Linda: I'm now going to move on and introduce
Darren McGarvey.
Who will be known to many of you because of
his book 'The Poverty Safari'
I'm in the middle of reading it just now,
and really enjoying it.
And it's not often at these kind of events
that we have a speaker who is a rapper as
well as a social commentator and an author.
So, we are delighted that he has come along
to talk about it
and much of what I gather from reading his
book is that it really resonates very well
with what Louise was saying to us,
building on what we heard this morning.
So, Darren we are delighted you are here and
I'll pass over to you.
Darren:
It's lovely to be here, thanks for the invitation
to come and speak and discuss some of this
stuff with you.
I'm just need to begin with a disclaimer,
I'm quite befogged today,
it's been a crazy few months since the book
came out, and I'm suddenly aware of the fact
that all of these things around ACE's still
apply to me.
Despite the fact that I'm 33 years old, I'm
living a crazy life just now in a mad whirlwind
and I'm wearing my stress levels and how that's
impairing a lot of thinking around certain things
which is fortunate because I've always found
a niche for myself as someone who animates data
and when it comes to the book it is what I
have attempted to do.
For me the biggest theme of the book is stress,
we all know what its like to be stressed,
some of us might be stressed today,
people organising things, dealing with emails,
last minute call offs things of that nature.
Stress is a very natural human response, in
fact stress is one of the main reasons why
we have survived for so long as a species.
Stress is a physical response to an emotional
strain or a threat,
the hormone cortisol is released into our
blood stream.
You become prepared for conflict.
So a way, way back in the early days of our
species
when we had just climbed down from the trees,
fantasising about building a viable global
society.
Then stress was quite a handy thing because
without it we might have been just grazing
around hunter gathering,
maybe someone's thinking about painting or
trying to start a fire,
when suddenly we see something off in the
distance we don't know if it's another type
of human
or something maybe more frightening,
an animal that could overwhelm us or kill
us.
So the stress response kicks in so we can
put everything out of our mind and deal with
exactly what is happening.
Are we going to stay and fight or are we going
to run away.
When the stress kicks in it has a profound
impact physicaly as well as physiologically
because as well as physically preparing you
for conflict or giving you that adrenaline
rush that you need to bolt,
as we say, also it changes, for example, the
way your body stores fat.
That's just one example.
That makes sense in an evolutionary standpoint
because a person might have to bolt for that
long that they run away from food sources,
so keeping hold of that fat for a while is
useful.
At the time, although some of us already know
that misfiring physiological instinct is a
wee bit different in this day and age where
we've got 24hr Tesco
and we're not really running from any threat.
So what I am trying to impress upon everyone
here, something that they already know,
is that stress is part of the human condition,
it's a natural response to events.
But obviously if someone is exposed to stress
for a prolonged period then the physiological
impact that it might have on them would be
more severe or pronounced,
unnatural even and that is what I try to get
to in the book.
You know when you go to the dentist and in
your head you're like
'I'm going to be total cool with this, I've
done this before'
I'm sitting in the dentist chair, I'm totally
cool, the dentist is playing radio Clyde,
he's distracting me, he's put a picture on
the ceiling, how conscientious of them, so
I'm going to be totally cool.
Feeling nice and relaxed, man I'm doing so
well.
And then they put a drill in your mouth, what
happens?
You go ridged, you go stiff, you suddenly
become aware of the fact that whatever thought
was in your head is gone,
it's bolted, the only thought you've got in
your mind is
'There's a drill in my mouth',
your back is arched up off of your seat,
there is tension at every single knot in your
body.
And then after a few seconds you become aware
of this,
so there is a moment of awareness that you
are stressed,
that you are having a physical reaction that
is completely out with your control and then
you adjust, you adapt, you relax back into
your chair the drill is in your mouth,
'okay I'm cool again, look at me, I'm doing
well'
and then there's a wee twinge in your mouth,
a noise, a sensation, a vibration and then
you're right back there again.
And you're like
'what was I just thinking about?
I've got a drill in my mouth'
Everyone knows what that's like, and the reason
I use that example is because that is the
stress response,
that's how quickly it comes on, and it pushes
every other thought out your mind and you
just get your fight or flight.
So for people living in conditions of stress,
or poverty, or deprivation,
or whatever you want to call it then the stress
response becomes a default position.
Which means that people's normal decision
making faculties,
their ability to negotiate conflict, to assess
risk become substantially impaired.
