will hear very powerful shares and solution oriented ideas from their fields of expertise. I will hand it over to Narin.
Speaker 2:My name is Narin. I'm the president of Durham University Re Justice Society. Um, and I'll just be doing a short speech on what this event is about and just, and then I'll leave it to our speakers, introduce themselves and send it off. So, to start off, I wanna talk a bit about the view double justice, but also the the state of women, um, in prison currently. So the Ministry of Justice recently produced its quarterly statistics a couple of weeks ago, and it shows that more women than ever in prison are killing themselves and self-harming, unfortunately. And as an indicator, um, of this level of distress, um, women were making a thousand calls a month to Samaritans at a Derbyshire prison. Um, so why are we failing these women so badly? Um, so, um, I'll start by introducing our society. This is a rebel. Justice is an open space for discussion on incarceration, teen reform, abolition, and focusing on problems based by women in the criminal justice system. And we were affiliated with the View Magazine, um, which is the only campaigning space, uh, by and for women in the justice system. Uh, they produce a quarterly magazine, um, with content from women with lived experience, judges, uh, leading barristers, human rights advocates, and also students. Um, they're across all social media as at Rebel Unders Justice. So make sure you go and give them a follow. Um, and do subscribe to the magazine. It's only 20 pounds a year. It's a money well spent. I've got the latest copy here. Well, the film copy here, um, got great content. Um, and our focus is on women because of the double disadvantage and disproportionate effect, um, that incarceration usually has on women. So tonight we're talking about women and justice through an intersectional lens and intersectionality, Um, just set off is a perspective and an approach when there are diverse characteristics, attributes and specifics to consider when discussing oppression and discrimination such as race, religion, and sex, um, should all be intertwined rather than separate. Um, so we're discussing all the rights of women in prison system, in this prison system sufficiently protected. Um, what about the rights of women who are part of the lgbtq plus communities? Um, can prisons truly be trauma informed spaces when their function is to punish separate in silence? Um, and just to through this discussion, wanna know how we can do better by these women. Um, so just a little bit about, um, who's speaking tonight. We will first have Hema Ya and then see, um, Susan p and Amanda Hall speaking tonight. I will let them introduce themselves in detail, um, shortly, but some of you already submitted questions. Um, at the end we will be, um, opening them into the floor and whoever wants to answer. Um, thank you everyone for coming and I hope, um, it'll be a good discussion how much, if you wanna start us off.
Speaker 3:Thank you. It's great to be here. And thank you for that introduction to what today's all about. I'm really excited to be here. This is something very, very close to my heart. So I'm him of, I, I'm an omni entrepreneurial psychologist, and what that stands for is really about how we can do business and be in the world in a way that we take care of people, where we take care of the fact that we all need to have a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning, and that we take care of the planet and we do it in a way where we are looking after our wellbeing, that we're actually going from surviving to thriving. Because a lot of people in the world are living in a way where they're just getting by and everything has become quite dense. And that density is having a real impact on society. It's having impact on, you know, countries and the world that we're living in. And it's having an impact on the planet that we're living on. And we need to change that by looking at the real root causes of where all of this is coming from. And for me, my journey has been a really interesting one because, you know, I grew up at the age of 14, I heard about psychology. I decided that's what I wanna do. I didn't quite understand what it was, but I knew that that was my, some, a calling deep inside of me. When I studied psychology, I realized it wasn't what I thought it was because it was very, very much about the brain and about thoughts and about, you know, how we can control behavior and how, you know, cognition and language and all of it develops through the brain. And I was like, Okay, but what's missing? You know, what about the heart? And of course, you know, from sort of university onwards, everybody just said, you can't talk about the heart. That's all wishy-washy, that's all fluffy, that's all you know, woo woo. And you know, it's not something that people are interested in. You need to talk about facts and the brain, and, you know, and there's, and they're very separate and they're very distinct. And the heart has no place in this world, which, if you really think about it, you know, what we're saying is that there's no space for, you know, some of the more soft qualities, what we associate with women, you know, like things like truth and beauty and compassion and, um, you know, caring and nurturing and all of these beautiful qualities that we associate with the heart. And so I've been on a real journey because I sort of very kind of casually just accepted that's what they were saying. I went into consultancy, started working with a lot of men, and I realized something