Woman's Hour - ADHD in women, Prof Lucy Easthope, Debbie

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

The number of female patients being prescribed medication for ADHD has more than doubled in recent years. The reasons for this include time spent at home during lockdown really getting to know ourselves and, increasingly, videos on social media sites. #ADHDinwomen has 2.3 billion views on TikTok. To discuss this Hayley is joined by Dr Jo Steer, a Clinical Psychologist and Josie Heath-Smith who discovered she had ADHD after watching videos online. Today sees ambulance workers across most of England and Wales walk out over pay, joining nurses, rail and postal workers who have been on strike in recent weeks. Health chiefs have warned of "extensive disruption" and a health minister has said people should take "extra care". One woman who has been keeping a close eye on all of this is Professor Lucy Easthope, Professor of Risk and Hazard at Durham University, co founder of the After Disaster Network and author of When The Dust Settles - she joins Hayley Hassall on the programme. The Taliban has banned women from attending universities in Afghanistan. Hayley Hassall is joined by the Diplomatic Correspondent for The Times, Catherine Philp, who has recently returned from Afghanistan.The 23-year-old singer Debbie is one to watch. Signed to the same record label as the rapper Stormzy, she features on his latest album This Is What I Mean. Debbie joins Hayley Hassall to discuss growing up with gospel music and how her pop career blossomed while studying finance at university.According to new research from the homeless charity Shelter 1 in every 100 children in England will wake up homeless this Christmas. CEO of Shelter Polly Neate joins Hayley Hassall to explain why and what she thinks needs to be done.Presenter: Hayley Hassall Producer: Emma Pearce

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, I'm Hayley Hassel and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. On the programme today, we will hear from a woman who has been diagnosed with ADHD. That's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The reason for this? Well, it's a mixture of education around the disorder, getting to know ourselves more after two years of lockdowns, but also the multitude of social media videos with the hashtag ADHD in women

that are raising awareness amongst women who may never have realised before that they too have the symptoms. Well, I'll be joined by a clinical psychologist who can educate us all on ADHD specifically in women and Josie Heath-Smith, who discovered she had ADHD after watching videos online. Plus, today the Taliban have banned women from universities in Afghanistan with immediate effect. Girls have already been excluded from secondary school since the Taliban returned last year, but now this ban on higher education gets added to the list of barriers for women,

including going to parks and spas. Many have said it's a threat to women and girls. And I'll be asking the journalist Catherine Philp, who has been recently returned from the country, about what she's experienced there. And we've got a real treat for you this morning because the 24-year-old soul singer from London, who is one to watch after she has risen to fame

supporting John Legend and collaborating with Stormzy, 24-year-old soul singer from London who is one to watch after she has risen to fame supporting John Legend and collaborating with Stormzy, Debbie will be in the studio to perform her latest single. The beautiful piano is out in front of me right now and she'll be talking me through her inspiration and how she uses her real truth to create her distinctive authentic sounds. We're very much looking forward to that. And as ever on Woman's Hour, I'd love to hear from you, especially if you resonate with any of our guests today. Maybe you've discovered you have a disorder like ADHD by watching videos online,

or maybe you've seen a social media post which has led to a self-discovery of your own. Have you ever been encouraged to join a group or a network online? Or have you been alerted to a health symptom maybe that you never knew you had? Or was it more trivial than that perhaps? Have you seen a social media post or a great life hack and now you can't believe you've not been doing it for years? For instance, my friend now cleans her shower with a lemon after watching a TikTok video. And I now changed the quilt cover on my bed in a very unusual way after seeing a video on Instagram. So what have you seen online that's changed your

life, big or small? I want to know. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour. And you can email us through our website. You can also send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using the number 03700 100 444. Data charges may apply depending on your provider. So you might also want to use Wi-Fi if you can. Terms and conditions can be found on our website, but please do get in contact. I can't wait to hear some of those a bit later on. But first to our main story today. We're talking about the walkout of ambulance staff,

