Nicki Kennedy Voicecast: Conversations around voice, stories, sound and identity
How does voice shape who we are and how we’re heard?
In this podcast, executive coach, voice coach and classical singer Nicki Kennedy explores the power of voice in all its dimensions: spoken and sung, personal and professional, fragile and fierce. With guests ranging from artists to business leaders and politicians, survivors to advocates, each conversation uncovers the ways voice carries our identity, our stories, and our place in the world.
Blending science, psychology, and the arts, this is a space for listening deeply, questioning assumptions, and rediscovering the human voice, and what it means to have a voice that counts in the world.
Nicki Kennedy Voicecast: Conversations around voice, stories, sound and identity
Amplifying Silenced Voices: From Prison to Advocacy
Former prison governor Susie Richardson shares her journey from advocating for prisoners to leading Jersey Cares, revealing how personal voice loss transformed her understanding of what it means to be truly heard.
• Susie's 20-year career in prisons and transition to advocacy work with Jersey Cares
• The importance of building trust and empowering individuals to advocate for themselves
• How Jersey Cares takes on the role of a "loving, committed, courageous parent" for those without advocates
• The connection between prison work and advocacy - seeing the human being behind stereotypes
• Susie's personal experience with voice loss following surgery and how it changed her perspective
• The profound impact of not being heard, particularly in medical settings
• Creating psychologically safe organizational cultures where feedback is welcomed
• The challenge of transparency in Jersey's culture and the cost of prioritizing reputation over openness
• How vocal health relates to advocacy - the physical voice and the metaphorical voice
• The importance of exercising and maintaining our voices as we age
If you've been inspired by Susie's story or want to learn more about finding and using your voice, visit Jersey Cares or connect with Nicki Kennedy for voice coaching and vocal health advice.
Vocal Health Disclaimer: I am trained and qualified in vocal rehabilitation for professional voice-users, or people who need to enhance their speaking or singing capabilities, helping them to use their voice more efficiently after injury or vocal compromise. I have a clear scope of practice. I am not a clinical practitioner, and I am not a speech and language pathologist or therapist. I work offering further support to individuals who have already had diagnosis and input from clinicians, or who are waiting for that support, helping them to use their voice well, and encouraging and educating them about good vocal health and hygiene. Most of all I listen and hold a space for the whole picture of the person in front of me, so that they really feel heard and understood, and can move forwards.
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A very warm welcome to this, the second episode of the podcast, and I'm very excited to introduce you to my guest, susie Richardson, in just a moment. But first I'm going to just briefly talk through a few of the topics that you might hear in this series. It's all about voice, but in all its forms. So that might be from the perspective of arts and culture and how we tell the stories that bind ourselves together as a community. It could be around leadership, and that's in government or in business. It could be around charity. In the third sector, it can be advocacy making sure we listen to voices that might not be being heard. What happens when a voice goes wrong and we lose a voice, and how does the voice even work? I'll be talking to such a wide range of people, from psychologists and voice scientists right the way through to business leaders and government leaders to all kinds of interesting people and, most of all, of course, people from my own tribe, performing artists who use their voices and their bodies and their capabilities in very different ways to tell stories for us.
Speaker 1:I'm recording this podcast from Jersey, where I live. I've been proud to call Jersey my home for the last six years, and there may be people who don't really know much about Jersey. It's in the Channel Islands, a group of islands that sit just off the French coast, and it's a very interesting place to observe things, because we're very, very closely linked to the UK, but we are not part of the UK. We have our own laws and our own government. We have our own traditions, customs, language even, and because it's a small territory, it's possible for Jersey to be quite agile and forward thinking and it often is and it's also possible to zoom out a little bit and to have a look at things and see how things are working in ways that it's rather more difficult to see in larger, more complex, messy territories. So, without further ado, let's crack on and get into that second episode.
