Weaponising empathy and cultivating professional curiosity, with Lads Like Us (EP.6)

In this episode, I am joined by Danny and Mike from Lads Like Us. We talk about:

 - trauma, ACEs, criminal behaviour, gangs
 - unmet need, unresolved trauma and the path of self destruction
 - The importance of making sense of who you are
 - professional curiosity
 - weaponising empathy
 - The power of 1
 - recovery, healing and discovering your potential

Mike and Danny are incredibly thoughtful, thought provoking speakers using their lived experience to bring about a trauma informed revolution. They are two of most inspiring men I have ever met. I couldn't speak highly enough of them, and I felt privileged getting the chance to speak with them. You can find them here, https://twitter.com/Lads_Like_Us and here, https://www.ladslikeus.co.uk.

Recently, they teamed up Artist Manchester Hypes, to produce this song, which is exceptional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOh0q1Byjwk

Any questions please contact me on richdevinesocialwork@gmail.com

Connect with me on: https://twitter.com/RichardDevineSW

Follow my blog, where you can be sent fortnightly blogs on topics covered on this podcast: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/

If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends, and leave a review - positive, or negative, all feedback welcome. 

Transcript

0:04

Welcome to Rich Divine Social Work Practice Podcast. I am rich and I am a social worker. This podcast is about practice related issues, self development and transformation. It will give you the knowledge, ideas. Practical tools for being an effective social worker, supporting you with assessment skills, direct work, dealing with conflict, and importantly, helping you make a positive difference in the lives of children and families today. I'm super pleased and excited to welcome Danny and Mike from Labs like us. Danny and Mike recently attended a conference at B and Northeast Somerset Council and just blew everybody away really with a, a, a really kind of powerful account of their experiences of childhood trauma and, and how they've turned their lives around and now are in service of supporting other people to adopt a trauma informed approach. So welcome Danny and Mike. Thank. Thank you. It's great to connect with you again after the, the conference. Wh where would be a good place to start? Do you, do, would each of you like to introduce yourself and share a little bit about your journey and how you've ended up, how, where you've ended up? Yeah, Mike. Yeah. So I'm Mike. I'm one half of LA Live Close. Historically, I went through child sexual abuse and child criminal exploitation. So I've had a, a little bit of a crazy journey in life and as, as part of that crazy journey now is a 36 year old man who is. Past the stage of recovery and into the stage of healing. I've used all of my experiences and, you know, from the chaotic periods of my life to, to now farm and create lives cycles with, with Danny. And, you know, we're now obviously. Training professionals and, and using our experience and our, our knowledge and lived experience to help professionals change their ways in practice and, you know, make a change for the, the upcoming generation of, of people who are vulnerable. Great. Thanks Mike. So my name's Danny. I'm the other half of Bloods like us, and similar to Mike. We, I think we tick all the, I think we tick all me self personally and know Mike. We tick all the boxes on the flipping. On the ACEs questionnaire, the only ace I've got not, not got is a family member going to prison. I think when I was. And similar to my witness, domestic abuse, I've been on the receiving end of it child with sexual abuse, criminal exploitation. And the best part of me CV is like Mike says you know, being in recovery and someone exercising professional curiosity, it might a took. 20 odd years for someone to exercise professional curiosity, but I'm, I'm obviously still grateful of that, and that is the point where I turn my life around. And like Mike said you know, don't wanna be a victim, don't wanna be a survivor, don't wanna be in recovery, want to be healing or living like. Like my guy next door who flipping cups his grass on a Sunday morning, that kind of stuff. Being a dad, being a friend, being a brother, you know, all that kind of stuff. We're at that stage at the moment in our lives. We still have our ups and downs and what have you. Of course we do with, cuz we've got a couple of mental health diagnosis flowing about between us. But what we've tried to do is make the best of all that, which has been dead difficult because we've been failed by service. Sometimes you just wanna scream and shout at'em. But what we soon, what we quickly, not quickly, quickly realized it couple took us a couple of years actually to realize that shouting and screaming at people about failing us wasn't getting anywhere. It was making us poorly. It wasn't helpful to the people who were screaming and shouting at as well. So we fought. Why didn't we come together and, and, and put a package together where we can train professionals on the failures that we've been, that we've experienced through services and, and try and motivate'em as well, and, and take something good out of something bad that's happened basically. And, you know, here we are today. One of the things that. I was really struck by when I first came across your work on social media, I think I came across you on Twitter was that, that there was this video that you'd produced or that you'd made where you were talking about some of your experiences and then your reaction to some of those experiences in terms of how you dealt with that in the moment and as a child and as a teenager, and then also how the people around you labeled. As little shits or really difficult, really naughty. And then you started to get involved in difficult or criminal behavior yourself and Could you talk through how the experiences of being traumatized lead you down to certain paths as a teenager to cope with some of those experiences which then lead to you being isolated or alienated or being labeled by the people that are, are, are intent are supposed to care for you. Mike, do you wanna take this one first? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So for me, you know, having gone through the, the, the sexual abuse, I think you, you automatically, you know, like Dan says, a lot of times it strategy, your barriers and your boundaries. So when it comes to. The, the manipulation that can take place is very, very easy to be manipulated because it's part of sexual abuse, disagreeing and conditioning. Mm-hmm. You know, it, it puts you in a very, very vulnerable place. But then in my instance, because I become sort of Apart from wanting to be at home, I didn't want to be at home. It was, it was easy for me to get involved in things that shouldn't really, you know, I shouldn't really have got involved in all I was, you know, in school I was labeled a little shit. Before I left school, I was sold, you, you've been a bastard all the time. You were at school, you're gonna end up in jail or dead by the time you're 21. So you, you kind of, I came out of the, the the residential school with a massive chip on my shoulder. And the reason I'd come out of that is because nobody had ever been, nobody had at that point exercised professional curiosity, even just to ask if I was okay or to ask why I was behaving in the way I was behaving. Because of that, I had this enormous fuck you attitude and wanted to, to rebel against anyone. And then you know everything that I could. And then obviously when I came out of, of the residential school that I was in the people that. Sort of validated me and gave me the attention that I craved so bad for the people that I was buying drugs off. And I thought that they were, you know, my friends, I thought I was, you know, down with the boys, I thought I was in a gang. I thought I was respected and, and that wasn't respect, that was them, you know, continuing, not in the same way, but continuing on the grooming process and, and the manipulation, you know, because I, I. Footy in their hands. I was easily manipulated. I was easily, you know, sort of. Pointed in the direction and it, you know, I had a point to prove that I was this tough guy or tough young teenage lad. And actually that, you know, the, the hard exterior that I was putting on, Was simply masking the fact that I was still a vulnerable little boy inside. And, you know, the, the, the gang situation and the exploitation being involved in that and being drawn into that, it gave me credibility as to other people because I felt protected by being a part of it. But I couldn't see at that point. And it took me a long, long time to see that actually these per, these people weren't validating me. They weren't looking out for my best interest and they were exploiting me. Which, you know, obviously led to me being involved in the gang culture and, and everything that comes with that. So, you know, it, it's because your, your boundaries are smashed and you've got no real morals or principles because you've never been brought up with them. You know, you, you, sorry, that's my dog. Yeah, you just, it turns you into a, a broken person. And that's the, that's the best way to describe it, is a broken person. Thanks Mike. I really well explained that mate. So I could take you on like a sort of a little journey of that like path. I think the crux of my behavior was where all my behavior stemmed from is unmet needs at home. So no mom, no. Some family members like sort of tried and stuff, but ultimately I didn't belong to anybody. Do you know what I mean? Because my mom and dad wasn't there, so it was like sort of passed around the family and stuff. So if you, if you put that together with unde with trauma, so unmet needs and un unde with trauma, if you've done like a math, math equation on. It probably be equals little bastard. Do you know what I mean? It probably would, that's probably the equation. Do you know what I mean? Our vulnerable little bastard, should I say? You know, which, you know, if as a human being, you have these basic needs that needs to be met, and that's like sort of built into system and built into Psyche. So obviously you're gonna be craving that stuff. So if. Craving that stuff and you're not getting it home. You're gonna go outside of the house, aren't you? Do you know what I mean? And there are people out there, like Mike was just alluding to kind of master manipulators sex offenders, drug dealers, you know, people in society who people who would deem people in the worst of. So if we go out there with no boundaries, these unmet needs, flipping, searching for a sense of belonging and throw poverty in the mix as well. Like Mike said previously, on the day, you know you're hungry. You're not just hungry for food, you're hungry for attention, you're hungry for trainers, you're hungry for tracksuits, you're hungry to flipping fit in, you're hungry to beloved. You know what I mean? You know, and it's not gonna belong before flipping Wolf comes to the door and that's what happens. No obvious. In hindsight now, and the emotional intelligence we've got at the moment, we understand that our behavior was a result of trauma, but we also have to take full responsibility for our behavior as well, because it doesn't give us an excuse to behave like that. You know, when we got older and we got involved in criminal behavior and stuff, but like in terms of like sort of primary school and secondary, You know, I don't think I was, I don't think I would've and could have been responsible for the behavior because it was like a natural reaction to a, to a kind of situation which led to me being more vulnerable. But that also led to me traumatizing myself as well. So our friend who's our mentor, Sarah from Bernardos, she, she, she tried to explain something to us and she said, hurt. Hurt people. And when she first said that to us, I thought, that's a bit cheeky. You know what I mean? I thought I, I kind of didn't understand what she meant. Do you know what I mean? I thought but when it, when she like sort of break, broke it down and, and explained it to us, that's what happened. Like sort of later on in life, we was hurt people and we ended up hurting other people through our. and you know, the only solution if you wanna pull that little mass equation together, whatever I said a minute ago, you know you know, the, the the solution to that sort of equation is flipping professional curiosity and someone exercising profession. Professional curiosity, not, not judging us on our present day