including paramedics, control room staff and support workers across most, but not all, of England and Wales. Unions representing NHS staff are pushing for higher pay after being offered a 4.7% rise earlier this year. Well, health chiefs have warned of extensive disruption and the Health Minister, Will Quinns, has suggested people should avoid contact sports and unnecessary car journeys today. Home births for some patients have been cancelled as hospitals fear ambulances will not respond to emergency calls. Ambulances will be sent to the most life-threatening calls

and patients who are seriously ill or injured should still call 999. Well one woman who has been keeping a close eye on all of this is Professor Lucy Easthope. She's one of the country's leading authorities on disaster planning and response. Alongside advising the government Lucy is a professor of risk and hazard at Durham University and she's the co-founder of the After Disaster Network and author of When the Dust Settles, which she spoke to us here on Woman's Hour earlier this year. Professor Easthope, thank you so much for coming on Woman's Hour. Welcome to the programme.

Thank you for having me. So this is the latest of a long list, really, of industrial size strikes from rail to post to nurses we've seen over the last few weeks. What does what we've seen over recent weeks and particularly today with the ambulance workers going on strike, does that equate to a disaster in your mind? Well, I think the first thing to say is that this is the strike action that really worries us. It really is very, very serious. And one huge thanks I have actually is to the unions who have been incredible at workingamedics run from the picket line for a severe major incident or for overwhelming incidents at Category 2 or certain if they can't meet Category 1 requirements. You know, they have every right to strike. They have every right to make these challenges back to government. But to ensure that the plans are in place, that we can respond to certain types of incidents has been phenomenal to see. In my mind, it does meet the criteria of a very, very serious UK event now. It is overwhelming local resources on a day to day basis without strikes.

We do not have functioning paramedicine while we have ambulances held up in car parks of hospitals. And one thing I think, you know, the UK are incredibly good at managing away the effects of tragedy. So, for example, in many nations, when you have a disaster, one way you know that you're in real peril as a nation is that you see the dead of that disaster. We are incredibly quick and efficient at making sure that you don't see the dead of that disaster. We are incredibly quick and efficient at making sure that you don't see the consequences of the tragedy. There are avoidable, preventable deaths happening every day because we are not resourcing emergency care

and we are not resourcing paramedicine, which for me, paramedicine is the mark of a civilised society. 51 years in the UK, hundreds of years elsewhere, has shown that it makes a real difference to whether we can save lives if we can get people to the scene and then transport them and treat them in the back of ambulances on the way to hospitals. If we don't have that, then we really need to look very hard at ourselves as to what we are as a nation. It's so fundamental to me, paramedicine. And this idea that medics, you know, we haven't got medics, we've got drivers from the military, this idea that taxi drivers can

convey level two patients. This is all fundamentally misunderstanding how vital the ambulance service is. Yeah, of course, paramedicine is not just a taxi service, isn't it? And you put that very strongly. I mean, you've described it as very serious, in real peril, but would you equate it to a disaster? Like, would you compare it to anything? I mean, I know you've dealt with national and international disasters from Grenfell Tower to the COVID pandemic. What would you compare this to? In terms of death toll, this is going to be one of our kind of chronic ongoing disasters, without a doubt. I often sit very adjacent as well as getting involved in no notice disasters. I also plan for things like pandemics and also advise on things like health care emergencies. And this, you know, for me, this fits the criteria. Will we see huge loss of life? Absolutely. Will we see overwhelm of local resources? Absolutely.