Speaker 1:This is VoiceCast with Nikki Kennedy, exploring voice in every sense, the sound you make, the story you tell and the presence you bring. I'm Nikki Kennedy, your host, a classical singer, vocal health and rehabilitation specialist and an executive coach, and my work is about helping people transform, find new directions, get unstuck and express themselves in ways that feel authentic and true. Together we'll look at how your voice and your presence can shape change in work, in life and in yourself. Let me begin an introduction to my first guest on the podcast, susie Richardson. Susie worked in prisons for 20 years of her career and she was a Deputy Prison Governor at Winchester Prison and then she moved to Jersey in 2021 to become prison governor at Jersey's Prison Le Moyne. After three and a half years there, she moved out of the prison service and she's now the chief executive for Jersey Cares, which is an independent organisation whose mission statement says it listens to and amplifies the voices of people with care experience. There's a wonderful thread through what I know about Susie's approach to human beings, which is what kind of captured me as a coach, and it's an approach to human beings around possibility for change and opportunity and encouragement around that. It's not hard to see the connections here between this advocacy and the prison service service, because in both spheres, susie's worked to advocate for people who may struggle to have their voice heard.
Speaker 1:I want to extend a very warm welcome, susie, and, with your permission, I would also like to just sensitively describe how our paths crossed, which was in a personal voice context.
Speaker 1:I know that you've had to deal with significant compromise to your own voice following surgery and I think it's safe to say that you no longer experience your voice as you once did, and I'd like to come back to that at some point during the podcast, but first I'm going to start by asking you a question. I'm going to quote you directly about your time in prisons, and you said a big part of my work over the years has been to have a voice for those who are locked up, some of whom will never have had a voice, a legitimate voice or loyal advocate. Giving them a voice, having a voice in the world has come to be one of the things I value above all else. I know that when I'm not heard, I become angry, frustrated, anxious and stressed. It brings out the worst in me, and this has given me real insight into experience of people who may always, or often, feel unheard or misunderstood.
Speaker 2:So my question, susie, is if not having a voice brings out the worst in you, what is it that brings out the best in you, and how is that related to being heard or having a voice bringing out the best in me, I think, is serving others, the nature of serving in prisons, the nature in serving in the role in the advocacy, charity as well, and so I think it's never been about me. I've had a very privileged childhood. I've certainly been heard, despite being from a large family, and what gives me real joy is seeing literally people becoming unlocked, unblocked, thriving and coming from being potentially dependent on the state to being in a position to be employed and to give and to contribute, and to see how that benefits everybody.
Speaker 1:Let's take Jersey Cares, for example. How do you listen and build trust and represent other people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got a way to go. I mean, it's a seven-year-old charity and actually it's had lumps and bumps in its journey as well. So trust is difficult because over those years we've not been entirely consistent either, and we're working with children or adults who, as children, were in care, who don't trust many people and who have had a lot of change, particularly in Jersey, with the turnover of social workers, people coming from the UK coming and going, and they've experienced some of that with Jersey Cares as well. So you've hit the nail on the head. Really, it is about trust, it is about relationship, it is about making sure that we stand firm, that we don't make promises that we can't keep, but that we ensure that these people are never fobbed off. Even if they can't have what they're looking for, they get the truth and they don't feel fobbed off.
Speaker 1:Even if they can't have what they're looking for, they get the truth and they don't feel fobbed off. There's something in that isn't there around the ethical questions of when you're speaking for people and when you're speaking perhaps, with people, and where that transition point comes and how you contract that with the people that you represent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our advocates have got a very clear introduction about what they are and also what they're not. They're not fixers and they're certainly not there to speak instead of somebody or for them. They're there to empower the voice of the individual and the goal ultimately is to develop advocacy skills in the individual, helping them to advocate for themselves, so that in those scenarios where they might not pull a professional into the conversation, they can stand up for themselves, they can expect to be heard, they can see how that conversation works to be effective in advocating for themselves and that they can start to experience success in advocating for themselves.
Speaker 1:That drives a confidence to do it more and more so yes, it's that rolling stone in a sense, isn't it that once they start to feel emboldened and able to speak up, that they can have the confidence to keep doing that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and our role is as a corporate parent. So our role is to look at the individual who might not have a parent advocating for them, and really to take the role of the parent in that. So what would a loving, committed, courageous parent do in this scenario to support this child, young person or adult that's never had that?
