We asked for feedback and we got it. It’s been really informative to our plans taking this work forward over the coming months. Some of the feedback we’ve received and conversations we’ve been having are shared below. Meanwhile, if you haven’t watched it yet, you can do so now. Do email me your thoughts.
The questions of leadership, agency, power and change are all wrapped up in psychological, political and personal meanings. This short piece begins to raise questions about those meanings and the impact of leadership in our lives.
Our world views, attitudes, beliefs and values underpin the way we perceive, experience and understand the world. Our ideologies can influence policy, ignite change and create frameworks of living through economic and political theory.
Law and order themes first started appearing in party election manifestos with the 1959 General Election. From the 1970s on, these themes became more prominent, with a growing political consensus around the need for tougher law and order policies.
I had just finished reading it when a past supervisory experience that resonated with her motto, 'each one, teach one', seeped into my mind. I had arranged to visit Bethanie (not her real name) imprisoned outside of London as part of my throughcare contact. She had been sentenced to custody for Class B drug supply offences. On arrival at the prison it became apparent that unforeseen delays to visiting prisoners at the establishment would mean a shortened meeting.
The words of a mother in one of our prisons, recalling the first face-to-face visit she had with her three-year-old son after several months in lockdown, as recounted to the prisons inspectorate.
"Can I touch mummy? Can I give mummy a kiss?", the child asked. "No" was the answer, something she described as "heart-breaking".
At the time, however, most prisoners, if they thought about it at all, thought they would be in the chapel for a few hours, attract some attention, maybe win on a few of the points, undoubtedly lose a little remission. Nobody had any idea of the scale of the events which would unfold.
Increasingly, there is awareness that family experiences of abuse and neglect impact on later behavior.
Behind this large number is a much bigger one, counted in the millions, of lives blighted through the loss of a loved one; through illness; through the ongoing effects of long-COVID and other complications.
“I’m deeply sorry for every life that has been lost”, Boris Johnson said earlier this week. “What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could and continue to do everything that we can.”
Objections can be dismissed as transphobic attempts to exclude one type of women just because they had the misfortune to be born with the wrong set of genitals.
However, while I might be a transwoman I am also a science teacher. In 2017, I rejected the transwomen are women argument when I could not defend it from the most basic challenge:
It was a question posed this week by the MP Zarah Sultana during a meeting of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.
"Prisons are a high-risk setting for transmission, as well as hospitals, nursing homes and schools", she said to the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi. She continued:
As you can see in the graph below, after a steady decline in November, confirmed cases in prisons began to rise again throughout the middle of December, reaching a peak in the week ending the 21st, when over 800 new cases were recorded. Cases then appear to have fallen abruptly in the following two weeks.
2,407 confirmed cases were recorded between 1 December and 4 January. That's over two-fifths of the nearly 6,000 cases recorded in prisons since the pandemic began.
The relationship between mother and infant is that of giving, taking and giving back. The infant, too young to understand the world or itself, feels raw and overwhelming emotions. It is the mother’s role to ensure the infant, and its feelings, are seen, responded to and ‘given back’ in a manageable way. This process, known as containment, helps the infant to learn about itself, its existence and impact upon the world.