behavior, but looking why we're behaving the way that we're. And, and lo and behold, that's where the solution happened. And that's when we got a load of understanding and, and that's when we begin to stop carrying little Mike and little Danny flipping around in toll with us flipping, holding the hand everywhere that it was going. And that's when we stopped being like sort of that was, sorry. That was the start of the journey of us Stop becoming, stop. Being scared little boys. It's so powerful hearing you guys speak because it's just not that we just don't get to hear these kind of stories very often, particularly spoken with such kind of honesty and frankness and that idea of unmet need and unresolved trauma lead into behave in ways that is, is self-destructive for yourself. Harmful towards others. And then, and then people respond to the symptom, not the underlying need, which is what you are, which is what you guys are advocating for, is like this professional curiosity. And I wonder, did with the sexual abuse, did you ever speak to anybody about it? Were you ever asked or did you, and, and what was your thinking behind sharing or deciding not to? You gotta go first, Mike. Yeah. So with, with me again, you know, I don't like talking constantly about gang culture because it is, you know, it's, it's a, it's a snippet of what has been a, you know, even up until today, a crazy, crazy life. Yeah. You know, going back to the reason where called LA like cause is because lads like, cause from states where we're from, don't talk about this kind of stuff. And when you are gang affiliated and you are meant to be, you know, surrounded by toxic masculinity, surrounded by gang members and. You know violence and serious crime, you are not in a position where you can go onto the estate or, you know, while you are sat there bagging up drugs. You can't, you can't turn around and say to someone else, you know what? I was raped as a kid and actually as a result of that, I think I might be gay. Or, you know, I think the. I've, I've had, you know, doubts about my sexuality and where I stand in terms of my sexuality. It's just something that is, is unheard of. So it's, it's really, really difficult when you're in that place to be able to communicate. And, and kind of open up. I did try to speak to the police when I'd come away from gang culture. I'd met my misses, who, who I'm sat with now. I'd met her and she was the, you know, our relationship, the relationship that that started with her was the first real relationship where I learn about self respect and self worth. You know, I'd, I'd never, because all the relationships have been jaded and, and kind of, sort of had this shadow of my previous abuse over them, I'd ne I'd never had. Real relationships or friendships, our companionship. So when I got with my partner, she taught me about self respect and love and, and all these different things. And I made an attempt to speak to the police and this was the first opportunity that I'd kind of had where. I wasn't bothered about the the male ego side of it, and instead I was bothered about Aela. That shouldn't have happened, and I was, I can't remember how old I was. I think I was about 25 at the time, maybe 26, 27, and I'd realized that it shouldn't have happened to humor and. You know, I wanted to kind of take a, a stand against it, but when I spoke to the police, they sent an office around and the officer had turned around and said to me, have you are you gonna tell me that you've been raped or abused as a kid? So instantly I, you know, I was like, why are you asking me this? And he said, because men don't have the same experience in quarters, women have so straight away, the first thing I did was, was seize up like an old engine because, you know, for the first time I attempted to allow that vulnerability to manifest itself, which I'd never done before. I'd never got vulnerable because I, I was always trying to upkeep this hard. Exterior, you know, to, to kind of deter people from getting too close. And yeah, it just instantly led to me climbing back up because, you know, I thought, well, if I've got a police officer saying that to then I've got no hope. I might as well just kind of deal with it the way I've dealt with it in the past and, and. Try and deal with it or try and resolve it. So yeah, it can be a lonely place. It can be a very, very lonely place when it comes to holding onto that stuff and, and kind of keeping it with, with that hard exterior front, I suppose. Because as, as when you were young children, you were kind of taken advantage. And, and and abused, which left you feeling ashamed and worthless probably. And and so you began to associate relationships with, with pain or, or, or be horrifically abused. And so as a way to kind of shield or protect yourself from those feelings, you just develop this super hard exterior, which keeps everybody at bay and, and. And protects you, I suppose, from feeling that vulnerable ever again. Yeah. I suppose that misleads people, because A, you're not that violent, aggressive individual and, and people never get to see the vulnerability and what you're trying to conceal, so you people constantly get a misconstrued idea of who you are and what you are about. That's a deliberate defense mechanism. Mm. You know, it's, it's, you have to do that, right? You say to protect yourself. When you spent a child that are being vulnerable and you know, working on eggshells, in hypervigilance and not knowing what's coming next, when you go out into the big bad world, that big, bad world doesn't give a shit what you've been through. That world still turns no matter what, you've gotta adapt, evolve, or be extinct. And, and trust me, that world will spit you up. We'll suck you up, spit you up, and, and you know it'll kill ya. It'll kill ya. Like it nearly did do with both of. Mm. Just like sort of thinking about what you're saying there, Mike which is like, sort of very honest, but a part of me thinking if you like, sort of break that down, like. It's like, it's like the, I think we spoke about it before, about the responsibility being put on the child to stop their abuse or stop their trauma. So if that professional doesn't step in to stop the abuse, stop their trauma or find other ways to get that child's needs met that are he, and like sort of intervene, you kind