Speaker 1:I love the way that you describe that, that loving, committed and courageous those three things seem to me to be key to this process. I suppose there's also a huge net of psychological safety for somebody before they can go into that trust as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and our advocates and some of them are care experience, which we are, and that's new to Jersey Cares hoping we'll break down those boundaries, build that trust and make young people realise the skin in the game, that our people really really do understand where they are. They also understand that feeling of feeling let down, rejected alone, and so that's been really important. But we know some of these relationships are going to take time to build and to rebuild as well. So a lot of work goes into the relationship before a young person is ever likely to invite an advocate into a professional meeting. But our goal is to make sure that they feel they've got that top cover, that they don't go into a meeting feeling alone or lonely. They've got that backing that you would hope for in a functional family. That's wonderful work.
Speaker 1:I guess your work in the prison must have really informed how you come at this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, even before starting in prisons I made it my business. I've just always loved and had a heart for offenders and people with brokenness, which generally people that end up in prison have got some level of brokenness, and so even as a student I mentored an ex-offender and it was that, seeing how I had opportunities just because I could communicate and could be heard and have a accent that is considered to be well-educated, and how that unfairly would unlock opportunities for me that somebody that might have a background of abuse, neglect, addiction might present differently, and how unfair it is when we're asking for the same thing, even using the same words, but our appearance, our background, our education meant that unfairly I would get opportunities that they might not.
Speaker 2:So this is really a lot around bias and prejudice, actually isn't it Absolutely, and I think it is easy when you're not in the criminal justice system. You hear it all the time in the media or in common conversation assumptions about who a drug addict is, who an offender is, assumptions that they've chosen that, assumptions that they're lazy, ill-disciplined. And it's only when you get to know the individual human beings and you know their story you realise humans are quite predictable.
Speaker 1:Actually, if you suffer abuse and neglect in childhood, you've got a much better chance of ending up in the criminal justice system this is fascinating stuff and I I was mulling over this myself the other day, thinking about my own prejudices and and perhaps bias around prisons and the people who you imagine in prisons if you've never set foot in a prison and really all we've got to go on is often stuff from films and, as you say, assumptions about people that we've made from watching I don't know police dramas or whatever, and you end up with a blanket of well. That's what that looks like instead of any kind of sense of an individual, of well. That's what that looks like instead of any kind of sense of an individual, a group of individuals and cohort of individuals in in a space, and I suppose that must be the most important thing in that advocacy really absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's about seeing the human being, hearing their story, trying to understand what they want for their future, or even help them to imagine what a future might look like, and then trying to unpick that into next steps. And then helping to stand alongside that individual and help them ask for what it is that they need and again unlocking those opportunities.
Speaker 1:I think that's wonderful. I think there is something isn't there about the sort of us and them mentality that I think is terribly prevalent at the moment in politics and in what we see playing out on a global stage is people wanting to be rightful and wanting to see others as being wrong and finding it more and more difficult to kind of tread into the grey area of we're all flawed humans. We've all got our flaws and our things that we've got wrong and done wrong. It's just a sort of spectrum of where that's been and, as you say, education, background, opportunity and perhaps also neurodiversity plays into this quite a lot, Would you say.
Speaker 2:It absolutely does. I mean the overlap in all of the factors around difficult pregnancies, difficult birth, early childhood, trauma, diet, gut health, abuse, neglect.
Speaker 1:they're so overlapping and so, yes, neurodiversity is massively overrepresented in this population and in the I'm really interested just going back into the prison as a real kind of place, but also as a metaphor in a way what does being heard really look like in a custodial setting?
Speaker 2:It's interesting actually because 17 of my years kind of operationally working and leading in prisons was in the English prison system and then latterly kind of three and a half years here in Jersey and culturally that was quite different. So the UK was much further ahead with having prison councils, giving prisoners responsibility, giving prisoners voice and listening to lived experience. And in the relatively short time I've been in Jersey I've seen that shifting. We did a lot of work on that in the prison. But I've seen it shifting in other services as well. I see it in mental health, adult mental health and increasingly in children's services who are really trying to grow a culture of listening to the voice.
Speaker 2:But I really, when I arrived at the prison here and actually I've experienced it as a patient in the health system in Jersey, really feeling that top down I'm the professional, I'm the expert, I'm going to tell you my expert professional advice or opinion and I didn't always feel heard in the health system either and that was quite a new experience for me as well.