Does this involve a situation to be taken out of a political mindset and political point scoring and require national togetherness to soar? Absolutely. So for me, it meets all the criteria. As well as the disaster itself, I know you deal with the aftermath of those disasters, those who are left injured or bereaved or suffer as a consequence. What do you foresee as the consequences of today's paramedic strike? Well, there's two issues here. I mean, the press and the media for the next few weeks will be full of the people who did not get the help they needed. But let's be honest, the papers are full of that anyway anybody watching say a regular reality series like ambulance is saying that people are dying avoidable preventable deaths every day

they're also saying that that the ambulance service is at the front line of um other failings so particularly in terms of social care and in in the lack of investment in mental health. So we will see unnecessary bereavement. And that's the worst thing that you can see in disaster. You know, we will also see people seeing very cruel, sudden, unexpected, undignified, untimely death, which is what I see in my work all the time. The other thing I think that we're seeing is a desperate moral injury to responders, to paramedics, to nurses, to doctors, to ED staff. And this was really built in by our response to the pandemic full stop. We needed much earlier on to recognise that this is not just about money and conditions and one off payments. This is about the desperate need for society to acknowledge the long-term support. You can't ask paramedics to do the kind of things they've been doing, the handovers taking seven hours.

For several years now, we've watched the response times decline. You can't ask them to do that and expect them to then pick up a meal from a food bank. This strike for me is as much about moral injury as it is about paying conditions. You make a good point, though, where you say this decline has been happening for many years. I've been reporting on the ambulance delays for a couple of years now, and it seems to have got worse over the last 12 months. Did you see this coming? And did other people in your sector see this coming?

And have you advised the government about this possible outcome? Yes. So on both a very long term basis, I remember sort of starting out in my career in the early 2000s, and people saying the NHS funding model was desperately spending more than it could ever claw back. You know, we have a very, very expensive NHS, and we have a very under-resourced social care. We weren't having the big social questions that we perhaps needed to ask around the care of our elderly. Other countries were sort of staring in as we didn't have big debates about how we wanted to live going forward. I remember going to lectures and events in 2000, 2001 on this. So in terms of the long term, was this the predicted outcome? Absolutely. In the shorter

term, what we begged the health secretary and the Department of Health and Social Care to do in the earliest stages of the pandemic, so this is January, February 2020, is understand that certain actions would bake in moral injury that would inevitably lead to strike action, discontent, suicide in healthcare workers. And that was decisions like splitting society in half. So deciding that some people would work relentlessly through and other people would be furloughed. It was decisions like under-resourcing. It was the lack of PPE. It was, you know, one of the things we strongly advised against as emergency planners is a hero and villain narrative.

So my personal advice was against something like the Thursday night clap. Heroes inevitably suffer moral injury when actually the tide turns against them. So basically, we baked in this level of discontent. What's particularly hard to see is ministers turning on my health colleagues now. Work is relentless. This is the fourth winter, fourth Christmas that my emergency planning, what we call EPRR in health, they've cancelled their leave to work with the unions, to work with the staff, to work with the military. We've got a formal military assistance request out at the moment. And to see ministers turn on those responders who

are keeping people alive this winter. Well, on that, let's just get the government response for a minute, because the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, has said that this is his number one priority, and it remains keeping patients as safe as possible, and that he is working closely with the NHS and across government to protect staffing levels. Here he is speaking to my colleagues on the Today programme earlier this morning. In terms of pay, it's a long-standing position and indeed the Labour Party also supports, when they were in government, the independent pay review process. So that is a very long-standing process that is used by government. We have people that look at the affordability to the wider economy,

to many of your listeners face with cost of living pressures, and balancing that with the need to invest in the NHS to deal with the consequences of the pandemic. And that's why we have invested more in the NHS, an extra £6.6 billion. We've also recognised a lot of what happens in the NHS, including for paramedics, relates to social care. As a result of that, the Chancellor prioritised the £7.5 billion over the next two years to reflect that. But we do have a process around pay and we have accepted those recommendations in full. And of course that comes on top of the fact that last year, when there was a pay freeze to many others in the public sector, we prioritised the NHS and they got an additional

three percent lucy what is your response to that what do you say to what steve barkley says there the ambulance service and to an extent of course a and e as well are at the front of the front line so they they're um there probably isn't pay in the world that would compensate for having to not be able to do their job every day you know we are hearing of patients dying in the back of ambulances. So it's not just a pain conditions issue. For ambulance staff to be able to do their work, other resources are desperately needed, particularly in mental health and social care.