And for me this explains a lot of the seemingly
disparate tropes associated with poverty.
And actually I think stresses the connective
tissue between a lot of these things.
Whether we are talking about educational attainment,
where a child in a classroom who has grown
up and been raised in a hostile environment
and believes the world to be hostile
and believes that people can't be trusted
is confronted with a challenge to read out
loud in class and rather than admit to a vulnerability
I can't read, I'm frightened to read, I'm
worried that people will think that I am stupid.
Then they will often use aggression or anti
social behavior as a way to deflect from the
vulnerability,
because in their environment, where they grow
up showing vulnerability is basically an invitation
to some form of hostility,
or aggression, or mockery, or predator.
So that's where social exclusion begins for
a lot of people.
And when we think about ACE's and we think
about deprivation we often think about children,
don't we?
I mean this is another natural human response,
that feeling of revulsion that we all feel
when we know that a child has come to harm
or we feel that a child has been neglected
in some way,
is one of the most natural things that will
emerge from within us,
regardless of your politics regardless of
your experience and that is all about survival
again.
When we talk about child neglect, when we
talk about child abuse at the level of culture,
then it is always depicted in a very certain
way.
You will be familiar with some of the calling
cards,
there will be a photograph, an image or a
video of a child, usually Caucasian, sitting
on a staircase, their face will be obscured,
or their head will be in their hands, some
sort of abuse is alluded to in the background.
We might see a door being slammed,
or we might see the legs of an apparent parent
or guardian
and all these little pieces come together
in our mind to let us know,
now we are talking about child abuse, now
we are talking about neglect.
What we have been so far quite disconnected
from when it comes to the impact that those
Adverse Experiences have on a child
is that we are always showing the child, so
we have this collective understanding and
conception of this perpetual child, don't
we?
Where the penny hasn't dropped yet, is what
happens when that child starts to grow up,
when they become responsible for other things,
when they become legally culpable.
When a new range of stress management solutions
become available.
And so we see the child over there,
separate from the young offender,
over there, separate from the teenager who
is too young to get put in the jail so they're
put in a secure unit,
over there, separate to the kid in the residential
school,
over there separate from the kid in the home,
to the adult in prison to the person on the
street begging,
these all seem to be separate issues when
actually this is often the child at different
stages of their life.
Obviously what it comes to is how do you impact
or affect any of this stuff.
Day to day you all work in different professions,
you all work in different institutions, you
all to some extent have your hands tied,
you are aware of a very bleak political and
economic context
where, even with the best will in the world
sometimes, it's hard just to have a conversation
about these things when there is so many other
things going on.
Ultimately what we would be trying to do is
to get this message to the public,
impressing upon them that while it is important
that people are responsible for how they behave
and they cant be absolved of every crime mainly
because of what happened to them when they
were kids,
at the same time we also have to understand
that,
to not address the roots of these problems
is to endlessly reproduce them
and that actually this will overwhelm us as
a society if we refuse to deal with it.
It might not overwhelm us the way a meteor
coming out of space would overwhelm us,
it might not overwhelm us as in riots in the
streets,
but what we have to understand is that stress
impacts so many facets of a persons development.
From foetal development to how they think
and learn, how they socialise, their attitudes
towards public institutions and people who
represent them,
whether that's the police or increasingly
charities operating in communities that are
treated with distrust and skepticism.
Because they are a proxy for the same teacher
that excluded them from a classroom or the
same cop that threw them in jail.
Right up to political behavior, and this might
not seem relevant, but it really, really is.
A lot of the stuff that you are trying to
do it hinges on political decisions.
Political decisions that are only taken if
there is enough public appetite for a shift
in policy,
and what we see is political attitudes either
becoming extremely apathetic or extremely
adversarial.
Now when I'm working or living in a community
like Govan Hill,
which has become a symbol of many different
things.
Whether it is the debate about things like
immigration, or poverty or housing a lot of
things are converging on that community,
it's become a bit of a political football.
But no one is talking about stress.
People are stressed out.
So even if they are rushing to the wrong conclusions
about the source of the problem.
I would argue that for a lot of them their
whole decision making process is impaired
by feeling stressed,
by not having the capacity to empathise any
further than their own family dynamic.
And so we see the magnitude of the issue.
For me growing up in a community like Pollock,
where not only was I subjected to violence,
in and out of the home,
but also I lived with the threat of violence
everywhere I went in the community,
and sometimes the threat of violence is worse.