Speaker 2:So the prison did have a prison council and prisoners did bring some things to prison council but I really saw that kind of a lack of confidence by prisoners that what they bought was going to get resolved, and an expectation that the professionals are going to tell me why it can't happen. And actually, a lot of the time, the ideas were simple, doable and made such a difference to the lived experience. It was listening to the voice of the prisoners and being very clear about if we couldn't carry out one of their ideas, why not giving a truthful answer that they could understand, or recognising that some of those ideas were brilliant and actually getting the prisoners to help us put them in place. And so they held us to account for performance improvement, which we all benefited from.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fantastic. So when it worked, it was always really about not just listening as an exercise, but truly, truly, truly deeply listening and then processing what you're hearing. And then system, because that really interests me too, this, this idea of the top down you know I'm going to fix the problem and your voice doesn't really come into that that's something that interests me in my own training and vocal rehabilitation work, which is how we met, I think you recall. You know I I spoke to you about the biopsychosocial model, where we really look at the whole individual and we look at the whole picture and we really listen to the whole story and sometimes it takes a very long time for that story to emerge and during the emergence of that story all kinds of pennies drop for that person. So that's something that really interests me and I'd love to hear about your experience of what that means to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a family where gender equality wasn't even spoken about because my parents were so ahead of their time in expecting things to be equal for them and for their children. When my dad really pushed us as girls to kind of if you know kind of society had in any way put limitations on us, my dad would unpick that and ask of if you know kind of society had in any way put limitations on us. My dad would unpick that and ask why we were, you know, why we weren't going for stuff. And actually it was the first time I've ever experienced in my life.
Speaker 2:I'm very independent, capable woman, military wives. I've done a lot of life raising children with a husband away, while having a career able to hold my own. And it was medical appointments in Jersey, the first time ever where I felt that a man not listening to me and I couldn't understand what it was about. And I felt so frustrated, so unheard, so dismissed that I took my husband to the next appointment, which I've never had to do in my life, and I realized that the consultant would speak to him and listen to him about my health, but not to me. And I had just never. I can't remember a time in my life where I've experienced that before, and that was even before I lost my vocal cord. It was the first time I'd ever felt unheard and could only put it down to a gender thing, and then that obviously became more profound after surgery and with follow-up, with only one vocal cord.
Speaker 1:So with one vocal cord you have a paralysis of one vocal fold which affects the function of your speaking voice.
Speaker 2:That's right. So you're the expert on this bit. One of mine was paralysed through surgery, which is when I was introduced to you, and so, yeah, I now have quite a croaky voice and a voice that runs out quite quickly, particularly in a crowded environment, which has really changed the way that I socialise and just seeing you know from that what I described previously of well-educated, clear, loud voice, an accent that people it fits the stereotype that people listen to to having a croaky voice and particularly croaky in a social environment, and that feeling of being looked over or people moving away or giving me a kind of look like there's something wrong with her. I'm going to go and talk to somebody more straightforward, has been really significant and so many questions.
Speaker 1:I'm curious to know how that plays into how you empathise, I suppose, with these people that you represent that aren't being heard. What has it taught you and what strategies have you put in place?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's been quite humbling. I remember conversations as a child Well, I think it's was in her head, that's what whoever told you that and her trying to explain that, culturally, in her childhood, women didn't have the same voice as men, and so I had a real arrogance because I hadn't experienced that, and so it has humbled me and it's made me realise what women only a generation before me and all the generations before that have experienced, and it's made me realise how profound it is to actually have a voice and the confidence that comes with having a voice that was beginning to be impacted and to be heard and to be able to affect things that matter to you, and so I think that insight has been really valuable. I think I had an awareness of it from listening to other people, but experiencing it myself and realizing it is absolutely real has been really profound.
Speaker 1:It sounds to me very much as though what you're saying is that you really were very fortunate to come from a background where you didn't have experience of that, so you were able to take that voice for granted in a way, with the background, with the family support, with all of the advantages that you were fortunate to have, and that this moment of losing that has really enabled you to kind of feel it deeply and profoundly, with that little bit of lived experience and also having experienced in a medical setting something that people do experience. I have to say that I think that in a place like Jersey, these things can be very variable. I'm currently experiencing incredibly good care in one of the Jersey health departments and everything rather depends on those consultants and whether they're really moving with the times and really learning to listen to their patients and whether the health structures around that are in place are in place. So I think that all really resonates with me, because my work with vocal rehabilitation has really been in that space of of whole person listening and really trying to to give people a proper voice about what they're experiencing.
