Simone Roche 0:11
Hello, welcome to the Northern Power Women podcast. I'm your host, Simone Roche and this is the We Are More season. And why do we call it that? To be honest, we've created the largest event celebrating gender equality in the in Europe, which is the Northern Power Women Awards, which we host every March, but for me, it's never about one night and I know it's easy to say that but it never is. The process we're in at the moment is going through every single one of the 1500 nominations, falling in love with all of the people that have got these amazing stories, high fiving their achievements and wanting to go round and give them a hug that's generally my husband he loves that as we read them and it's genuine we love these stories. That's why these awards were created and after the judging is completed and the shortlist are announced and we have the ceremony, we wanted to always take the opportunity to kind of keep the conversation going. These amazing winners and commended and partners of the awards are always got brilliant stories and I always think if we can get the Northern Power Women community behind them and listening and finding out more then we should keep that community building and keeping the conversation and this is a community of Northern Power Women that is filled with the spirit of paying it forward and making a difference and hence this is my long winded description as why have we called it that We Are More because it is beyond one night and someone is joining me to talk on this week's podcast is absolutely the wonderful Collette Devlin Smith who is a commended winner in this year's awards. Welcome Collette.
Collette 1:55
Hello, hi.
Simone Roche 1:57
And something I've just find out Collette is the Chief Exec of EDGE North East. But what I hadn't realised is something we had in common as we were chatting in the in the preamble was that we both served in the Royal Navy. And Collette was a medic for 10 years in the Navy. And we've both talked very nostalgic glee, about going back. So we'll have to do that in the in the future, I think collect, collect left the Royal Navy and went to university and spent the next few years working in children's homes, work for action for children, the Children's Society, and then went on to take on the role of Northeast child sexual exploitation prevention officer, which was like just such a phenomenal role that from this role in experiencing everything that's around this role, took the chance in Collette's world to set up what is now edge northeast, which we'll talk about shortly. In the last few years, Collette has sprung up as an instrumental figure driving a new approach to how the region prevents young people from being exploited and coerced into the evils of county lines. Collette, Welcome, and congratulations on everything that you've achieved and what you are driving and congratulations on winning the commended award this year.
Collette 3:09
Thank you made me blush a little bit there with everything you were saying?
Simone Roche 3:12
Well, I tried to coerce a bio out of you. And actually, I think now we're just going to get it on the chat. That's how we get the real story. But you've been Chief Executive of EDGE since March 2019. And as I said in the intro, you took a chance, tell me why you set it up and tell me about the organisation.
Collette
So when I was working as a child sexual exploitation prevention officer, I'm so glad that I don't have to say that title every day, there was a lot of talk started happening around talking about this, what they were calling like a new trend of county lines. And actually, I was going home at night-time speaking to my husband about it. And there was elements that we realised that this wasn't a new trend, this was kind of myself or him had experienced in our childhood growing up. And we've kind of decided like, what did we need? What did we need back then that would have helped us to prevent kind of the trauma and where our lives kind of took a path from there. And, and we thought that we came down to a point of we just needed somebody to recognise it and somebody to speak to, that wasn't a social worker or a police officer or anything like that. And we just decided to take that chance and the I suppose the quote to be who we needed when we were younger. And we started off with a very, very small pot of money, very small cohort of young people. Thought we'd only do it for maybe six months. My husband was a roofer at the time and just thought I'll just take a little break for six months. And therefore I'll just try it and see how it goes and then find a job after it a proper job, was the word and it developed from there.
Wow. So can you actually explain for those people who are listening that don't fully understand they've heard he phrase they've heard they've heard people talk about it, but what county lines are what are they in and why do they pose such a threat?
So county lines is where somebody will abuse their position of power over young people or vulnerable adults into getting them to deal drugs for them. Technically, now county lines doesn't have to be how you see on the news of the movement of drugs going from London into kind of Edinburgh and Glasgow and places like that county lines can be within your local area. If it's got the four elements of an organised crime network or mentality around it, the movement of drugs, the exploitation of children or vulnerable adults, and a deal line a mobile phone deal like then it's a county line. And that can be in your local area. It can be regionally or it can be nationally, whether moving around to.
And people listening or you know, you hear people talking that this doesn't happen where I live, what would you say to that?