of create a monster. Do you know what I mean? And This is like this, this, I'm not, I think we're just, all we can be is honest about, about the situation and our kind of take on it and, and takes that we've seen on other people who've turned out the way they've like, sort of turned out and stuff. I think, you know, hearing all this, you might be thinking to yourself if you don't stop, if, if a child, if, if an intervention's not done to a child by the time they get to a certain age, then nothing can be. I don't think that's entirely true, but I think what happens is if you, if the abuse and the trauma is not stopped by a certain age, once then barriers go up. I think that person has to go through the process of kinda working out or a load of stuff for the self, you know what I mean? Because we get to like sort of a certain age where, Emotionally mature enough to come up with all kinds of questions and conclusions as to why what's happened has happened. And we normally come up with the wrong conclusions and start blaming ourself and all that stuff. So this is, this is, this is why this is the beauty of flipping early interventions and Like a certain police and crime commissioner was doing some work for them. And the, the police and crime commissioner was all for early interventions and stuff. Then a new one took over and he was all about punishing crime. You know, and all that kind of stuff. Holding people to account and what have you, and the early intervention stuff seemed like sort of less important and it's. There's a lot of people out there who were position in positions of power and authority. It was supposed to be like sort of dead clever and stuff, but kind of don't seem to get this stuff. It's like I've mentioned before. So when I reported to the police and they spoke to me schools and, and, and my case got no further action because. My school said it was a delinquent when there was a child, so not a credible witness. So the case was thrown out, you know, CPS didn't look at the case and all that and think, I'm gonna bin, why is this kid running away from home at like six, seven years old? Why is this kid been behaving like this in school? There was none of that. And this wasn't too long ago. Do you know what I mean? So, This is why infuriates me when people say you know, the landscape of safeguard has changed. And the person who came out with that first, from what I can recall was Asell, chief Crown Prosecutor. He said that after Rodale and stuff. And it was like, like lives in Rodale. We know people who work in Rodale do outreach in Rodale, and if anything it's got flipping worse. You know what I mean? So it's. Some of these people in these like sort of ivory towers who make these massive decisions, should maybe spend a day with an outreach worker, should maybe spend a day with a social worker to see what's going on because it has to come from the top down. And if those at the top don't have a true understanding of what's going on and, and take someone else's word. You know what I mean? Who make some kind of sweeping statement. We're on dangerous ground. You know, and if people don't, if people in power don't give a shit about people or don't care about people and care about money, then surely it's an no brainer to do an early intervention anyway, to save on, think how much, you know, if I think how much I've cost the government over the years in terms. Prison, probation, rehab, all that kind of stuff. It's astronomical and it, it, you could have been paying someone then about flipping about four pound an hour to do an intervention and save flipping thousands and thousands of pounds. Do, do you guys have a sense of what would've helped you as children? I think a positive male role model for one that would've probably helped. And, and a caring. As well. I think it's or, or a caring youth worker or a caring social worker. Just someone who give a shit basically. I think that would've helped. Yeah. I think for me it is quite possibly it, it would've been, I dunno, the ability to be heard. Mm. The ability to p seen past the behavior and, you know, I mean, yeah, I can, I can honestly say looking back and I've, you know, I've been able to do a lot of that since I've accepted what happened. You know, I think I spent that many years caught on, on thinking about and reminiscing about the bad things that happened that I'd actually lost touch. With little, little Mike before any of the abuse took place, you know, because I can remember being happy when I was younger before all that happened. I can remember a nice childhood and being protected. But I can also recognize that my behaviors would definitely To say the least. And you know, if, like Dan said, if, if X equals Y Z I'd definitely equate it to being a little bastard. So it's, you know, there's, there's no, there's no escaping the fact that those behaviors were. Bad, but from a professional point of view, there was so many opportunities missed, whereas I should have been heard and things should have been looked at. And my social services record unfortunately just doesn't reflect that. Professional curiosity's not placed at any point. It's literally three pages long. That's a way of putting it. Mike. Hey, I said that's a very kind way of putting. Yeah. Do you know what I, I can't. I, I've, I've fucking, I've had resentment for my whole life against services, you know, and, and now I'm in a position to make change in those services. I, I can't, you know, like you said the other day, then we, we was doing another, another interview, and the social workers fail me probably that. You know, there, there's nothing that can do that legacy no longer lives on. Instead, we're, we're leaving our own legacy on services to, like you say, you know, create change and, and a better opportunity for, for the next generation. Being heard would've been a good thing, but I can't, I can't hold onto that anymore. I've just gotta hold onto the fact that, you know, change isn't coming. It's already here, and we are part of that change. And to be a part of that change after the journey that I've been on is, is a gift. It's not a curse anymore. It's a gift to be able to do what we're doing. I think that's what's really powerful about here, here in your both of your stories, is that you see that because of your experiences of unmet need for various