Speaker 1:Uh, and I and I hope that actually, as time goes by, you know these, all the health services. Will will will continue to work harder to get that in place. Yeah, what you described, it sounds really, really distressing actually yeah, absolutely, and, and you're right.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're talking about individuals and um their to the world, their life experience, and I've been unfortunate enough, or fortunate enough, to come under a number of different departments in health In my time in Jersey. It's been a bit of a crazy run of how things are absolutely different individuals, different departments. My experience has been totally different. So, again, all of this, we're talking about individual approaches, aren't we?
Speaker 1:and in and individual life experience we're going to take a short break now. In the second half of this episode we're going to look at what leadership looks like when it's really excellent, what culture can look like in an organisational setting. I want to come back to Susie's voice challenges and how grateful I am that she has spoken so candidly about her voice, because I think anybody listening would agree that, although she, I know, feels frustrated by the crackly voice that she describes and by the compromise of lack of stamina and how it's affected her socially, I think anybody listening can agree that, despite that compromise, the sheer passion and the articulate nature of the way that Susie talks, her advocacy, her desire to get her point across, means that we don't hear any of that. We just hear this wonderful passion for her subject, and so I'm really grateful to her. She's a great example of somebody who's overcome her voice challenges in wonderful ways.
Speaker 1:She refers to the work that I did with her as a vocal rehabilitation coach, and you may not be familiar with what that term means, and I should clarify it. I don't diagnose or even really comment on the diagnosis of somebody else. I'm much more a non-clinical practitioner. I will come in and help people when they've been to the laryngologist or EMT surgeon when they've had speech and language therapy or counselling or been in the care of a clinical team. I may work alongside that clinical team as well, but often I pick things up when somebody's come through that pathway, but they still need a little bit of help to build confidence, to understand more, to delve more deeply into their own voice and really get it going. Think of me as being like the trainer of an athlete who may have had an injury, has had all of the medical input, has had the physiotherapy, but still needs to regain confidence and work on alignment on the track, back on the track, but with somebody who's really super aware of what that injury might have been and what they might be carrying now, both psychologically and mentally as well as physiologically, and that's where I sit.
Speaker 1:So back to the second part of this episode. I'm curious, actually. We've spoken about individual advocacy, but I'd love to ask you about culture within organisations We've touched on it with the prison but what all of this talk about being heard might mean in organisational structures when we look at what really looks good. So I've been struck by your acknowledgement of anxiety at your time in Lamoille, and you put that down to not quite feeling safe in a culture that wasn't transparent, and I don't want to dwell on that. Feeling safe in a culture that wasn't transparent, and I don't want to dwell on that. But to look forwards.
Speaker 1:I read your comments in an interview that 17 years of working in big ugly Victorian prisons in the UK that you never felt a hint of anxiety and that really what did bring you into that sphere of anxiety was around psychological safety and not being able to express yourself. So we're coming back to the being heard and, I think, a lot of organisations, a bit like what we were saying with health, you might get an entire organisation that doesn't quite manage that culture well. Or you might get organisations where there are small pockets or departments where something isn't right and people struggle and ultimately that can lead people to burnout, it can lead people to poor performance and in your case it led to you simply leaving that job. So have you got any insights you would like to share about promoting excellent culture in organisations and how what good really looks like?
Speaker 2:Well, it is a big thing. I think it starts with feeling safe Feeling safe enough to get things wrong For somebody at the top of the organisation, to be brave enough to hear from somebody at the bottom of the organisation or a customer or a client or a prisoner that we haven't got things right, and to be brave enough and to be secure enough to think. Well, that doesn't define me, it doesn't define our service, it's just feedback that we need to really listen, to, understand and use it for improvement. And I think the good organizations, the big international corporates that are growing quickly, the Googles of this world, they've got a really brave culture around trying things and preparing for failure and accepting that 90% of the things that we try might not work but it's worth persevering and not beating ourselves up. But trying and not succeeding is important too.
Speaker 2:And I think it's really difficult.
Speaker 2:I know it's really difficult on a small island, which is a very polished island with great attention to detail and it's beautiful and it's serene and it's really difficult to let the ugly bits out and I understand why at all levels of the organisation.