And for me much as much as I didn't get involved
in drugs or alcohol in my youth,
or in my teens, whatever it was that happened
back then the minute that I imbibed that stuff
into my system it was the first time that
I ever felt relaxed ever.
It was the first time I was ever able to apply
my mind to things.
It was the first time I was ever been able
to look someone in the eye.
It was the first time I felt an urge to connect
and that is what I had always been looking for
So, it becomes natural for me then to want
that more, that's helping me to get to a natural
state of being.
It wasn't until I travelled to the West End
of Glasgow that I realised that that feeling
of wanting to connect,
that feeling of being comfortable with expressing
yourself,
that feeling that you are not going to get
jumped all the time,
that you don't need to be afraid.
I didn't realise that there were a lot of
people in Glasgow that didn't live with that every day
Now the irony for me emerging from Hillhead
Underground onto Byres Road was,
the first thing I noticed was how relaxed
everyone was,
how everyone just dressed the way they wanted
to dress.
My first thought was 'oh so this is how people
act when they're not afraid they are going
to get stabbed'.
It's okay you can laugh at that.
I use that wee joke as a sort of cultural
radar.
And funnily enough the only reason I was over
the other side of the river in that serene
social environment was because I was attending
anger management.
That began a process for me where I started
ticking all these boxes that you see, the
ACE's.
Psychologist, Anger Management, Cognitive
Behavior Therapist, an entourage of support.
Really it was, I ended up in supported accommodation
before I became homeless,
that's when my drink and drug use accelerated.
I spent years being passed around different
professionals,
with what seemed like symptoms of a very severe,
mental illness.
For me, and I know everyone is different,
it wasn't until years later that I realised
actually what was wrong with me was that I
was permanently hungover.
And a lot of the symptoms that I was experiencing
were different forms of withdrawal and exhaustion
from being up for days,
being malnourished, and it was the oddest
thing, I don't remember a doctor asking me
'how much do you drink?'
no one was set up to ask that question, I
don't know if it was because it was taboo,
because I was presenting with mental health
problems, so someone doesn't feel obliged
to say, 'maybe this is because you are drinking.'
But for me that was the truth of it.
It was actually a process of self awareness
and a lot of pain that I went through,
just to figure that out for myself.
Everybody's different.
A lot of people out there are managing stress
in different ways.
In fact, a lot of people out there don't realise
or have mistook a plethora of coping strategies
to manage stress with their own personality.
'I'm just the kind of person who loves to
get mad with it at the weekend'
'I'm just the kind of person who likes to
tan a whole four pack of toffee pops in one
go'
'I'm just the kind of person that just likes
to get mad with it and go to the football and fight
No, that's not a natural state,
but a lot of us have confused what we have
become to cope with who we actually are.
And that's as true of a lot of people in this
room as it is of people in a scheme.
For me one of the key things in terms of support
that helped me was continuity.
You see I came from a background where it
was difficult to orientate myself because
the circumstances of my life were always changing
and the rotating cast of people I was dealing
with,
whether family or professionals was always
changing.
And I had this desire to attach to people,
to connect with people.
But just as I had connected they would be
gone, moved on somewhere.
But at different points in my life and this
is across all sorts of different fields,
not necessarily one particular area, there
was always just one person,
whether it was my psychologist, Marilyn, or
whether it was an Arts Practitioner like,
Stace,
or later in my life people who helped me when
I was in work like, Simon Sharky,
or laterally even now, in my career with people
who I can confide in.
It was the continuity of one relationship
that is dependable,
where a person gets to know you well enough
that there is sufficient rapport for you to
be able to trust them or for them
to be able to talk very frankly to you when
that moment has to happen.
And I know this also, from my experience of
working with people as well,
that, while I might see myself as a professional
or part of a professional dynamic,
and the need for professional distance and
the prestige of a job and a duty of care.
At the same time if I really want to get something
done sometimes that means making the call,
bending the rules a wee bit,
extending myself a wee bit further than maybe
I normally would.
Listening to my intuition.
And that means when the moment comes when
I've been supporting someone and they need
to do a wee bit of the heavy lifting then
I'm in a position to say,
'You know you're going to need to do a bit
of the heavy lifting right now, but I'm going
to be here all the way and I know you've got
this.'
And it's that momentum that grows out of having
that rapport that,
momentum where someone can begin to self-actualise,
to use a very Ted Talky phrase.