We hear that. It was a barrier we came across when we first started actually where it was, I know it doesn't have only happened in London and Birmingham and Liverpool and Manchester. It doesn't, it happens. We have a very small town in Yorkshire but have got real problems with county lines. It's a place where it's nice people go for holidays and things and it's like you know, it's always been a quite a nice for years and years holiday town. And even here in the Northeast it when we first started, we were said we don't have county lines, we don't have that problem. It kind of misses the northeast, we do have county lines. And it's it at first it wasn't on the same scale as the biggest cities in the UK. However, we are now seeing that it is rising. It is everywhere. It doesn't have to be going. We have county lines nationally, and kids travelling all over the country. But we also have some very localised county lines as well. I think people are quite naive to think that they don't have it in their area. It's a growing trend. It's a lucrative business for organised crime. And it's quite easy money for them as well, actually. So if they see an area that hasn't got a county line and then they're going to go and take over it because they think well, that's a lucrative area for us. That's a new beginning. It's kind of like franchising of businesses.
The way you talk about it and describe it. So the organisers have got the entrepreneur approach to go, if it's not happening, then we're going to do it but as members of the public, what can we do to help our kids being exploited in these ways? Watch as much awareness as you can, we have on our website, we have some awareness films. We're currently doing a piece with the BBC News, which will be coming out later in the year around awareness. There's lots of awareness, not just also children, society, everybody. Crimestoppers have got loads of awareness films out there, to kind of raise awareness on what to look out for the signs, speak to children's schools as well see kind of what's happening in the schools around the county lines, schools that are putting on shows for parents, or there's quite a lot of emails get sent out over school platforms. And ask for the awareness raising, in be aware of your children's behaviours, peer groups, any kind of changes in behaviour. And any concerns reach out to either your education department, social care, police, as well. Don't be scared of them. They're not there to lock your child up. They're there to protect them. And reach out and actually ask for the help around it. Speak with your child. It is difficult when they're in this world. It's a very secretive world. And they're not kind of going to come out and tell you that this is what they're involved in. But it's just about having that real kind of third eye on them a little bit as well. And reach reaching out and asking for advice when you need it.
And how do you personally cope with the traumatic stories and situations that you hear about?
Collette 8:32
I have a very good team around me, my team are absolutely fantastic. And I couldn't do anything without them. I really couldn't. We all support each other. Have a very good friendship group as well, who support me, I have two dogs who I just walk and walk and walk when I get a little bit stressed on the beach. And it's hard to shut off, it is hard to shut off especially if you've got missing a missing kid and you know that they're on a county line and you're gone home at night. And you know, you're feeding your own children and you're doing all these nice things it is really hard to shut off. But things I do, I do a lot of alternative kind of holistic things like a lot of yoga and cold water therapy. And honestly, that keeps me sane. Otherwise, I wouldn't I would probably hide in my bed and not let my children out of the house ever, ever, ever. If I didn't kind of do all the self care and self love that you need to do as well.
Simone Roche 9:19
And when you and your husband had this idea to set up EDGE back in 2019, we spoke with another wonderful North easterner a couple of weeks ago Steph Edusei who's the Chief Exec of St Oswald Hospice. And she talks about that imposter syndrome that sits on her shoulder and how she has to put a muzzle on it when she doesn't want it, some of the things that have been said to almost kind of stop her. What were the things the real things that you had to overcome when you went you know what we're going to set this up because we know we're going to solve a problem.
Collette 9:54
I actually identify with the imposter syndrome. I still feel like that every day and when I get feedback and things.
I'm like are they talking about me. So I absolutely relate to that about the imposter syndrome. And we had the barriers of people, we do it from lived experience as well, which is a term I have kind of a love and hate relationship with. But we had to overcome not just the barriers of trying to see what was happening in the area, but also around us having the lived experience and not being seen as kind of maybe people who have got not myself personally, but part of the team, maybe criminal records and things like that, because there's been a victim of exploitation. We had barriers that colour coded. Thankfully, we had some really good people that believed in us across us across the Saturday services in the area, and fully supported and actually recognise the benefits of having lived experience and how it can be it can be relatable to young people. And if they feel that you've had similar experiences to them, and you can empathise with them and things like that, you've got an inroad straightaway.
Simone Roche 10:59
Tell me about some of the success stories because you don't always hear that you hear about what is really bad. And what is awful and what like you say, would want to keep your kids locked up forever.
Collette 11:08
I've got to say, all the young people we work with, we work with ages 14 to 25. So I'm going to call young people, I do mean up to 25. And even the ones that have given me nightmares and give me sleepless nights, they are absolutely wonderful young people as well, everyone's got a story, everyone's got something about them. They're amazing. So that keeps me going as well is that you can see the potential in them, you really can.