Speaker 2:I understand how personal that can feel for politicians and senior civil servants and for the reputation of the organisation and for the reputation of the island. And I was really struck and one of the things that actually called me into working in advocacy for children in care was a statement that Ian Gorse, the then chief minister, made after the care inquiry, and it was a public apology to children that the leadership on the island had put the reputation of the island before the safety of the children. And I think that you know it is a goldfish bowl. We're a small island that punches way above its weight internationally. For all sorts of reasons, the reputation of the island matters but sadly, in the care inquiry example, trying to keep things contained is what led to everything spilling over the top and ultimately the thing that Jersey feared the most the reputational bit was damaged in a way that couldn't have been possible if there'd been openness and transparency earlier on. And I still see that layered within the culture of the island, within the culture of the island.
Speaker 1:So here I'm really getting a very strong sense of two kind of threads here. There's the personal ego part of leadership, which is around being able to open your heart and your ears and your mind to what is being said right the way through the organisation and to be able to hear it and to take it as positive opportunity for change rather than as criticism if there is something that is brought to you, and that's obviously a huge thing, building a culture around everybody's voice being valuable in a large or small organisation. And then that other thing, which is around transparency being able to admit when something hasn't quite gone right and being public about that rather than kind of hiding things with layer on layer of of right. Well, we definitely don't want this to get out. So so those two things, would you say those were the two key things that you think are that you would bring in leading an organization, though yeah, it's the transparency.
Speaker 2:But, as you've used the word um, culture, which can be with a big c, it can be a little c. It's often criticized as being overplayed, but it is the right word, because culture is all the cogs that turn the other cogs, it's all the people that interface with other people and systems and processes. It's how we do things around here, it's how we've always done things around here and, as you described, in the hospital, a few people acting outside the culture can really start to make a shift, but they need to feel safe and it is very difficult for an individual to step outside that culture when it is so entrenched and so embedded. But absolutely that starting and again, if you, if you are from jersey I think that's very different to if you have come over to jersey, which many, many of the leaders in organizations in in jersey have, and so if you've been over to Jersey, which many, many of the leaders in organisations in Jersey have, and so if you've been brought up in that culture, because the culture of the government is part of the culture of the island, again, that's really difficult to kind of set a date from today.
Speaker 2:I'll call it out and I'll be open and transparent, but it's also quite psychologically unsafe. We hear that phrase in Jersey. You know, if you don't like it, get on the boat tomorrow. And I see really good people who have delivered to a high standard in government sales were excellent at their job who come here and they don't fit with the culture because they come from a place where openness and transparency is normal and that can feel quite challenging and unsafe to an island with such an embedded culture as well.
Speaker 1:So we really need to be braver about looking forward. I have a lovely, lovely example of this. I went to a conference in the summer or spring called the Island of Longevity Conference. I don't know if you were there or if you had anything to do with it, but it was full of passionate people looking forwards, always looking positively, thinking about a crisis which is definitely coming our way, but, rather than being complacent about it, really really thinking outside the box about ways that we could, as a small island, actually use that to our advantage. Because the wonderful thing about Jersey is that we can zoom out and we can see everything, and so it's a perfect little microcosm to be quite experimental and be forward thinking, and sometimes we really are and we're able to achieve things that would be more difficult to achieve in the obfuscation of the complexity and enormity of other territories. So we have opportunity, don't we, I think, here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And there are pockets. There absolutely are. And you know Jersey Cares is one of them and we work in a very candid way with government them. And we work in a very candid way with government and actually it's really rewarding because right now at the top of children's services there is a leader who's not defensive, who is prepared to say we haven't always got this right, and who is passionate at all costs to herself about doing the right thing for the child, even if it's uncomfortable. And we see that. We see it in adult mental health increasingly, we see it in different departments, and so that culture will shift.
Speaker 2:And you know, I hope we shifted so much in my time at Le Moy and that's a credit to the staff. It's their prison. They were there before I was, they're still there now and they moved a long way with me. And that's cultural shift the culture of government, the culture of the island, the influences of the private sector and the charity sector. There's some really brave, bold people who are prepared to speak out in the charity sector, in the third sector. The leader of FREDA, our women's refuge, is another example of that. The Vogue report about women and girls. Those bits will join up and the culture will shift and I hope that my journey in the government and now working alongside government to advocate for the truth, for transparency, will be part of Jersey's journey, because there is so much that's amazing about this island.