different reasons, and then that the abuse that you experienced, it led you to behave in ways that, that were undesirable or considered, I don't know, difficult or whatever you wanna call it, and. And actually there's, there's lots of young people out there now who might be displaying difficult or challenging behavior. And, and the invitation that you guys are offering is instead of just blaming that young person or having to go at them or trying to make them be different is try and understand what's going on for them and understand that they might have something underneath that they're too ashamed or too scared to talk about for various different reasons. Because it's so hard to, to look beyond the surface with, with people. For the most part. We just take people as they are and respond in that type of way. So I think, but on, on, on that, Richard as well. So the problem I find with sort of. The problem I find with social workers both personally and professionally. The difference in social workers up and down the country is like sort of rolling their dice and it's whether you're gonna. A social, a good social worker or not. And I think if you are a social worker or any other kind of professional, if you think you know everything and you remain unteachable, then I think we're on danger slipping ground. That's why we were so sort of pleased and shocked in a good way when we came down to Bath and kinda heard you speak and stuff and it was like, In mate was like, I think we're in the wrong place. I think we're lost. You know what I mean? Because, you know, you was very candid and opened up about some of your personal experiences of trauma and built that into your Power Point presentation. And we was like blowing away. You know, you are the first social worker that we have ever met who has shared something personal like that, and. Their recovery journey as well, and, and like, and like God is, it's like, you know, it's like God is this guy, he sure his social worker. Do you know what I mean? That's, and that's, that's, that's coming from a place of experience, whether people, what I believe what I'm saying or not, doesn't matter, you know what I mean? It's just our experiences and, and, and, you know, we, you know, to be on a podcast with a social worker. Haven heard of it, if I'm quite honest with you, is something that I wouldn't do. Do you know what I mean? But it's because of you. How, because what you did is like a, like, like I said before, is what you did is you humanized being a social worker. You know what I mean? And look how much of a difference that has made. You're not, obviously you're not our social worker, but look how much of a difference that has made with us wanting to engage with you and wanting to talk. Rather than just going to deliver some training with social workers and you never hear from him again, and you're not really bothered. Do you know what I mean? Whereas we thought, oh, we like this guy. He's, we've actually found a human being in the human social worker. You know what I mean? And, and that might sound a bit mad, but that's just our, our experience. Our experience. Yeah. I think the challenge, I suppose, for lots of social workers is by sharing some of their experiences, they're fearful that it, that it might get used against. By the parents who we're working with, especially in statutory social work, when you have to make decisions or recommendations about children being placed on a child protection plan or going into pre preceding mm-hmm. Yeah. At the same time, the vast majority of social workers have experienced some degree of difficulty or, or trauma or university that if they, if we were able to be more open and talk about and share with people might, as you say, find us more, more relat. but it takes a risk, I suppose, doesn't it? And, and, but that's what you guys have done is taken a massive risk by going up and down the country and sharing some of, you know, of the most. Well, I think social work, by its very nature is risk averse. You know what I mean? So it's like it's built into your system, not your personal system, but it's built into the system. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you. So how did you begin? So how did you go from this kind of really challenging, difficult upbringing finding various different ways to cope with that, that were unhealthy for you and for people that you were in relationship with? How did, what point did you think, this isn't the way I want to live my life And, and how, and, and move into the kind of space that you've moved into more recently? I think I think had reached a point. So as we were, as we were saying, as I like, sort of alluded to before, was you know, Mike eloquently put about him being that in that phase of his life where you know, was in, it was surrounded by toxic masculinity and stuff like that. What, what, I think we'd come to the point where we'd had enough pain and we'd come to, when you come to the point of having enough pain, you either. Speak about it or you try and take your life. Do you know what I mean? And I think that's kind of, sort of how it goes, you know, fortunate, fortunately for myself and Mike and for those around us we've had I don't like to say a field suicides attempts. It makes us sound shit done it, that we can't even do that properly. Do you know what I mean? But it's like, thank. We wasn't successful at that, but we'd reached the point of, we'd reached our pain threshold. Do you know what I mean? And it comes back to that, that thing of, with some, it could come back to the point of having permission to speak and somebody giving us permission to speak. And if we didn't, Mike could have probably made an over attempt. Do you know what I mean? If he was keeping all that stuff to yourself and, and, and I might go back up there without the coat. Without me caught and flipping, jump on a building, do not offer building. Do you know what I mean? So it's, it's surely it's a professional's responsibility to create that space where somebody feels that they can open up and talk about. The animal stuff that's causing them pain that is leading to them making suicide attempts. You know what I mean? So it's like it's handed, it's always, it's always handed back to the professional. I'm not, obviously you need to take personal responsibility of your recovery