I think that sounds a much more kind of moderate response than some of the interviews we've seen where, as I say, blame is used. I also think this idea of telling people to sort of stay away from risk today is slightly ridiculous, really low point in government messaging, really. We should just never have got to this point. And as I say, for me, working so closely as I do with paramedics, this is not about just pain conditions. is about the the psychological injury that we've done to them by not understanding how hard it is to do their job at the moment and that that should have been a priority many many months ago. Yeah I suppose from your point of

view I'd like to know what can we do about this I mean the government has offered a 4.7% wage increase but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says there any more and it will drive up inflation does he have a point I mean do we need to think about the bigger picture here and how we could possibly afford that? I think that there's a need for government. I mean, this week, for example, we've seen the new resilience framework release. There's a real need for government to look more longitudinally. You know, we have an eye as emergency planners on the economics of things, but we would ask that governments look beyond their next election and beyond their own political survival and look at these things in the round. You know, the resilience framework

was launched with great fanfare this week, lots of breathless excitement that this is how we become stronger as a nation. But what seems to be missing is the idea that all of that is empty rhetoric if things like our health service is fundamentally weakened. So one of the things that I would call on them to do is to look at this in a much broader angle and sort of going forward, hearing the emergency planning and risk voices that they are claiming. And there's a lot to be positive about, actually, with the resilience framework. It's a very useful tool. But they are claiming to hear what the risks are.

And, of course, what my book, When the Dust Settles, is about is how they hear the risks they want to hear. But it's really only good news for the minister a lot of the time. And this was the sort of risk that has been building up over three years. And they haven't done enough to mitigate it. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you. And just on that response to the government's resilience plan, the government says this will make better use of data and external challenges to build a more robust understanding of the country's strengths and weaknesses, and share this information to ensure that every group has a part to play in national resilience, and that they're empowered to do so.

Thank you very much, Lucy. That was Professor Lucy Easthope, one of the country's leading authorities on disaster planning and response, who has advised the government after the COVID pandemic and how to not get to the situation that we find ourselves in now. Well, please keep your comments coming in today

on those strikes and how you are being affected. Woman's Hour is about hearing from you and your experiences too. But let's move on to another story we're talking about today, because the number of female patients being prescribed medication for ADHD has more than doubled in recent year. That's according to NHS data. The reasons for this? Well, it includes increased awareness, time spent at home during lockdown, which has helped us really get to know ourselves, and increasingly videos on social media sites where the hashtag ADHD in women has 2.3 billion views on TikTok at the moment. Here's a bit of a flavour of some of those videos. Put a finger down on ADHD edition. Let's talk symptoms of ADHD in women. Things that I do that I thought was just me, but it turns out it could be my ADHD.

Five signs you might have ADHD. Well, according to the ADHD Foundation, up to 75% of women with the condition are currently undiagnosed. So why has it been so difficult for women to get a diagnosis? And is increased awareness online always a good thing? Well, to discuss this, I'm joined by Dr. Jo Steer, who's a clinical psychologist and author of Understanding ADHD in Girls and Women. And I'm joined by Josie Heath-Smith here in the studio, who discovered that she had ADHD after watching videos online and subsequently got an official diagnosis last year at the age of 41. Well,

welcome to you both. Thank you so much for coming on the programme. Jo, I'm going to start with you because we understand we're suddenly seeing all these women being diagnosed with ADHD, but what has caused it? Have we got any idea about where this spike has come from? Good morning. So I think in essence, these women have mainly been missed so over the over the years in their childhood and in their early adult life their symptoms haven't been identified as adhd and we've therefore missed them or misdiagnosed them it's quite common that women actually present into mental health services with anxiety or low mood, but actually underlying those difficulties is often an undiagnosed ADHD.