else that, you know, truth is a much, much more powerful language than any language that we have. Because often a lot of these men in consultancy would look at me and just think, Oh, you know, she's a wee girl, you know? And, um, a lot of them were up north. And so they would just, you know, there was an instant judgment. But I realized that when I started to speak, and when I spoke from my heart, cuz I realized I wasn't coming from my brain, I wasn't coming from my head, I wasn't coming up with facts and figures. What I was speaking to was something much, much deeper, both in myself and to them. So when I would do my own training, and I would speak really with a lot of passion and a lot of courage, because I had such belief in what I was saying and what I believed, that a lot of the men started to go, Oh, wow, she's really got a point. And I found that a lot of them wanted to work with me. Um, and, and it was great, and it was great to be working with them and really sort of helping them to discover their true potential. And in that process, what drew me to psychology was really helping people. So it wasn't just about business success, it was really helping people be the best version of themselves. And at the heart of it, there's trauma. Every person that I encountered, every person that I spoke to, whether they were colleagues, peers, or whether they were clients, I realized that each of them were held back because of their own personal traumas. And some of them could see it, some of them couldn't. But of course, everybody was resistant to working with it. And so that's when I left the sort of consultancy world and moved into doing my own therapy work, heart centered therapy. And for many, many years I did that. And now, you know, I work across the board. I work with businesses, men and women. But what I realize is, at the end of the day, each of them need to connect to their heart. And when they do, and when they connect to what's really, really inside of them, and the hard energy, which is where truth lies, which is where courage lies, which is where compassion lies, where forgiveness and real transformation happens, that they actually begin to move away from surviving and into a space and place of thriving. And that's what it's really been about for me. How to move them into a place of prosperity, not just for one person, but prosperity for all people. And it's helping them get out of the prison of their thoughts, to get out of the prison of their own minds and to get out of the prison of society. Because I feel that society has got all these structures and it's got all these things in place, and I think they're outdated and they're not working. And what's, you know, it, the evidence is in the lives that we're all living, you know, we've got so much more than we've ever had, and yet, you know, there is so much more mental illness. There is so much more depression, more suicides. There is more cases of things like self harm, more cases of anxiety. All of the things that I think come from being disconnected with your heart, having trauma that is both individual and trauma, that is collective, that has not been healed. And if it's not healed, it has a ripple effect. And whatever's not healed in us goes out into the world. So when we see women in prisons, for example, it's not just them that are imprisoned, we are because I believe that, you know, they are a mirror for us. And how we are failing as a society to really, really look at what needs to happen. Because what needs to happen is we need more compassion, we need more curiosity. We need to be addressing why things are not working. We need to be addressing why people are struggling. What is the root cause of that struggle? And what can we actively do to address that? You know, when we think about prisons, it's meant to be a space where it keeps society safe. And the truth is, it doesn't work. The reason why it doesn't work is because if somebody goes into prison, they don't necessarily come out transformed punishment. We know absolutely in psychological terms, punishment only serves to add to the level of shame. And it's a level of shame that is, you know, held in the traumatic experiences and the level of guilt that actually gets exacerbated. And so if we want to create safer societies, if we want real change in real transformation, then we have to look at how these structures need to be changed, how structures need to be addressed, and how these structures need something different. And ultimately what I would say is that with a lot of these, you know, women who have been put into prison for whatever reason, a lot of them actually, it's a cry for help. Actually, what they need is to be seen. What they need is to have a voice, what they need, which is exactly what, you know, the view and rebel justice stands for. Because again, in my work, I've seen time and time again, transformation happens when people have expression, when they're allowed to express not just what people want to hear, but what's genuinely held in their hearts. And when it comes out, and it comes out in the beautiful way that's been expressed through some of the stories that I've read about. Um, when it comes out in that way, transformation begins because you let go a little bit of shame when you can actually speak and somebody can hear or listen or read what your story is or what your, you know, what your experience has been in a way that allows for compassion to flow. And when somebody is able to see that person with that level of compassion, then already the change is beginning already. They are no longer