Social researcher, facilitating public engagement in decisions that impact them🔎🤝 tree hugger🌳 music lover🎶 laughs in the face of darkness🎭 -views my own
At 9.30am & 8.45pm on Weds I'll be on radio 4, talking about the unexamined nuances of involving care experienced young people in policymaking. I'm going to listen to myself (cos R4❤️), which will be super weird. Join me? #CEP#livedexperience#policy https://t.co/LckwHahP7i
Here's the opener to my first comedy gig. FACE YOUR FEARS AND NOTHING CAN HURT YOU *shakes fist* I'm still a very serious person who you should take very seriously.
https://t.co/kP1pidvAkS
I do stand up comedy now. If you'd like to see me in my first show - covering topics such as drugs and ageing, neurodivergence and the class struggle, and being gay but sleeping with men anyway - I'm performing in Islington next Sat afternoon. I won't be taking questions on this.
This is the best public facing piece I've seen on extreme weather - balanced reporting on the science, and a realistic message of hope.
https://t.co/Rj044Migmi
@_LisaCherry Vibe! A library is not a shelf of products to be consumed and discarded - it is a resource, a beautiful place to bask, and draw on when needed. I've stopped trying to get rid of them and just try to get new ones on kindle more, so I don't have to upgrade to 3 big bookshelves 😂❤️
I'm featured on this alongside lots of other folks, will be writing a blog in the coming days with deeper reflections /more detailed thoughts 🧐 #childrenincare#data#research#policy#government
“Government isn't diverse and doesn’t reflect the the life experiences of the citizens they serve. That leads to groupthink and a poor understanding of this other that they’re trying to fix”
@clohesion explains the care system's issues in #FixingBritain
https://t.co/qUz2GdpXAF
A brain dump on #governance and how we create #knowledge prompted by an invitation onto Radio 4 to talk about social care #policymaking and a conference on #Sustainability. I'd love to get views on some/all of it - might draft it again with more thought.
https://t.co/TXe54QSNaf
Me: "the wind farm looks beautiful" Local man: *looks at me like I've just kicked a child in the face* In other news I've been accepted onto a MSc in Sustainability and Behaviour Change at the Centre for Alternative Technology - maybe people there will see beauty in this too.😂❤️
@MichelleJMackie They've got a really good part time option where you go for a weeks study at the start of every term which massively reduces the weekly commitment for the rest of the term alongside jobby. They're just great.
Just chilling in a highly modern cafe enjoying being rich while I reflect on the brilliance and hypocracy of William Morris, who lived the impossible ask of being a socialist in a capitalist society. First day off in a while. #bestlife#timetobreathe
@Mommyamygill 😂 brilliant - wish I'd had this rule of thumb when I was staring at domestic abuse and the care system all the time, would have built it into my emotional labour at work policy
I felt this in my soul. When I was taken into care, at the age of 1, I was separated from my brothers and moved from Toxteth - a diverse area of Liverpool - to Halewood - a part of Knowsley that was more than 99% white, a place where I was chased, beaten, and taunted for being Black.
When I was taken into care, I lost so much more than my family. I lost my culture, my history, and the protection of my community.
Like Louise, I tried to shrink and hide myself, starting with my hair. I relaxed my hair from the age of 9 because I was tired of people touching it and making fun of it.
It took years for me to learn to embrace who I was, to learn about my history, culture, and identity - which is probably why I'm so unwavering about those things now - and I was well into my 20s before I threw the relaxer away!
As an adult, I have chosen to research the educational journeys of care experienced young people for my PhD. While it's great to see the increasing academic interest in the outcomes for care experienced people - outcomes like the care to prison and homelessness pipeline that had, at one time seemed inevitable - it's clear that a lot more research is needed on the intersections of care and race.
To be Black and in care is to experience a whole different level of compound discrimination.
To Louise, I say this ⬇️
I don't know you, but I see you, and i see what you've been up against.
I spent most of my childhood in care, my birth mum died at 14, and I crashed out of school after failing most of my GCSE's at 16. I was homeless a few months later and went down a dark path for a while. By 19, I had a baby boy, and everyone told me I was nothing and that I was going nowhere fast. But my baby boy was the making of me.
I fought for him, dreamed for him and climbed for him. I worked 2 jobs, studied at night school, and got apprenticeships and secondments by day. I gained promotions at work and got the qualifications that allowed me to go to university. Over the past 6 years I have gained a first class degree, masters with distinction, I've had my writing published by Bloomsbury, had my work performed on stage and given keynotes speeches to sold out events up and down the country. I'm a lecturer and Halewood's first Black Woman Town Councillor.
But none of that makes me as proud as yesterday did. Yesterday, the boy I hoped to raise higher than me got his GCSE results. He passed his GCSE's and is going to study at his first choice sixth form. He is the first person in my family to do this, and to say I am proud would be an understatement.
I recently did a podcast about some of my experience in care. The host asked me what I would go back to say to my 16 year old self and I was, momentarily, unable to speak.
16 year old me had no voice. She was a broken shell of a person who would, in a few months' time, try to take her own future away. She had no idea what she was capable of or what she would go on to achieve. I wish I could go back and show her the 16 year old King she raised and tell her exactly what she was capable of.
To you Louise, I say this. You are a force to be reckoned with. You are raising a Queen and changing the world. Your lived experience will give you the strength and empathy to achieve anything. You are capable of moving mountains and I believe that you will.
Louise, you have got this 👑
@Become1992