Therapeutic Storytelling for Kinship Care- Helping Traumatized Children Find Their Voice

Introduction to the podcast

SPEAKER_00 2:27

What happens when the system tries to write the ending of your child's story before they've even had a chance to speak? Today's guest, Kate Markland, was mocked in court and told she only had one hour a week on FaceTime with her son. She didn't fill that hour with grief. She filled it with a question. Do you want to be the hero of your own story? What followed wasn't just a best-selling book. It was a master class on how we, as the invisible CEOs of our families, can use the power of Scribe to help our grandchildren reclaim their identities from the case files that try to define them. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. They're told that they're traumatized, behind, abandoned, motherless, fatherless, abnormal. And I realize that as a mother and a grandmother, my first instinct is to manage those labels, to fix the behavior, and to follow the rules. But my conversation with Kate Markland shifted my perspective. She reminded me that the blank page isn't a literacy problem, it's a voice problem. I've been so busy trying to be the director of the mission that I forgot my most powerful role is often just being the scribe, the one who holds the pen while they find the hero inside of themselves. This episode is for every caregiver who is tired of the system writing the narrative and ready to help their grandchild take the pen back. Kate, it's such a pleasure to meet you. And you too, Laura. Thank you very, very much for inviting me. You are so welcome. Your project began because of a court-ordered separation from your son, Gabriel.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Tell us a bit about that. Yeah, so when Gabriel was nine, the week before his tenth birthday, he was removed from my care by armed police on the conjecture that I'm an unfit mother. That was December 2023. And since then, on the whole, we've had an hour a week on FaceTime. Wow. I don't have a history of taking drugs or mental health issues or alcoholism or anything like that. What I couldn't take anymore was the abuse I was on the receiving end of. And no one was listening to us. No one was listening to us. I just couldn't take anymore. So I had taken Gabriel to stay with a friend in the north of England just for us to get a break. We just needed to put an end to this. And I'd left letters and I'd left contact details. But instead of conversing with me, a decision had been made to arrange a nationwide police hunt for us. Gabriel's face was given to every police constabula in the country, and my car was tracked. A month later we're in court and I'd asked for the police to apologize. I asked for the judge to apologize, because you don't do this to small children. At that point I realized the malevance of what I was up against. I'd also started to read reports. I'd been digging and digging and digging to how am I in this situation? What is going on? How are the state institutions operating like this? And I'd already been threatened that Gabriel'd be been taken into care. I couldn't believe you know, you can't believe what you're hearing. And then I find out this is happening and that there's a high tariff per child's head. There's an industry in stripping children from loving families and competent mothers, selling them into care. It's a business. Private equity, it's in mainstream media that private equity companies are behind this. So it starts to dawn on me the malevolence I'm up again. Gabriel's father's family are very sort of senior in terms of status. And so I have to ultimately have gratitude, although I don't like our situation, that the state institutions were going to leave Gabriel with his father. So I'm mocked and I'm given an hour a week on FaceTime with Gabriel. And that's pretty well what it's

Starting with a kitchen table

SPEAKER_01 7:50

been since.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

And that's how your journey started. It was at a kitchen table with a laptop, a laptop, and a one-hour timer, because that's all you had. Visitation schedules, court orders, case files define our sometimes our relationships with our children by the wreckage of other people's choices. And they come to us with a backpack full of labels like traumatized or behind. I want to know how you took that hour or that evening at the kitchen table and you moved past managing their behavior, your your son's behavior, to helping him become the author of his own life. How how do we help children who've been told who they are by the system and finally decide for themselves who they want to be? So I'm mocked.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

And in the moment of being me being mocked in court, that you can have an hour a week with your son on FaceTime and basically goodness knows how you're going to speak to a 10-year-old for an hour.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