prisoners of their own thoughts. They are now able to actually be able to step out of it. And we need to create the space where they can step out and actually transform what trauma got them to a space in place where they ended up doing something that not only harmed themselves, but then also harm society in some way. Because it's all interconnected. We are all interconnected. And when we recognize that we're all part of a whole change has to happen within, we need to change how we see the world. We need to ch see change how we see, um, women who have been imprisoned for whatever reason, we need to change our belief system that says that change is not possible for some people to recognize change is possible for everyone. For some it's a bigger journey, a longer journey. Um, but it is possible. They just need the right attention, the right intention that comes from hard energy, that comes from genuinely, genuinely creating a sense of belonging, a sense of safety, a sense of compassion, and ultimately truth. What is the truth that got them to where they got to? And how can we help evolve them to get to a better, better space, not just for themselves, but for their families, for their loved ones. Because there's such a ripple effect, it impacts everyone around. And therefore, it is absolutely essential that we bring about the change that is necessary so that society can genuinely be a safer place. That the world is a safer place, and that we are not only safe in ourselves, but we know the people around us who rely on us, whether they're conscious of it or not, are also safe. And that is what I feel is ultimately my purpose for being here, not just here on the call, not just here with Vu Magazine and Rebel Justice, but also why I'm here on this planet, why I'm here on this earth to serve. So thank you. I'm he va and I will hand over.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for that. That was really insightful. Do you wanna go through,
Speaker 4:Okay, Thank you for inviting me today. I'd like to give you an insight, uh, into my experiences as, uh, a woman in prison. But if I start off with a little bit of, uh, background, I think my, my story is a little bit unusual because I was in my fifties when I first went to prison. I was also in my fifties when I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I didn't know, uh, for years and years what it was. Um, I kept my symptoms to myself. I was ashamed, I was embarrassed. Um, I'd been, apparently I found out later I'd been diagnosed with having an inadequate personality disorder when I was a teenager, which shows you my age. I think it wouldn't be allowed today. Um, but in my fifties, uh, it, it all came to a head and my wife had advanced ms and a condition was deteriorating. My mental health was deteriorating. We'd been together 30 years by then. Um, we entered into a suicide pet because neither of us could cope. And, uh, I, we were gonna take pills and I panicked and, um, called the crisis team. So they arrived and took Vicky into hospital, but she don't, she didn't even have the, uh, the amount of Paris that you allowed each day. Um, but I was arrested for attempted murder and, uh, bailed. And I couldn't cope with being in the house alone without her. So what I used to do is to go to coffee shops in the daytime and, uh, sleep in my car in, uh, service stations at night. But then the police searched my car one day and I had a knife in the back of the car that I used to cook wife's, um, food up if we had a takeaway or something. So they charged me with, uh, possessing a offensive weapon. And 37 years previous to that, I had chased, uh, an abusive boyfriend into the street and was arrested for that. So when I got into court when I was 55, the judge said, I obviously have an affinity to knives because 37 years previously I'd used a knife. So I got 12 months in prison. On the fifth day in prison, I panicked and I, um, set fire to my cell and I got another 12 months in prison. So I ended up serving 18 months of a two year sentence. When I first got to prison, I think I expected to be bullied by the other women, and I made a conscious decision that I wouldn't be. And I, I think my whole personality changed in prison. I became, I'm not a violent person, but I, I became a violent person. Um, I was never bullied by the other women, but I was by the officers because I would answer back, and this is, this is a thing I found with, uh, other women, women that had been subject to domestic abuse on the outside, uh, seemed to fare better in prison. Uh, I had a friend in the next cell who had been subject to domestic abuse for years and years from her husband. She finally snapped and she killed him. They were mitigating circumstances, but she pleaded guilty because she couldn't face a trial. She had mental health problems. She was, she was, well, she, she was suffering a lot. And, but she said to me, I'm in a better situation here because my life in prison is an extension of my life outside, except I don't get beat up every night from a drunken husband, but I'm in prison. And they got the, um, officers tell me what to do. I'm used to people telling me what to do. I'm used to having no autonomy. So this is what I found with a lot of women who had been abused. They didn't so much answer back to the officers, but I did. And, um, I spent five months in segregation because of it, which is, uh, in case you don't know, it's 23 and a half hours a day, um, in a cell by yourself with, with nothing. Basically. You're lucky if you get a book. I have to beg for a book. And the officers, um, I cut my