and getting, well, of course you do. You know what I mean? Because you are the one who goes home at bed, in bed at nighttime and your head down on that pillow. There's not a social worker late at the side of you flipping out. Not anyway, or. You know, a, a support worker, sorry, I'm just lacking at my own. Funny, you know, you've not, you've not, you've not got that person with you 24 7. So if somebody teaches us how to speak and somebody teaches how to take the personal responsibility of ourselves, then you've got like a winning combination, I think. Hmm. Who was that person for you, and how did you come across them? So, You'd reached a point where the, the, the pain was unbearable and, and you, you sick of the life that you were living and suicide seemed like the only solution at a certain point in time. And, and so how did you then get moved from that to somebody became available for you to speak to or? Well, I, I saw I got sent to see a drug worker. The first time was a failure because I didn't get him. And he said he didn't get. And I didn't understand each other. Yeah. He said to me he said to me, I don't know what to do with you, Daniel. And I thought, well, if you don't know, I clearly don't know me. And went on my merry way. Then I went back, sorry, Daniel, at this point were you using lots of drugs? Yeah, I was using lots of drugs. That was suicidal. I left there not long after made a suicidal. then went back to see him and when I went back to see him, he sat me down and he said to me, have you experienced any kind of trauma when he was a child? Was everything all right at home? Have you been through anything? And he told me a little bit about stuff he'd struggled with when he was younger. He told me a little bit about the part, a part keeper that had been inappropriate with him. What he did is that day he gave me permission to speak in essence. Do you know what I mean? And I thought, thank God for that. I thought it was just me. So here's another man who's experienced something similar to me and is running a detox team. So I want to know how he has got from a place of pain and suffering, stalking victim mold to running a detox. Helping people and okaying himself. So I wanted to know how we'd done that. And that is not to say that you have to experience trauma to help someone else who's been through trauma. I think that is helpful along the way if you can bump into someone like that, but it's like it's down. I think a lot of it is down to are you are, how you are as a human being and how you are if you are good at farming relationships or like we said before, Mike, or if you are that Karen who's on reception and wants to know the ins and outs of adult as, and they're not even a doctor. You know what I mean? Don't be, don't be that carry on reception. Do you know what I mean? Be the opposite of carrying on reception. You know, just be a human flipping being. And that's why we liked you, because you was a human. Yeah, it's be a bit difficult for Richard to be a current though, It's what I find. Like slightly astonishing and slightly scary. It's like when I look at you guys now and see like you, you, like, you are a tour to force in some sense for, in a positive sense in the world moving forward, this kind of trauma informed approach and speaking powerfully about your experiences and the type of changes that you wanna see and influencing people up and down the country. And yet at one, You were so close to just ending it all and ending your life because of pain and the suffering, and how many other people have ended their life because the pain and suffering was unbearable, and yet they had all of this potential within them. And I think that's, that, that's gotta be one of the key messages from, it's one of the messages that I've taken from you. It's like, no matter how self-destructive or harmful someone is being within them, is is potentiality. Like somebody who wants to get outside of that person and be who they're who they're supposed to be? Well, it, so it's like, it's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs in it and the self-actualization of looking. You know what I mean? It's once them needs are met, then you know, we can climb that flipping triangle. Can't you go on, Mike? Sorry. Yeah. For, for me it's, you know, I struggled with identity for a long, long time. Hence why. I've been a drug dealer, hence why I've been a gang member. Hence why I've haunted pedophiles. Hence why, you know, I'm, I'm now doing what I'm doing. I now know who I am, who I'm meant to be, where I fit in the world, what I bring to the world. When you, you, when. When your child has been shattered into a million pieces, it's difficult for you to pick up all them pieces of the jigsaw and put it back together. Yeah. Without you looking like some kind of Picasso. So, you know, it's, it's While a Picasso's a beautiful thing and worth a fortune, you can't make sense of who you are. And there's nobody around you trying to bring that out, then it's likely you'll never find out who you are or you'll never be able to kind of move forward from that. I was lucky, and I mean really lucky, rich in the sense that I was blessed enough to meet then because what Don actually did was. He took away the fact that I'd been abused. He took away the fact that I'd been raped. He took away the fact that I was in such a horrible, dark place. And what he actually showed me through his own success in doing the things that he was doing with his life is that I didn't need to be dominated and contained by everything bad that had happened to humor. You know, when I met Danny was working. For the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse for the home office. You know, we had home office clearance. All I'd ever done is been an accounts manager for, for Eon which was a transferable skill from being a drug dealer, which is, you know, the, the two of them are equally as criminal. I'd, I never imagined. That I could be heard. I never imagined that I'd be able to build a skill set out of nowhere, out of nothing, apart from going to the University of Life and getting a master's and. Moving forward in life, being able to gain the skills that I've got, but not only gain the skills that I've got and the understanding that I've got about life, but to be able to develop the empathy and humility that I've got an