That moment, I'm thinking I can speak to my son for an hour. And you have no idea how much he likes a story. So yeah, I was traumatized. I knew Gabriel was going to be as well. And I just went into his bedroom, and he does. He's always enjoyed oral storytelling. He'd always enjoyed bedtime stories. I'd read to him once he could read himself. Um, and then he would read his own book. If I was too tired, we'd play with story dice or makeup stories as a baby. He'd just wanted to be read to, read to, read to. And when I could read no more, I'd put on audio CDs. We'd had audio CDs in the car. So we'd he really enjoyed consuming audio stories. And so I knew I was just read, we'd start reading to you. And I just went into his bedroom and picked up a very illustrated copy of a book called Puffin Keeper by Markham Purgo, because he liked pictures in books as well. Just read to him and looked at the pictures and we read and looked at the pictures. And it took the pressure off having to have conversation.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

And as mothers, we want to soothe our children. That's our first instinct. Make them feel safe and feel connected.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

I just needed him to know that I loved him. I also I've not ever been restricted in terms of writing to him. So at that point, I was writing to him every day, just like a postcard or drawing a card and posting it. I just needed him to know I loved him. I didn't know what we were going to do, but I just needed him to know I loved him. And then at one point he said, Mum, you don't need to write to me every day anymore. I write to you weekly. Yes, mum, that's fine. So you know I love you. Yes, mum, I know you love me. Right, okay, right. Now you know I love you. We've got that through. Now, don't give up on me. Because I knew from a physiotherapist perspective, if once somebody's given up, it's very you can't motivate people. You can inspire them, but you can't motivate them. Once somebody's given up on themselves, it's very, very hard to do anything. So I just knew, don't give up, Gabriel. I don't know what we're going to do, but just do not give up. If you don't give up, we'll find a way. And he's like skateboarding, and of course, to skateboard, you have to fall off enough times before you learn to stand up, don't you? And I'd send him key rings with, you know, never, never give up on a skateboard just to remind him, you know, you learn to skateboard by falling off. Keep going, Gabriel, keep going. So they were the things that I had to instill in the beginning. You absolutely earned no doubt that I love you. And please don't give up. I didn't tell him I don't know what we're going to do, but I just was like, don't give up. We'll find a way if you don't give up. So they were the initial things. And so we're just enjoying reading and looking at pictures. After we finished that book, Gabriel starts reading a book to me that somebody sent him, a boy's invention book. I get us a couple of whiteboards, we just play sort of pen and paper games, Hangman, Knots and Crosses. And then uh I got an illustrated copy of Treasure Island and we read

Creating a story with Gabriel

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Treasure Island. And of course the protagonist in Treasure Island is a little boy called Jim. And we're reading it at this point. I'm still writing to Gabriel every week or sending him a parcel, you know, if it's Valentine's making some cookies or Chinese New Year, whatever, sending something about whatever the theme of the week is from the calendar. I was starting to run out of ideas. So we finished Treasure Island and the little boy in Treasure Island's called Jim. And I think that's what inspired it. I said, when we'd finished it, you know, should we make up a story where you're the hero? And instantly he said yes. Instantly. I want to defeat it. Sea monster. He starts telling me what he wants to happen. So I just start scribbling it down. In 20 odd years as a physiotherapist, you never write a paragraph, you just capture notes. So I scribble down literally on a piece of paper, and I'm sat at the kitchen table, and I literally just scribble down what he's telling me about it, what he wants to do in his story. And then I'm having the idea, well, I can type this up in the week and extend it a bit just like I would do at bedtime, and then I can post it to you and I post your folder and bit by bit, like Dickens, we can have a, you know, your story can evolve. That was the plan.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

What a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

But it didn't quite go like that. No. So how did it go? I add my, you know, I type it up in the week and add my my extensions to it, and then I read it back to him, and he adds his edits. And we start blessing around with some pictures on AI art and he chooses which pictures he wants to illustrate his book, because again, pictures are so important to him. About eight weeks of doing this, we've got six short stories. My desktop is just a mess.

