ABOUT MY WORK

What I began to notice early in my legal career and more profoundly during my experiences at a number of organisations was that we currently have social care and criminal justice systems that negate children's experiences of childhood maltreatment.

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Children do not choose neglect, abuse or other maltreatment, either within a family setting or an institutional one; but if they do experience this then without appropriate remedial care this can manifest as social, emotional, health and behavioural problems. These children carry with them the hidden burden of a lifelong stigma and, as they grow older, they are blamed as if their behaviour were solely their responsibility. Within this context, these children experience a dual failure to be protected: first in their biological families and secondly by their corporate parents: the state.

 

Not only do these systems procedurally negate the connection between maltreatment and antisocial or violent behaviour, but they also seem to be unaware of how to implement essential developments in the studies of epigenetics, attachment, trauma and neurobiology.  I am deeply committed to looking at how we can create equitable structures within our youth justice system for the most marginalised in our society.

 

It is the possibility of finding practical structures for sharing complex knowledge that I find very exciting whether that be through my doctoral research, trauma-informed programme design and delivery, therapeutic legal advocacy or through the therapeutic arts.