understanding of o other people. You know, it's only my own journey that's contributed to all of these things, but I think it was, for me, it's, it's having that person there. You know, all these people do take their lives and, and it's unfortunate that they've not got Dan's in their lives because all you need is someone positive as a role model. Cause that's what that was to me. You know, he, he, he was a role model to me and, and to many others. But the one thing he's, he's done is he's brought me out of my own shell and. Showed me that actually I am a good person. I'm not defined by my past, and most importantly, that I'm able to grow. And I've grown so much since Dan's been in my life. You know, and I'm, I know it's, it sounds a bit cliche, but he is me best mate. You know, we we run a successful organization together, which you think in an organization, You know, there there'd be a boss. There is no boss. For lads like us, we are literal. There are two mates running an organization and now living our lives to the fullest capacity that we can and, and enjoying the life that we've got. And I think that's the real true beauty of it, is that. We're now able to live and we are living, all we ever do is laugh at that shit. You know, it's, it's mad rich. That's all we do is laugh. And after a, a lifetime of pain and misery and suicide attempts and all these different things, we're both incredibly look at to be able to be in the positions that we're in now. Cause it doesn't feel like we have jobs. We don't have jobs, we just, you know, We're not winging it anymore at life. We're living life and, you know, getting the best out of our lives that we can because we deserve that. So, have you, have you heard of the ancient Japanese art of ksu? Oh God, here we go. Yes, I have, because I a couple of years ago I wrote a blog about, How, how you have certain traumatic experiences and then how you overcome those experiences and how you're kind of molded back together makes you a more complete person than you would be without the traumatic experiences. But only because of that that I was looking at that is it can see that What was that have I have? I. It accurately, or, or you, yeah. So, but if I, if I sort of turned that round to like you, you, Richard, it's. So if we're to repair somebody back, so smash piece of pottery and stuff and give it all back together, you know what they do is they do it with gold, like sort of purified gold and stuff and like sort of melt it back together. So what I'm, why I'm mentioning that is, is because with your skill set and human beingness and ability to form relationships and being congruent and all that kind of stuff, and authentic that's what you can do with a. You know what I mean? That's what happens in it, Mike, cuz as Mike's just kinda sort of explained, do you know what I mean? Yeah. That ability to, to to use your experiences to relate to others. Yeah. Dan, Dan literally ju dropped me back into a You know, he, he gave me the ability, no, he did, he did. You know, and, and, It's that it's, it's a magical thing to, to go from, from literally being at, at a point in your life where you want a guy to, to being in a point where you can't think of anything better than living. I think one of the things I've recently found the most liberating is when you can, when I've been able to bridge the gap between, Who I know I am and who I'm being in the world. And often there's a lot of distress occurred when you are acting in a way that isn't in alignment with you, who you know you are fundamentally because you know that you're not a little shit, you know that you're not just a drug dealer, you know you're not just a drug user, you know there's more to you and that causes a level of distress. And then when you start to go out in the world and act in a way that's more in alignment with who you know you are, that's a really kind of liber. Freeing experience, and it sounds like that's what you guys have been able to do over the last few years through meeting each other undertaking your own journey of personal change and transformation. Complete inner zen. That's, that's what it's We're, we're of. We not saying we don't have struggles, do we might, but No. Not every day sunshine and rainbows, but. The days, the dark days are as dark as it used to be. And when we do have dark days, we can fully appreciate the dark days because we know that when those shit times go like life is good, you know, we've got everything in life that we shouldn't have literally. So. So just before we kind of wrap up, what kind of one take home message would you want to give to professionals? Do your job, what you paid to do, access the training and be a good human being and treat people with the same empathy that you would if it was your kid who would come to you with this problem. I'm not saying. And speaking of, speaking of shit, I'm gonna have to take the dog for a shit cause he's barking. Do you wanna take over there Mike? Let the dog. Yeah, this is, this is done. This is, this is done. Yeah. I can't believe you just said that. Just lost train. But one of the things that was really powerful at the conference that you guys were talking about was this idea of re weaponizing. I really struck a chord with, with everybody, I think because it, we often talk like positively about, you know, understanding other people, but you, but because you shared your experiences, it had a real punch to it, I think. Yeah, I, I think, you know, we, we've. The reason we use our stories as an example, as an open example, is because you don't often, you know, it's not fair. Well, I think this is our unique selling point. To be honest. There's no other two men in the country that are talking and getting so vulnerable. About everything that they've been through, but not only getting vulnerable, telling the story as it is without hatred or resentment or anger, or any of those things. We're telling it as human beings to human beings and. I think in telling the story, it takes you on the journey of little Dan and Little Mike. So we try and make it so that when we are telling the story, they're, they're holding little Mike and little Dan's hands through that journey. As professionals, that's the way we want it to be because we want them to understand that while we can't change what's happens to us, they can change