unknown 14:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

So I put it all into one word document simply so I can see my desktop again. And I flip it round. Mum, it's a book. Yeah. Yeah, right. Well, I'm like, yeah, right. I'm thinking, uh I get two printed, I'll take it to locus printers, one for you and one for granny and grandad. Mum, it's a book, it's a book. Okay, because we're in the situation we are, I can't say no. I I I okay, well, I've got to explore that.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah, I've got to explore this. Because I was very aware of exactly what you're saying there, Laura, that I had to empower Gabriel. I guess all those years as a physiotherapist, empowerment was the thing. You can't you can't fix somebody. Yeah. They've got to sort of help you've got to help them heal. You facilitate their healing. I had to empower him. I had to empower him to be his own person. Of an hour a week, I can't for save whether you're done your homework, I can't for save whether your football boots are clean. I can't do any of that stuff. I've got to trust you. And I'd say to him again and again, I've got to trust you, Gabriel. And you know, more recently he started to ask what that looks like. But really, I've got to trust that you're going to do the best to yourself with whatever opportunity you have. And of course you're going to make mistakes. It's how we all learn, you're a little boy, that your intent is to try your best at everything. And um that was very clear because there was one point I'd realized the social workers, they wanted to do life story work with Gabriel. I'm thinking, I'm not having a social worker tell Gabriel what his life story is. Gabriel can choose his story. Yes. I don't care how fantastical it is, it's his story from his mouth, not one that's been imposed on him. You don't go messing around with somebody else's identity. You let them express their identity.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

And and in reading a little bit about the work you do, when a child is in survival mode, the bronchus area, the brain speech center can go quiet. But by writing down exactly what they say without correcting it, that the grandparent or parent in this situation acts as an external processor. So they're moving the child from the fear part of the brain to the creative brain.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

You're just allowing one executive I mean, this is all in hindsight. Really, I was just innate. Gabriel's telling me a story, I was capturing it, so it's a good thing for us to do. Right. In hindsight, yes, I'd imply I I'd applied exactly what.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

That's what you were doing physically. Yeah, on a physical level.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

One executive function at a time. So nobody goes into a clinic with their story. Five thousand

Helping patients share their stories

SPEAKER_01 17:04

people come through my clinic doors or something like that. One person I can think of that had written their story down, everybody else comes to orate it. And it's lumpy bumpy and it's messy, but you ask open questions and you close down when you need to. You clarify with a verbal handshake if you've understood. And so that's what we were doing. But it was one executive function. So Gable just said, I want to defeat a Sea Monster man. Well, what does your Sea Monster look like? And he starts to describe it. What's it called? I don't know. So during the week, I have a think of some ideas of Sea Monster sounding names, present them back to him, and then I can't remember if he actually chose one that I suggested or made up his own one, but you're you're helping. You're you're the facilitator, you're not the director, not the manager, you're the facilitator of their voice.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

So the tell me more, the tell me more technique is one of the great things that we can do when we're listening to them, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, exactly. So when we started to take this into yeah, tell me more, clarify, tell me more, tell me more. So when we started to take this into schools, we did exactly the same. One child was a storyteller, so the only executive function they've got at that point in time is to express their imagination. The other is going to capture it, the scribe is just going to capture, and they've they understand this because they've learned about it and they learnt about the Egyptians, you know, something like that. They get the gist of what

Role of the scribe in storytelling

SPEAKER_01 18:11

a scribe is, but they're not trying to write sentences or paragraphs, they're just capturing the ideas. But the scribe is also telling me more, hang on, exactly what colour were your cat's eyes? You know, seeking that little bit of detail. Yes. The storyteller's telling it, but the scribe is capturing it, but also then helping up level it so that they've got the clarity, and then it's ready to be written. And we're seeing children that have got all sorts of labels putting their hand up in class, then wanting to come and tell their story. They've been able to get it out without fear of judgment, without fear of being wrong.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Eventually you ended up with a story. Tell us a little bit more about StoryQuest.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