So that has in part led to it. As you already mentioned, COVID, I think, is an important factor. So COVID hasn't caused all this ADHD, But what happened with COVID was that our routines changed, our support structures, the family around us changed so significantly that I think it opened up basically an opportunity to see some of these difficulties. So much of the support was removed that then people became more aware of what they were struggling with on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, you're right. And it is one of those things that rightly or wrongly, we think is an issue for young boys. I have two friends who have sons at primary school who have ADHD and it seems to be most prevalent within that age and sex group.

But what are the differences with women and girls? What are the symptoms with women and girls? Are they the same or are they different than what you see with boys and men? So it's the same disorder, but it does look a bit different. So what we see on the outside in terms of behaviour is different in girls and women. So often the hyperactivity element that we often associate with ADHD, that bouncing off the walls that we talk about, is much more prevalent within males and the male presentation, where for girls, they predominantly present with what we call inattentive type, which we previously referred to as ADD. But now we talk about ADHD inattentive type. And this in essence means that the symptoms around

inattention are more prevalent and the symptoms of hyperactivity show themselves less in girls and women, or they show themselves in a different way. So that hyperactivity of not being able to stay sat down is less present, but the hyperactivity may be there in other ways so they may be very talkative, hyper social we talk about, hyper emotional so really struggling with some big emotions and managing those emotions that can be a really big factor and the fidgetiness to be honest in my clinical practice I see lots of girls and women and that fidgetiness is always there but it's often hidden and girls and women seem to mask some of their symptoms so try and keep a bit of a lid on it so people around them are not perhaps aware of these things that they're

struggling with. Yeah Josie I'd like to bring you in now because is that is that rung true with you what Jo is describing there those symptoms is that what you discovered what what has it been like for you finding out you've got adhd it definitely resonates but um i was also diagnosed with hyperactive and i was diagnosed with hyperactive and inattentive so okay i could connect with both men who were diagnosed with ADHD and women because I had both sides of it. I always knew my adult life was different. I always knew I was impulsive, hyperactive, always busy doing something, couldn't concentrate, low attention span and so on and so forth. But at that time, it was only seen in boys and men and because I could

behave and I could mask that's the women's side of it I think I got away with it so for some people it's been a huge shock um that I've been diagnosed with this but for others especially the ones who live with me or are close with me it's absolutely no surprise at the same time. But yeah, what COVID did was force me into social media because I couldn't cope with the thought of having nothing to do in COVID. And that's one of the symptoms, struggling with boredom, really. Yeah. The first day we went into lockdown, my husband found me on the roof at seven o'clock at night,

jet washing the roof. On the roof? Yeah. Oh my goodness. That's a response I didn into lockdown. My husband found me on the roof at seven o'clock at night, jet washing the roof. On the roof? Yeah. Oh my goodness. That's a response I didn't have. I know, I know. Just to occupy my mind and get myself away from what was really happening. So that was the start of it.

And then I discovered TikTok. And TikTok works within your algorithm. So it quickly picks up on what you're interested in and the things that interest you, whether that's politics, beauty, ADHD and mine very quickly sort of went into my head. And not only did I then follow males with ADHD who had a lot of similar symptoms, it also did women. And then that was what really resonated with me. And I thought I need to get this sorted because I'd just seen it as a label before. So I was fully aware that I got ADHD, but didn't know that you could do anything about it or didn't know that you could go to the doctors and ask for a diagnosis and there'd be counselling, therapy, medications, natural remedies that could help you with it. I just

thought that's what I did and that's what I was to cope with for the rest of my life really. There wasn't much thought process that went into that until I started the process of trying to get diagnosed with it. Right Right that's so interesting when you say you probably had it for most of your life and you you just thought you were different when when did you realize it was ADHD and what did you think it was before that? I just thought I was different beforehand I just thought I got a poor poor span, but at the same time, I could really, really hyper focus on things so that I could overachieve in some subjects, underachieve in others. But I never seemed to reach my full potential because I just didn't have the energy for it. I'd be exhausted for the majority of the time.