wrist one day and there was on the table and the officer came in and rubbed my head in the blood. Uh, this is not unusual in segregation, especially because there's, there's probably only about 10 cells down there, and other people don't really see what the officers are doing. Nobody's gonna believe a prisoner over an officer. I complained, uh, about that to his superior, but they didn't want to know. I think as far as women, uh, in prison, they are less likely to have the strength if they've been abused, that, that less likely Trevor strength to fight back. We need more services, We need more awareness, more training for the officers. We need more officers because they don't, they say they have like one day mental health training and they don't even have to have that if they're short-staffed. So they don't understand conditions like personality disorders and to see any kind of different behavior as not a mental health issue, but, uh, something to be punished. So when I was in, I was in healthcare for a while. My, uh, my way of coping was to draw on the walls, but of course it's graffiti and that's partly why I went down to segregation. But that's the only way I could cope with, with my problems. And, but nobody, um, nobody was interested in why I was drawing on the walls, or the psychologist came to me one day and she said, Look, I would love to work with you, but I can't because I've got so many prisoners here, but I will do what I can to keep you outta segregation. And I think she did. I think she, I think she really did want to help. As far as the officers go, I think they, I'd like to say, I'd like to think it's because they're overworked and, uh, a lack of knowledge. But some of'em, um, some of'em were really quite brutal, and especially if they were with their mate, their colleagues, because if, if you get an officer one to one, it can be quite nice. But then the, the colleagues come along and then they start showing off and, you know, you really don't know where you are. So, but like I said, my behavior just changed so much. I mean, I, I don't write on walls. I've never done that before. Um, and some of the other women, we all agreed, we, we became almost feral because all the inhibition went and we thought we could do whatever we wanted. And, and, you know, and, and I think being treated like, uh, like you're nothing and you, you think, Well, I've got nothing to lose. And so, yeah, I, I answered back to, um, I, I mean, I was a nightmare because I, I wanted to, I wanted to redo the, uh, rules. I wanted to know my rights. They don't like, they don't like that. So I think that's, that's all.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for sharing that. Re powerful. Um, I'm just gonna play the video that I just mentioned before. Hopefully you should walk now.
Speaker 5:She was born in Runcorn and loved to sing and perform, but she was vulnerable and she had long history of trauma and had lived with mental health issues for most of her life. In the summer of 2020, she stole a pair of trainers and assaulted the emergency workers who tried to intervene. When she was arrested, she poured petrol all over herself, tried to drink it, but instead of being given psychiatric treatment, she was sentenced to 12 months in H MP style. Like too many others, Anna Elise was imprisoned from minor offense and her offending would've been better addressed more effectively in the community. Anna Elise's mom, Angela Gray. So she repeatedly told prison officers that her daughter was a suicide risk. Her concerns were ignored, and instead her offending was put down to her bad behavior. On the 17th of December, after being on a suicide and self-harm prevention plan for only nine days, she was discharged by the mental health team. Five days later on the 22nd of December, she was found dead in her cell. And Elise wasn't referred to a psychologist or a psychiatrist while in prison, and according to a Ombudsman's report, there were missed opportunities to carry out regular structured welfare checks. Her friends paid tribute to her, describing her as the kindest of girls.
Speaker 6:She wasn't just anybody. She was our friend and was truly loved by all who met her. Annise lit up any room she walked into by singing or laughing. She touched the hearts of all who knew her and was the most funny, caring, and kindness of girls. She had a way of making you laugh even when you didn't want to. That was down to her bubbly sense of humor. Annalise's mother said her death at the Cheshire Institution in last December has left her broken and destroyed
Speaker 5:The prison's kitchen Porter added she should never have been in prison. She needed sectioning and evaluating properly to see what was wrong with her, and to try to push her on the right path. Live a normal, stable life. The same year of Annalise's death marked the 10 year anniversary of Sarah Campbell's death at h p Style. She too was just 18 years old. This exposes how little has changed and how the Ministry of Justice treats women with mental health issues with excessively punitive measures, leaving them unsupported and even more vulnerable. Anna Aise Anderson is the fifth prisoner to die at h p Style. Over the last three years, Nicola be 41 died while in custody at h p Style on February, 2018. On June 4th, 2018, Imagen Mellard 29 died at h p Christine McDonald 56 was found, collapsed in he cell while serving a sentence at h p Style. On March 3rd, 2019, she was taken to Withins Shore Hospital where she later died. Sarah Knowles 48 died at HB style on May 10th, 2019. When will they stop killing our sisters?