So I start out speaking about the book. Friends nudge and encourage and cajole and you know, all of that. And a very dear friend said to me, You're coming to speak at my networking thing about that book. And that would have been about 18 months ago, and I got through it just without tears. And the thing I kept getting asked was, How did you do it? What was the process? I'm like, Well, what on earth do you mean what's the process? I didn't I wasn't what do you mean? I couldn't understand. And I was getting asked this by teachers, parents, grandparents, a retired social worker asked me, I'm still how do you guys not know? You work with kids, how do you not? And about the fifth time of asking, it dawned on me that exactly what I'd done was what I'd done for 20 years as a physio. If there was a process, that was what the process is. Very, very dear family friend was a retired teacher and school inspector in Bradford, a town in the north of England, and her big thing had been creative writing. So she come on, the come and do a workshop. There's very little where one child's imagination inspiring another child. So we go and do the first workshop. Children go into pairs, storyteller, scribe. They love it. They're unleashed. The teachers can't believe what they're seeing. And like I say, they're telling us that this child doesn't speak because we haven't got the educational bias. So we don't know that little Johnny in the corner never speaks in class because we don't know that he's autistic. And we don't know. We haven't got educational bias. So children were absolutely loving the opportunity to be creators rather than consumers. And by breaking it down, removing barriers, so they don't have that fear of the blank page where the chances of going wrong as soon as you make a mark on the paper are higher than the chances of being right. We get rid of that barrier. They can only be right because it's their story. They simply cannot be wrong. And then we'd find by the afternoon they're asking us how you know, they're trumping at the bit. Can I write my story? Can I write my story? Then they're asking us how to spell. But they're so proud of it that they want it to be correct. They want to do a good job because it's their story. Story. And there's nothing more meaningful to them.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Well, and I think children are inspired by what they can connect with. You know, I do have a daughter who's dyslexic and or my granddaughter is dyslexic. They call us mom and dad as well as grandpa and grandma. And she struggles with learning a lot. But if there's passion and she feels connected to what she's learning, she learns incredibly differently. And I don't think that that's different for anyone, maybe more so for her because of her disability. But um definitely passion drives us all, right, to do a better job or want to do a better job at whatever it is that we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

It's purposeful to us. It's purposeful. And one of the things that was really interesting that Gabriel and I both didn't actually realise

Creating Platy the sidekick

SPEAKER_01 21:17

we were doing, he had a sidekick in the stories, which then all the children, when we do the workshops, have a sidekick. His sidekick was a platypus, which was his favourite cuddly toy. And his platypus was charged with can-do spirit. When we wrote about Platy in the book, so Platty gets a cape and he's a bit like you know Robin to Gabriel's Batman, but we hadn't realized that we'd written Platty as if he was mute. We just hadn't clocked, and it was somebody else that later reflected back to us. Because of course, in our reality, Platty is a cuddly toy. But we'd written all of this expression about Platty and Platty's character without giving him a voice. And we had not clocked, we were doing that. It was somebody later that said to us, Do you realise Platty's mute? No, because in our world, no, yeah, he's a cuddly toy, but he's he's Platty, he's got a personality. Yeah. There's all kinds of curious things that come out. If you just have no rules, don't worry about applying logic and just let the child express themselves and you're collaborating with them. You can you you're co-creating, you can Gabriel and I certainly co-created, and the children in the class sometimes co-create, but it's their story. They're you're the facilitator ultimately. There it's their story, and they cannot be wrong. And forget about logic. I mean, one example was in the last story in the first book, they go swimming around the world with a blue whale and they end up in Tokyo Harbour. And grandad really fussed, would a blue whale fit in Tokyo Harbor? Doesn't matter. This is not about logic. Yes. This is not about logic. Anything goes. Anything goes.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

But if we were to apply that in our real lives, the world would probably be much better place anyway.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

And everything is possible, correct?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Exactly. Anything is possible. Another example was in the second book. The second book's instead of a series of short stories is one robust story. Gabriel was a lot more confident. And this is the other thing. You keep practicing this, you'll see your child's story gets a lot more confident. So can we bring a dodo back to life and the plots essentially around the world in 80 days, visiting various endangered animals to see what wisdom they've got? And he's telling me the concepts. I'm thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, how I'm got to sort of organise this. I'm not that experienced an author to do this on the hoof. And we start off going from the UK to Alaska to visit the sea otters. So I send Gabriel in the post a sheet of various different modes of transport to inspire how we're going to get to Alaska. Boat, plane, whatever. It's obvious, mum. We're going in a portal. Exactly. But I've never read fantasy fiction. So I have to ask everything with total curiosity. Yes. What does a portal look like? How does it work? Well, it's operated by the tide, mum. What is it? Tell me more. Because I'm completely clueless. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