what happens to the kids that they're now working with and the vulnerable people that they're working with because the trauma doesn't always, Social work isn't just children. Social work is, is adults as well. And the trauma doesn't always manifest in, you know, in, in childhood, you know, there's, there's kids that can function and kids that can, they've got the resilience to get through it, but then as soon as their adult life comes, everything falls to shit. So, you know, it is, We, we wanna show people that actually, you know, vulnerability can, the vulnerability and, and the, the impact of, of ages and trauma as a child can impact at any time of life. And it's getting professionals to realize that any one person that they could deal with might not have disclosed, but they might be riddled with. You know, it's just gives them an insight into, you know, how that trauma manifested. I think our, our stories, you know, sort of singular and combined show two different paths or stemming from, from similar trauma. Yeah. And if people wanna find more about you and your work, where, where could you, where would you direct them? So we've got Instagram and Twitter. So our Twitter is at lads likes and we kind of keep a bit of a daily diary when we've got time to just talk about what we're doing and not just talk about what we're doing, but kind of just like sort of life as well. And Mike manages the Instagram. Do you wanna give the Insta mike? It's the same like underscore, like underscores. And what's your work at the moment? You're going up and down the country and doing speaking events and so you're available for things like that. Like I said, you came to Banes and just blew everybody away with your kind of honesty and vulnerability and sharing your story and and conveying some really powerful, important messages about how we can help children and families in our work. Yeah. So we set off with, I think we set off with two missions, didn't we, Mike? We set off with a mission of cracking the nhs. The importance of the NHS was people are with the NHS from birth to death. So, and you know, and the NHS are people who are the, are the people that people generally come into contact with and maybe signpost to social services or other places. So we set on out on admission to Influence NHS and we also set off on admission to influence probation service as well. And the reason for that being. Well, pretty simple from what we've flipping spoke about today about people's behaviors getting in trouble, all that. All that kind of stuff. And, you know we've managed to we've managed to kind of crack probation in a way where we're now training probation officers and that's looking at going national and we can't even keep up with how many people we've trained from the flipping nhs. That's just a rolling, ongoing thing. And obviously like sort of social work, social services. So we've got a training program where we come in and deliver it. Professionals who are front facing. We have people who've experienced trauma and we've picked up loads of people along the way, like housing associations. So you know, we do public speeches, motivational speeches, away days, conferences and everything you can think of that's create, trying to get a message across in a creative way without borrowing the life out of anyone with PowerPoint. You're the only person I've met Richard, who's not bored me with PowerPoint. Oh, that's good to know. I'm really grateful for both of your time to come on here is like, this isn't, you don't get paid to do this type of podcast. And so it is like you've, you've given us loads of truth bonds today and again, showed up with vulnerability and, and grace and integrity. And so I just really wanted to acknowledge thank. Oh, you welcome. It is, you know, at the end of the day it's, you've, you've given us another platform where we can, you know, use that to, to voice our message. And, you know, again, going back to the power of one, if just one person hears this and it, you know, it changes. Their perceptions are, makes them look at different things that they can change within their own practice to tweak it. Then, you know, that's, that's an amazing thing that's gonna come off the back of this. It's not, money isn't the motivator in this, you know? Yeah. You know, it is our full-time job. It is something we get paid for, but money isn't the motivator. It's making change. That's the biggest thing to. And, and there's no way on this God's earth, Mike, that a social worker would've, you know, going back a few years, there's no way on this God's earth that a social worker could wanna sit down with me and you and, and chat. Reasonably is that I wouldn't, I wouldn't have spoken to the social worker worker a couple years. I wouldn't. No chance in a million years. I wouldn't breathe the same hour as well. I wouldn't. It's true. It's true for when I started this, such a social work triggered me because it was so failed by them. You know, and then I meet, you know, sort of friend from, from Bernardo, Sarah, I met him, and then I've, I've met you and it's, it's like you two, you and Sarah Pritchard really, really stand out to me as social workers because you, you know, it's clear to see that you do what you do and you lead with the heart, and that's very, very rare to come across in practice. You know it, it's all giving us a shout. I'll make, but just remember the hard fucking work that you put in because you genuinely doing what you do. The way you do it will make a real difference. People should be watching what you are doing and listening to what you are doing. If, if we was in person now, we'd do a knee slide across the room and high five ya Richard. Shit. We'd have a group. We'd have a group hug. Yeah. Yeah. And then go for a curry afterwards. Yeah, we'll have to do that one. Thank you so much. Yeah, we'll do definitely. Yeah. Thank you for your time, mates. Appreciate. So that's the end of today's episode. Many thanks for listening to this episode. If you haven't already, then please consider subscribing, sharing with your colleagues, and please, please do leave a comment, positive or negative, or feedback is very welcome. And finally, if you have any questions, please do get in touch. And like I said, I'll leave the details for lads like us in, in the show notes and do game checkout their work.