Speaker 7:Yeah, that was a short video. Hear about just the impact that mental health issues can have on women in prison. Um, Amanda, would you like to go next? And just us a little bit about yourself and the view and everything?
Speaker 8:Yeah. Hi. Hi. Hello everybody. And thank you and Ginger for, um, and inviting me to speak tonight. Um, a little bit about myself. Um, I'm not sure where to start. And I suppose when I was very young in the early twenties, I've always had a, a drive to help others and it seems to be a common denominator that we all share. Um, I was appointed as probably the youngest panel children's panel member of it in Scotland at the time. And during my, uh, training, I was taken to secure children's units through Scotland. And I was a very horrify what I, I saw, I started the panel. It's a children's panel. It's different from the English system. We don't allow children to go into court. They go through panel system, which is a much kinder, uh, route, um, here in Scotland several five year before, um, standing down and moving on now, now as a twice appointed, uh, counselor. Um, I actually championed the children's panel as one of my roles, um, for Scotland currently. My interests, uh, for justice, um, I serve on quite a few things, and one of them is, um, I was appointed as an in independent prison monitor for emergency spec trip of prisons in Scotland. It's in a central role within the Scottish Justice system, an independent prison monitor as a volunteering role, but it holds a statutory authority in the public services. She forum, inspect and monitor of prisoner prisons in Scotland. Order 2015. It's an essential role within the Scottish Justice systems that ensures prisoners human rights are upheld and that life and prison contributes to the rehabilitation. Independent prison monitors provide an independent viewpoint on the humane treatment and conditions for prisoners and all prisoners in Scotland, and will conduct investigations either as a result of a prisoner placing an issue with us or observations made, well revisiting, uh, the prison on visits, monitors, uh, formally report or findings, uh, up the ladder, which is maintained to mins, um, um, with a hope, a collation, uh, how our prison reform will go forward. I first came involved working in the prisons in 2012 as I served on the committee, um, for the last hundred and 38 years. The Visit Committee, uh, was an organization that, uh, fought for the human rights of all prisoners through United Kingdom, not just Scotland. Um, that was the standard in Scotland in 2015 where I was formerly appointed as a independent prison monitor by her Ma Inspectorate. I have been appointed. This is my third time appointment. New my final appointment. You're only allowed to serve nine years, as you can imagine. There's a lot, uh, to be in a prison monitor. We have to be formally trained. Uh, we deal, We, um, a lots of training, self defense. We deal with, um, being responsible for the keys when we enter the prison because there's not a key that I carry that shouldn't get me through any door in that prison. So when I'm in the prison, I want to get through every single door in that prison. If I can't get through a door in that prison, the governor will be beside me in five minutes, letting me know why I cannot get through that door in the prison. I love being part of something I'm very passionate about. And I fundamentally believe when somebody reenters the prison, we have an opportunity as a society to support an individual so they can make positive changes and reenter to community back for a force for the goods. Independent prison want, play a key role and ensure prisoners of access, the purposeful activity we have healthcare, learning and access to education skills. As an independent prison monitor, I have went to one meetings, we hundreds of prisoners over my lifetime. Um, some will raise concerns on a variant, a different reasons. Some has to see me just to set, uh, and listen to what they say. And some as it's being discussed here, uh, are women who are, are mentally ill and they're in a very, very dark place while they're in prison. Uh, other times we have to deal, be more serious situations of breaches, and we have to find quick solutions in how to sort this. And we do have collaborative working with the Scottish Prison Services to resolve Marthas when we're in the prison. Everybody has human rights. We all deserve to be treated in a basic respect and dignity. It's our privilege to be a small part and ensure the conditions are invaded in our culture, in our prisons. And this is specifically to the 15 prisons within Scotland. We have 13 government run prisons. We have two private prisons, and we have currently about 400 women in the prisons of 10,000 prisoners held through Scotland. I work, uh, on a monthly basis, but the independent prison monitors, there's a hundred of us in Scotland appointed. It's a voluntary basis, and we're in the prisons every week adherent to all protest, uh, male and female, uh, that might write to us. I'm very privileged in a way that, um, I hold my independent prisoner prisoner monitoring role that helps deal with people and gets them the, the basic rights and dignity that they deserve in the prison and to resolve matters. And if a company solve, we take it higher up the ladder. Um, being an elected counselor, I champion the children's panel and I also sit on various groups. I support women's aid to rape crisis and many other organizations. I think that, um, currently certainly Scotland and in England, I I hear what, um, others decided about the prisons that unfortunately don't have, uh, monitoring service like Scotland, but we have fundamental issues. And as him, I think touched on, it's going back to people's basic rights. Why is people being fail to end up in more prisons in the first place? And I think, uh, a lot of things I'm quite passionate about this early intervention and working with people to resolve issues within the community even before they become in a situation that, that they should even, uh, find themselves entering the prisons. Um, I could speak about so many other things, but, um, there's other people to speak and I, and I hope that gives you a wee bit of insight into some of the things they do. I'm very happy to answer any questions about anything that we do. And, uh, I just think it's a, it's an honor to be here on your, your, uh, podcast tonight. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for that. That was, um, pretty insightful into prison long time. So next we have, um, Susan, um, who's joining us from the United States. Um, do you want to a little bit about what you do and, you know, um, as we've talked about before, like mental health and prison, etc. But also maybe a short like meditation technique, some sort of to end on a hopeful, hopeful note. If, if you can, that'd be great.
Speaker 9:Thank you. Ok. Hopeful note. Let's do it. Um, I think the hopeful note is us all being here and the I of knowledge around trauma. Um, I wrote a book called The Trauma Toolkit and came out in 2012. And I knew I was writing, it has a lot of holistic techniques in it, and I knew I was writing a book that I needed to create the audience for<laugh> when I wrote the book. But this, this knowledge has been coming from not just me many people, and it's been dovetailing nicely with the neuroscience of trauma where there's been a lot of studies that show that everything from meditation, breathing techniques to just kindness and security, um, helps stabilize and as we say, down regulate people. People get very dysregulated in prison, as Sue described. So, um, beautifully. And what we know from a neurological point of view is that what prisons are doing is completely backwards<laugh>. It, it's not, We have to ask ourselves, what are we trying to accomplish here? If we're just just trying to vent our rage on women, then mission accomplished. If we're trying to help people recover and become more functional, then we're doing actually the opposite of what neurosciences tells us to do. And the US government's website on the substance abuse and mental health website, they have a lovely document that they wrote in 2014 on trauma-informed care and what that means, and basically what trauma-informed care means is that, you know, you've got a a a mind body, you've got a person that's feeling very unsafe all the time when there's a trauma history. And then we're taking these people already feel unsafe and putting them into unsafe places with unsafe people. And then we expect them to somehow magically get better. This is insanity,<laugh>. This is just insanity. It doesn't make any, it's not intelligent. It's, it's, it's really, um, blind, um, or, you know, in some cases evil. So yeah, I think if we come into alignment as a society with the science of what we know works, that's great. The other thing I wanted to mention was I was very struck by a study I read, um, in the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation Journal. Um, I believe it was, uh, studied about violent female inmates and they took these women, all of them from this one unit, um, and did brain scans on them and all but one had significant traumatic brain injury that had been undiagnosed, which I think is really important to understand because when people have been, most people who who get into prison, um, have been through some sort of assault and abuse in their lifetime. And most forms of assault, we don't really talk about this very much, but even sexual assaults, there's often a head injury component to the assault that we are not looking at and diagnosing. Well, and one of my, you know, sort of visions for the future is maybe, you know, this is like pie in the sky for me, but I'd like to create a clinic where there's like a very sophisticated level of medical assessment around people who've been traumatized because we do not yet have that. And there's no specialty for torture medicine or trauma medicine in that way yet. So that's just a put a pin in that. I think what's hopeful is that we finally do have the mechanism to look inside of brains and, and see things and diagnose things and to also take those same kinds of tools and look at what works for people. So now it's just a question of getting involved. There's something I wanna say about that as well, which is that when I, when I started this journey, um, my thought as many liberals do that if we just educate people enough, they'll come around, they'll see the light and they'll do the right thing. And then I ran up against some very dark people,<laugh>, um, who, you know, I was working in sex trafficking and when I helped free some people, boy did they come after me, like how hot and heavy, uh, a couple years ago. Turns out that organized crime doesn't like it when you mess with their income streams. So, um, even if it's one person. So we have two things going on. We have ignorance, which is great, we can keep educating people, but we also have people who are heavily invested and financially invested in keeping this their own reasons. And I think we need to not be blind to that idea. So, um, good news is that people are waking up to that and there's lots of resources I would love to do, uh, more hopeful sort of meditation or natia. What do you think? This would be a good time to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. Let balance time.