I love it. How can we? I've got to be able to read this book. Can I order it? Can it be ordered on Amazon?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yes. Yes. Yes, they can be. They're called the series is called The Adventures of Gabriel. And if you search the name Kate Markland as an author, you'll f you'll find them. But yeah, there's there's two books on there. And the third one's been written at the minute. How wonderful. What a wonderful mother you are, Kate. Well, it just becomes it's what you're forced to do out of constraint. It's like for the love of your child and to ensure that they get to self-determine their life, and it's not determined by professionals who have self-interest, and there's endless documented reports about the harms that are done and how the institutions protect themselves rather than protect the child, and you're thinking that's not the narrative my child is having. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure they have the opportunity to self-determine their life. And I think one of the other things I've really learned throughout this is that fiction gives you an opportunity to have all kinds of conversations about different emotions and difficult subjects that you perhaps wouldn't have in reality. And the more the stories are developed, the more emotions come into the characters, the more that opportunities come up. And then it also gives opportunity to test out lots of different philosophies because if they can't be wrong, they can face different

Learning problem-solving through experiences

SPEAKER_01 25:14

problems and test out how they're going to resolve it. So there's one example where uh they're in the jungle and they meet a panda who's a bit like a martial arts panda, and like, well, like a sensei, and I'm asking Gabriel, you know, I'm I'm struggling to understand quite what he's communicating. Then it dawned on me, Gabriel, what was the number one lesson you ever learned from your martial arts teacher? That's the solution to this, you know, to that situation. Actually, you've already got the solution. I've just got to help you express it. But they, you know, there there was also a bit of a muddle for a while in terms of how they were going to r get through this phase in the jungle. And and it's those, it's that experience of being able to solve problems and overcome challenges and find clarity in your thinking that will set them up for adulthood. Because they practice their philosophy, which will then determine the decisions they make, the actions they take, and the results they get. But back to that sort of emotional processing, what I think's been very interesting is Gabriel started now on our FaceTime calls just a couple of times, really asking me some quite big questions. You know, what does it mean to me to trust him? What does that mean to you, moment? About a 20-minute conversation we had about trust in our reality. And I don't know that we would have had that conversation if we hadn't done all of this fantasy fiction where, you know, different characters have been faced different situations and some good some are goodies and some are baddies. So I think it brings about an opportunity or a crossover once they've practiced it in fantasy fiction, they're then able to start to articulate bigger topics and be braver with the conversations they're willing to have in reality.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Allows them to go to a more introspective part of the brain, which is where true creativity comes from and where we really find our true identities, don't you think?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yes, I do. And I think that's a lot of what this is about. And also for adults as well, it's how we get so many tags and labels stuck to us.

Exploring self-identity and labels

SPEAKER_01 27:03

And one of the first parts of this is determining the child, determining the character, determining their their attributes and who they want to be in their story, and stripping away the tags and labels. It's about who are you? And if you want to be a shark boy, you can be a shark boy. You want to be a pegasus, you can be a pegasus. But it's and what's been great about you as a Pegasus? Because that really is them sort of appreciating their natural attributes as well. And and self-determination rather than identity being imposed.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

And as you said, what a wonderful example of how good things can come from a challenging situation. And that's what you're teaching your son.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah. Never ever give up when you'll find a solution. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I again I hadn't it's been brutal, Laura. It's been absolutely brutal. And I it's almost like I can I couldn't have had this conversation even six months ago without probably crying. But the more you go, the more you push through your own fear, and the more confidence you find in yourself, that I also see directly reflected in Gabriel too. So it almost becomes a responsibility to do your absolute best at everything if you want them to be able to do their absolute best at everything and to face all your fears and all your nightmares. Because if I don't face my nightmares in this, how can I ever expect him to?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yes. And I've experienced that in what I've gone through and what I'm going through now as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