Unknown Speaker 11:33
And probably as well, why they're picked up so much, because they've got a lot of potential, they've got a lot of charisma. But we've had some really, really good success stories. So we've had in particular two young male that we worked with who were right up there, on the police's kind of top 10, of who they were watching constantly, they were being arrested, they spent some time in prison as well, they've been stabbed. Both of them have been stabbed in numerous occasions, real heavy in the world of county lines, we worked with them for about two years, about two years, when we really started to see the difference. And now neither of them men are involved at all with the police, they've both got jobs, they've both got beautiful girlfriends, they've both got help, they've both got their own places, they are just living their absolute best life at the moment enjoying it, not watching over their shoulders all the time, not getting arrested, not getting stopped and searched. They are just living, normal, putting speech quotation marks lives. They've been on holidays. They actually helped me develop my training packages they helped me with all kind of plans for the organisation and things like that, when you see that, and you said, we have got other success stories, but they're probably our two biggest ones, were the ones that we kind of came into in the very early days of EDGE and came out the other side. I could beam with pride for them. And that's when I think you know, when we first get that kid through the door, and they're probably at rock bottom, and then I look at kind of that what we thought about people have waved them off as a lost cause and things like this, actually nobody is a lost cause I was called a lost cause. And I thought I think I've done all right for being a lost cause, Is that they are not because I look at them too. And I think that's where we can get them to, we can get them to that point.
Simone Roche 13:10
And it's exactly as you started saying, which is be who we needed at the start or be who we needed when I was younger. It's living and breathing those values. And that quotation, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You've got to go on a roller coaster with them. But as long as still pick up that phone every time and you still go and see them and you still keep plugging away and you still turn up at custody every time they're arrested. Or you're still picking them up off a county line and, and kind of you know, doing a little bit of a lecture and things we call them reachable moments. So probably when they're at the lowest point is the point where you can probably reach them the most. And just keep plugging away and pull away and don't give up on them. Like because lots of places give up on them. Don't give up on them. You know, you might not do anything, you might not get any kind of you might not get them into education or employment for a long time. But you're still turning up every week. And that really matters because sometimes you're the only person that likes doing that.
And we'll put details in the show notes as well as how people can get involved or support or come forward and look for advice. So thank you so much for sharing that Collette. But tell me you were your commended this year at the Northern Power Women Awards. What did that mean to you? Because you had the regular northeast massive that evening, didn't we, you know, we had a good northeast representation.
Collette 14:21
So we were there as well with friends of ours, which is Samantha's Legacy, which is Alison Madgin, who also won Person With A Purpose Award . We work with really, really closely. So we were like the Northeast massive, probably the loudest table and things as well. But it was just, I had a massive impostor syndrome when I was there as well. By the way. I was like, there was this room full of just amazing people. I was reading the books, I was listening to their stories. And I just thought wow, well, I can't actually remember going up for my award because I was in such a daze about it. I still get quite emotional when I think about it actually to just be recognised for what we've done. Not just me, but as a team as a whole team. So get a bit emotional. Sorry.
Simone Roche 15:07
And you know what it's this is, this is why we do what we do. Because the stories that come out, will resonate with other people, the stories that come out will actually give that credit to amazing, awesome role models like yourself, role models come in all shapes, sizes, regions, experiences, and I think the more that we can share that, so how will this help you amplify the work that you're doing in your message?
Collette 15:37
Well, the key thing is that we always pop it into funding. And we've used that and when we're kind of meeting with, as I said, we're doing some pieces with the BBC and things at the moment, it's always quite, it always kind of helps to be able to say, this is what we were recognised for. I also like to have the award on display in my office and things and I'm quite happy to talk to anybody about it who comes through the door, nomination award, words on the wall, and things like that as well. But it is it just helps promote kind of make people really think it does make people sit up and listen a little bit more when you've won an award like that.
Simone Roche 16:10
I love that. And I love the idea of just written it down there nomination award, put the words that someone's written about you, or even the words that you have to respond to put them into a frame as because I think it's good to really highlight and you know, the really great work that they've done.
Thank you so much, we will put the information about EDGE and County Lines into that to the podcast as well. And just phenomenal to hear the work that you're doing and driving and again, just because you took a chance to set this up to pay it forward and do good for someone else. Thank you so much for joining me on this week's podcast. Thank you and best of luck.
Collette 16:45
Thank you. Thanks very much, and good luck to everybody for this year.
Simone Roche 16:47
And thank you so much for joining us on this week's podcast. If you've got any feedback or thoughts or reviews, please do leave us a review and join us in the conversation on Twitter at North Power Women or at Northern Power Women on all our other socials. Join us next Monday when I'll be joined by another wonderful role model from the northern power and community. I'm Simone Roche you've been listening to the Northern Power Women podcast, a What goes on Media Production.