And for me that was life changing and it was
so simple and you don't need to legislate
for it.
I'm not saying that's going to off set all
of the problems,
I'm not saying that that is going to change
all of the contradictions of our system austerity,
and all of these things that we know are significant
reasons for the situation that we find ourselves,
where increasing numbers people are presenting
with increasingly complex conditions of mind,
body and spirit.
But there is something about, as someone who
has been a source of continuity for me says,
you have to bring your whole self to work.
We have to segregate our personas, all of
you in here are a different person when you
are sitting in here than when you are at home
with your family,
when you are standing in the lift by yourself
looking at the mirror,
or when you are on a train somewhere,
how do you integrate more of who you are into
your role when you are working with people
and that is often what vulnerable folk will
respond to, authenticity.
The last thing that I'll just say is, that
it is easy now for me,
feeling like I have a certain level of distance
from my upbringing and the community that
I grew up in,
to sound like I have transcended all those
difficulties, but I haven't.
Unfortunately traumatic experiences become
your default emotional setting
and you have to be in constant vigilance in
order to mange your life
and make sure you don't resume some of the
coping strategies that undermine your progress
and cause chaos in your life and the lives
of everyone around you.
That is something that I still struggle with
today,
and that's a part of me and my personal stuff
that I'm brining in here.
It would be pretty hypocritical of me to stand
up and say,
'bring your whole self to work'
but not divulge my own struggles.
What makes you think that a person in a community
is going to tell you anything about themselves
when they have no idea who you are,
why should they?
Really think about it, so it's about finding
the happy medium in whatever role you work
in, whatever capacity,
whatever your aspirations are,
the place that everyone is always trying to
get back to, is how can I maximize this interaction
that I am having with somebody,
to be as natural as possible, so that their
needs and how I can support them in that and
everything that they are,
from how they talk to their tone, to their
emotional language becomes a matter of intuition
for me
and not a call, and not a meeting that has
to be had to discuss.
You just know, you feel, trust yourself.
I hope I haven't offended anyone or worse
bored anyone,
for me that is a far greater crime.
I am so busy just now that I don't get time
to read the briefs so I hope I am here to
talk about resilience.
And I 
will be happy to take five or so minutes of
questions from anyone who has any questions
they would like to add or ask?
Fiona:
Do you go back to Pollock and if you do what
is that like and are you still connected with
family?
Yes of course I go back to Pollock, my Dad
still lives there,
he lives in the family home where we all grew
up,
Dad raised us by himself, three kids.
My mother, she left when we were young and
then she succumbed to her addictions at the
age of 36,
which is quite frightening for me to consider
the fact that I'm 33 and I've never really
felt like I'm out of the woods with this stuff.
Going back to Pollock I have a quite conflicted
relationship with where I come from,
not just with Pollock but with communities
like that.
Because on one hand I understand intimately
the barriers and the problems of the community
and I understand that they are so complicated
and that there is a gravity to where you come
from.
You could change what it's called, now you
call it social mobility,
we are talking about class, you can gentrify
the language,
you could change the name of gravity but it
doesn't change what gravity does.
So I have a conflicted relationship because
on one hand I understand the problems
and I feel of that community,
on the other hand when I was living in that
community
and I was experiencing as serious problems
as everyone else.
Some of the biggest problems I had were other
people in the community and attitudes of the
community
and fear of the community and this conflict
between conforming to what the community wants
you to be.
You know, for me it was communities of young
men,
so not only did I have to play football and
rugby and be up for a fight, if I had to,
but I was also interested in acting and I
used to sing and I was into drama and writing
and these things were less acceptable.
And so you quickly learn how to maneuver all
of that environment.
But if I was to say it was characterised by
one thing,
it was just being so preoccupied with the
hyper vigilance of constantly subconsciously
assessing a vast array of risks,
that I could never ever think about what I
was actually doing.
I remember my English teachers, somehow, because
I was able to talk well.
I realised that if I could mimic middle class
people I might get a ticket out of here.
I remember my English teacher put me in the
top English class because I could talk and
I could write.
But I was rubbish at reading.
And he recommended that for my exam that I
study and critically analyse a book called
'A Prayer for Owen Meany'
which is about 800 pages long and is a frightening
book just to look at even without opening
it.
I remember thinking 'I hope there are some
really big pictures in this'
and then you open it and the text is tiny
and it seems to float around the page
and it's very messy to your eye and you are
just defeated.