Speaker 9:Yeah. Okay, great. So when our nervous system is keyed up, it's, as you guys probably already know, but it's because the sympathetic part of our nervous system has taken dominance and it's out of balance with the parasympathetic system, which is our, they call it rest and digest or feed and breed the cool down system. And no, my Mike's husband's a cardiologist. He described them as hot and cold water, you know, so the both systems are always running in us, and we can get some control over that and not always be in sympathetic overdrive. When women are put in prison, this whole system puts them into sympathetic overdrive, like on steroids. But even there, if people have an ability to practice or to have learned these practices and techniques, they can learn to self-regulate themselves. And there are some, I'm, I'm friends with many people who are yoga teachers in prison systems here in the United States. There's a big growing movement around that here. I don't know if that's true in the UK or not. So I'm just gonna do a very simple grounding exercise, and I just want you to sort of like, check in with yourself right now before we do it. And on a scale of one to 10, like how stressed are you feeling hearing about this, talking about this, just to come up with a number. And now we're gonna go into a couple of minutes of a downregulating exercise. So if you can put your feet flat on the floor, and I want you to just take a couple deep breaths and imagine that there are roots coming down through your feet into the earth, deep, deep, deep into the good beneficial mother earth energy. And on your next breath, you're gonna inhale some of that beautiful e Earth energy into your body. And then as you exhale, you can release whatever's not needed in your system, any stress, any toxicity down through those roots into the earth. And at the same time, you can imagine, um, a light of, uh, love and compassion streaming down into the top of your head and filling your body with joyful, kind, loving presence and light. And that light loosens up any toxic energies or toxins in the body that aren't needed. And let the light come in from the top down and push out any of that negativity down to the feet, out through the hands. Well, at the same time, on the in breath, breathing in the beautiful earth energy. Just take a couple of minutes, let those energies mix in your heart, the, the white light of pure love and compassion and the earth energy mixing in the heart and allowing the release of anything that's not wanted or needed at this time. And if your mind wanders, just bring it back to the breath and the release and the feeling of the good energies coming into the body. Take a couple more breaths and then bring your attention back to the space. Open your eyes when ready. And now just check in. And you had that number from one to 10 that you started with, of how stressed or not stressed you are. And now check in and see if that number is the same or different. Great. Yeah. So my clients, um, are not in prison, but some of them are under somebody else's control. And I maintain that If people can learn to do these techniques for themselves, then no matter what situation they find themselves in, they always have this tool available to them in their own mind. Thank you for your kind attention.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. This concludes the first part of episode 11 from our someone's daughter podcast series. Thank you Rin for hosting this powerful talk. And thank all the panelists for your wonderful shares. He, Ava Sue Wheat Craft, Amanda Howick and Susan P. Bennett. You can go online to learn more about the View Magazine and our someone's daughter campaign representing women with lived experience in the criminal justice system. Stay tuned for the second part of this podcast, Women and Justice. Thank you for listening.