You've got to put your big girl pants on and get out of bed. And I think one of the things, again, which is only a reflection in terms of how did I get through it was the every morning I would hear if, the Rudy Ed Kipling poem. My granddad was a great monologue, if, would recite the first verse every single morning. But then I'd also write I went back to a paper diary and I would just write down what was the one thing I had to get done every day. So if I could just win the day, those days in turn stack. And to begin with, it might be just go for a walk or eat dinner. I wouldn't necessarily have cooked it, but just eat. Make sure you've eaten, make sure you've walked. Right. And then bit by bit I'd get those tasks would get a bit more, you know, do your accounts, whatever. But literally what was the one thing I had to do every day. Because if I could tick that off, I'd then won the day. And then if I get a second or third thing done, great. I also took pressure off myself in terms of sport. You know, I didn't worry about I couldn't run anymore, but I didn't worry about how far I walked or how far I swam. It was just the fact I'd moved my body for the day. Right. Good. So I think if you just have one thing to do to win the day, you can make that happen. Then anything else is a bonus. And bit by bit those wins stack and those one things start to get a bit bigger and a bit bigger and a bit bigger. And then you're not going to bed feeling defeated. You're going to bed feeling that you've made some progress.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

That's a great message. Great message, Kate. I want to speak about one other thing before we go. And I do have three questions I ask of all of my interviewees this year that we'll get to. Your personal transition from physiotherapist to whistleblower, which I know you are doing in the case of your son. This is for many of us very important who feel that we've been silenced by social services or schools. How do we keep asking what story do I actually want to tell, even when the system is trying to write the ending for us?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Well, I've certainly found it helpful doing this fantasy fiction as well. It's definitely been therapeutic to me too, because then you can, you know, express all kinds of things and you feel positive. There's something positive being coming out of it all. But with regards to there's a lot that you can't say, but there's also a huge amount of the harms in the public domain. You know, there's government reports, white papers about the harms that have been done, universities that have published harms reports, UN harms reports. So what I found was actually a lot of our story I could tell just by writing articles about the harms reports that are already out there. So you're already putting out information that's in the public domain and just making it, look, here in 2020, there's a report about the harms to women and children. Look, here's a report about how social services are failing. In fact, 40% of social workers say they're failing. Or here's a report in the lawyers' media about how lawyers' mental health is worse than the general population's mental health.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

So you Googled the research that was already out there.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Well, I was trying to figure out how on earth was I was in this situation because I could just see it was so dystopian.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

What is going on in this process?

Discovering systemic issues and harms

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah, yeah. So I just started asking questions and I just would look for the answers. And then you would find, and you know, and then one article, you'd look at the reference list, it would link to something else, and and then you'd find that actually all of these failings and all of these harms are already documented in public harms reports. And then what started to make me mad was we don't need any more white papers on the harms reports. What's happening on the ground just simply needs to change. But there's no accountability, and the institutions are then protecting themselves, even though they know it's harmful. This is real and that made you picturesque.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

But then that takes you also from feeling like you're a victim to knowing that this is not just in my imagination. I'm not gonna just cry about this. I'm going to take ownership of the situation.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah, absolutely. And that's very important. Once I started doing that, you start to spot opportunities like Parliament had a request for evidence. Well, I'm going to put a report in for that. And Social Work England had a request for evidence into their own investigation. Because once you've started to read all of this and document it, once you've put in your own report of evidence, well, it was only an amendment of that submission to Parliament that I could then send to the Justice Committee or I could then send to Social Work England. So and certainly the report I put into Parliament, 70, 80% of it, I was handing them back their own dirty laundry. You already know this is harmful. You already know it. But then it starts to become really ironic. So you've accepted my evidence nationally that the courts are harmful, and you've concluded that the courts are harmful nationally. But yet locally, I'm an unfit mother. Yeah. You you start to feel empowered that actually you're exposing the complete and utter contradiction and irony in the system. And that then, again, gives you confidence and it enables you to answer your child's questions about how am I in this situation?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

It's so important to feel empowered. Well, the three questions I have for you, one is the systematic question, once one is a taboo question, and the other one is a policy question. And I know you're in another country, but perhaps you can look at it from a global standpoint. You've challenged institutions directly. Our legal systems often treat a child's voice as an afterthought until harm has already happened. How does this reactive system force us as parents and grandparents to work twice as hard to keep a child's spirit whole?