You are defeated before you have begun.
And I was unable to apply myself to those
things that I was certainly capable of doing
because I was so preoccupied with all the
other things that were going on and I see
a lot of other young people in schools.
They are going in with the same problem but
maybe they have other gifts.
My gift was being able to articulate how I
felt and what was wrong
but I've got a couple of wee brothers that
don't fair so well when it comes to talking
on the spot,
so they are likely to get more aggressive
and that is what gets them excluded from a
classroom and that is where the social exclusion
begins.
Q: This idea about responding to authenticity
and I think its really difficult when you're
a professional and you've come from a background
without the full range of experience you've
described.
How do we become more authentic so that young
people respond to us in a way that's positive?
What is your experience of authenticity that
really helped you?
It's a difficult balance because on one hand
there is no getting away from it,
we are all going to be on our own poverty
safari at some point.
You can't engage with communities without
descending into them.
But for me there is a process of doing it.
Whether it's a whole community or a subset
of the community or just a person.
It's about sort of negotiating entry so you've
got to figure out a way to enter their world
at a certain gradient that you don't burn
up in their atmosphere.
And sometimes I think we can be use to dealing
with a certain type of person
and think that this is a universal way to
behave and then find that that doesn't work
when you are dealing with someone else.
What I often try and do is just remember how
I feel,
I try and stay connected with how I feel when
I am on the receiving end of a dynamic like
that.
And for me it's about being among people long
enough for it to become intuitive.
We all know what it is like to hear someone
express a view that we disagree with
and from a distance it might be easy to caricature
that person, stereotype that person,
rush to all sorts of conclusions about their
intention towards us based on their opinion.
But we also know what it's like when we sit
in a room with them
and spend enough time with them that there
is this natural urge to cooperate that is
happening subconsciously.
Where we might not agree with them but we
have a better sense of them,
like we understand how they would appreciate
being spoken to
or we understand what their red lines are
and that becomes a matter of intuition as
opposed to an intellectual exercise
and I think one of the issues that we've got
is just the nature of our society,
our structures and our organisations.
People are in and out of jobs a lot or they
are moving on or their remit changes
and there is this constant shift at a certain
level
that all that really rich knowledge and that
cultural sophistication
that you could gain from being among people
for a really prolonged period of time doesn't
get the chance to transpire.
You will know yourself that Grass Roots groups
in communities are very successful
and they will last for a very long time
but they are also lead the most precarious
existence
because they always have to justify their
existence to the rotating cast of people
who really actually should depend on the expert
knowledge of people in the communities.
Whether that is people working in foodbanks
now, or youth clubs,
they have the trust of the community because
they are very visible all the time
so they learn how to talk to people, how to
listen.
So it's in those conditions that you can change
attitudes and be open to your attitudes being
changed.
Q: If you could go back in time, what advice
would you give to health professionals who
might be working with a young person who is
now how you were then
It's difficult because I can't imagine having
the insight at that age.
What I do know is if I did have the insight
I would have been viewed as arrogant and precocious,
and I would have threatened professionals
if I was able to say things like that at school.
And I think I still do now, although I am
not as frightened to be that person.
You know I think sometimes we are unaware
of, or we go into things with a kind of power
dynamic.
I remember sitting in classrooms on this side
of the classroom and thinking
'look at that teacher swanning about over
there with all that power,
they've got the power to put me out of this
class,
they've got the power to decide how intelligent
I am,
they've got the power to decide what I am
going to do for the next hour.'
And then I remember the first time I got to
stand on this side at the podium
and suddenly going,
'oh okay, so this is all about me.'
And starting to empathise with the tyranny,
you know.
Oh it must be difficult to be in charge of
everything actually,
when you think of all the stresses placed
on people.
And actually as much has I oscillate between
the two and sometimes forget myself,
and I think we all do,
I've benefited from remembering both sides
of the coin and sometimes that instinct to
dominate in dynamics whether it be in school
or classrooms.
We all know a teacher that's saying they are
raising their voice because it's the only
way the class will understand,
and really they are losing the rag because
they are stressed,
but they can't put their hand up and say that
because there is too much fear for being blamed
for something.
These are all personal choices that we need
make in our personal lives
but it's always good to stay in touch with
how you would feel or how you did feel at
that other end.
Linda: We could listen to you all afternoon
but as time is going on we should probably
draw to a close.