Speaker 1:It'd be lovely to see that shift about possibilities of change and, most of all, we've talked about what it means to have a voice and to be able to use that voice with confidence, knowing that it will be listened to. So my final question really is is there anything in this conversation that's come up for you that you would like to add? Now the leaf blower stopped. It's autumn, so obviously every podcasting episode is going to have a leaf blower in. It can tell. But, yes, is there anything else that's come up for you that you want to add? Personal or general, or you know there?
Speaker 2:was one thing, nikki, that I remember from when we were working together on my voice, rehab, um, was you talking about some of the women, some widows that you were working with? And how all of us, our voice, gets weaker if we don't look after it. And actually that was a revolution for me. It was a muscle I never knew that I had to really deliberately look after. So there's one thing, just to anybody listening to this, I guess, to get in touch with you, nikki, and to realise that it's not inevitable to have that crackly old voice if we look after it. And I wish I'd realised that kind of younger.
Speaker 2:But also it was the link between widows who had maybe gone from that traditional model of being given away by their father at their wedding and handed over to their husband and where they'd never had a voice for themselves or needed a voice, because they had somebody they trusted to advocate for them within the family. And how, as they got older and became widowed, two things were happening at the same time both the crackly voice and suddenly the need to stand up for themselves using their voice. And I was, um. That was so profound for me and again it made that link between the physical voice and the metaphorical voice, um, and it really resonated. That was before I was offered this opportunity in Jersey Cares and that's really.
Speaker 1:I've really reflected on that, that's very interesting to hear and and heartening to think that those connections were made in in in my studio. So thank you for sharing that. On those two subjects, I I would agree wholly that you know the voice, it know the voice we think we have. People often just say, well, I've got this kind of voice or I've got that kind of voice. It's possible to change a lot with a voice, with the right work, with the right exercises, if a person wanted to change, and, of course, with compromises, like a paralysed vocal fold, which you know for listeners, just to explain what that is. You know, susie has got two vocal folds but they don't approximate with the same ease as they would have done before, and so the vibrations are slightly more chaotic in the vocal folds as they come together and that's where the clarity sometimes might get lost and also there might be a higher effort level going into bringing those vocal folds together to make the sound and that's why the stamina might feel that it's a little bit impacted. And so there is a lot of work that one can do, even with a compromise like that. There are workarounds, there are exercises, there are things we can do to improve outcomes, outcomes and when?
Speaker 1:When you came to me, it's true, I was working with a number of senior women who had noticed that their voices were getting weaker, and part of this was, of course, to do with age and part of it was to do, in fact, with living alone and therefore not using the voice, the same amount, not really speaking to people during the day other rather than the cat or the dog, and that gradual decline being linked very much with an exercise. You know, in the same way, that if we don't walk upstairs anymore, we lose fitness. So, yes, I would encourage people to recognise that, yes, the voice is something that can be exercised and can be looked after, and in some cases it needs to be exercised very intentionally. And after this podcast, one of the things I'll be doing this afternoon is going to my Parkinson's choir, where we help people with Parkinson's who, again, have got to use their voices very intentionally for them to still sound strongly in the room, and so we give them speech therapy and singing so that they can remember that they have to think about how they produce their sound because of what's happening to them. It doesn't necessarily have to happen so automatically.
Speaker 1:So, yes, working with people who, for whatever reason, may find that something that they've relied on in the past is no longer there is a really fascinating area. So thank you for sharing that and thank you for coming along and being my very first guest on the podcast. Uh, it's been lovely to reconnect. Actually, it's been lovely to talk about these things and you've been a very candid and, uh, open person to talk to. So thank you my pleasure well.
Speaker 2:thank you for giving me a voice on your podcast and I look forward to hearing the series. I know you've got a number of really interesting people lined up and I look forward to hearing their voices too. Thank you, Susie.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to VoiceCast with Nikki Kennedy. For me, voice has always been more than just sound. It's presence, connection, music, transformation. I hope this episode has offered something to carry with you into your own conversations and your own story. So drop us a line, be in touch and until we meet again, I hope that your voice finds the space it needs to be really heard.