SPEAKER_01 33:43

I think the only solution that I've come to the conclusion of this is that we have to empower children. Our only way, when we're living

Empowering children with self-reliance

SPEAKER_01 33:50

in such dystopia, the only option is to empower children. And it's really little things, right from when they're tots, you know, that they can do their own shoes on, put their own jacket on. It's really small things that they participate in cooking tea, that when you get a train, you show them how to know which train they're getting on, which platform to get on. It's really simple little things, but it's just constantly a process of empowerment. In the UK, we'd call it a nanny state, where the state is the parent. No, we've got to do it the other way around and make sure the child is empowered and they know that they are their own person. I think that's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Great point. Great answer. And the taboo question I have for you is why do you think it's so hard for adults, teachers, social workers, even parents and grandparents, to stop correcting a child's story?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Because they've got to unlearn what they learnt in school too. They've got to just undo the unlearning as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Do you think it's like a hidden fear that if we give the kids total creative freedom that we'll lose our ability to manage them?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

I hadn't thought of it like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

I was thinking it's just the unlearning of your own schooling. Well, it always comes back to fear, right? Maybe of some sort.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

So maybe that's a question for each person to ask themselves ask themselves when they find where they can. What are we afraid of? Why, why am I why? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah. The policy question I have for you is if you were CEO of the world, we'll just say of the world, um, and you could implement one story quest protocol in every family court and social service agency tomorrow, what would it be to ensure a child's story is never overwritten by a case fiat?

SPEAKER_01 35:29

First of all, I close the family courts. So they're not fit for purpose. I just close them. And then with regards to social workers or social intervention, it's the verbal handshake. Listening and then clarifying. That's the thing that I was horrified is that social workers supposedly listen to your story, supposedly listen to your child's story, but then suddenly there's no verbal handshake to check they've understood your perception, to check what the intent is. And then suddenly you're reading back what they've written, and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not okay. So I don't think the rem the there will be a removal, they might not be called social workers, but if we close the family courts, there's still going to be moments in time where social intervention or assistance is hell is required. And I think the intent behind that needs to be far less malevolent. And I think the intent behind that needs to be to help and to understand. And one of the simplest ways to start moving that process forwards is making sure there's a verbal handshake after every single conversation. Do I understand that correctly? This is what I've heard. So there's a constant chance for edit.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Great point. Well, Kate, it's been such a pleasure meeting you and speaking with you today. I can't wait to read the books and share them with my children. I think what you're doing is great, and I I support you in every way I can.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Thank you ever so much for having me, Laura, and thank you for the bold questions as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

You're welcome. Kate spoke about the verbal handshake, the act of listening and clarifying without correcting. Ask

The verbal handshake challenge

SPEAKER_00 36:56

yourself today, when your grandchild speaks, are you listening to manage their behavior or are you listening to hear their story? I challenge you this week to sit down with a piece of paper, ask one simple question, tell me more. And write down exactly what they say. No corrections, no logic, just their voice. What would happen if you stopped being the manager of their trauma and started being the scribe of their triumph? Join us next week for episode 126 with Dr. Crystal Badour. Dr. Badour is a translator. After a decade as a high-level federally funded researcher at the University of Kentucky, she realized the best science was trapped behind paywalls. While families in Appalachian, Kentucky, a region with some of the highest concentrations of kinship care, were starving for practical tools. We're moving past the shame of substance use and sleep deprivation and looking at the biological and psychological infrastructure required to build a sanctuary. You won't want to miss this masterclass in evidence-based healing. The mission continues. Keep nurturing, keep leading, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.