I knew I was fully aware of ADHD my parents owned residential colleges for young adults with ADHD and autism so I've been brought up in that environment but it was never it was never at the point of the stereotypical ADHD naughty boy you couldn't control his behavior I could control my behavior yeah you masked it as they said yeah and that's probably why you didn't see it as much. So when it did occur to you that, I think I've got ADHD here, I've seen these videos, this all rings true, how do you then get your diagnosis? How did you get a label for that?

And what difference did getting that label mean to you? That was the real difficult bit. So what happened was, as I said before, I watched these videos and I followed these women who were then getting diagnosed and then medicated and that's the bit that I wanted um so after the first lockdown I went to the doctors and told them all about my symptoms and what I was experiencing and they were very supportive referred me. But at that time, the waiting list was 18 months. A year later, I go back and it's only down to 16 months.

And the doctor actually said to me, you know, we could be looking at two to four years within the NHS to get diagnosed. I will support you if you want to go private. So I came away from that a bit disheartened. And there was months before I did anything else I procrastinated a lot um contacted a few private places and never saw it through and then it came to a point not that long ago I was diagnosed about six weeks ago not last year um where it was just this constant overwhelming feeling that I wanted to help with and wanted to stop. So I ended up going private and paying a fee for the private diagnosis.

On that point, Jo, I'd like to go back to you because there obviously has been a delay with diagnosis. Why has that happened and what can people do if they're not lucky enough to be able to afford private treatment? You know, not everybody is. It's really difficult and services are under enormous pressure at the moment. And in part, I think, because we are more aware of ADHD and there are therefore more people coming forward who are needing assessment.

And that has caused a real bottleneck. And as Josie highlights, a proportion of people are seeking assessments through the private sector. It's really important to go to someone that's reputable and has good experience with ADHD. But in terms of what can you do while you're waiting because there are you know thousands of people children their parents and adults waiting for these assessments I think there is definitely opportunity to seek out support through your local networks there are lots of brilliant Facebook groups and the ADHD Foundation in the UK has an amazing website. So looking there for strategies and advice on how to manage some of the symptoms.

Now, that's not going to be medication because that is only available to people that have a formal and clinical diagnosis, but certainly a strategy-based approach. So thinking about some of the tweaks that you can make to your everyday life that might make some of your symptom management easier would be a good first step while you're waiting. Okay, that's good to know because we've had lots of emails and texts and responses about this actually. Lots of people listening to Women's Hour have really connected with this. We've got an email here that says, hello, I'm convinced I've always had ADHD. It explains so much about me and my life and habits now all these years I felt so very guilty about my distractedness untidiness I'm 73 I have had depression and anxiety most of my life what can I do about it and is it treatable

but I think you've answered that Jo so it is try and find somebody who's you know if your GP knows about ADHD if it's reputable if they can help with you but we've also got lots of people who are concerned about the rise since watching social media this text says I'm profoundly concerned about the insidious nature of online videos about psychiatric conditions like ADHD as a child I was dragged through the process of clinical diagnosis and it was a hideous damaging process. My teenage daughter who has always been a bit of a misfit socially is now obsessed over online videos about various things. Is it buying into a victim narrative rather than teaching her resilience and to accept herself and I feel powerless to help her. Jo what's your response to that because is actually following

these things online that can that sometimes be detrimental? I think it is a really complex area and there's not a straightforward answer and I think definitely what we see on social media can be quite general and so this can often mean that everyone engages with some of these ideas you know talking about losing your keys or thinking about, oh, I was thinking about my dinner during a really boring meeting. You know, lots of people will engage with those ideas. That doesn't mean that you have ADHD. So some of the content that comes out, it's all unregulated. And often the people putting the content out are not necessarily, you know, clinical professional experts, but often experts by experience, which is really important um so i think moving to that next step which is what josie's done in seeking a professional and clinical

diagnosis is really important because there are so many other factors that look like adhd and you need someone to help you work that out you need that expert definitely thank you joe and thank you josie thank you for coming on i'm definitely. Thank you, Jo, and thank you, Josie. Thank you for coming on. I'm so pleased that you're in a better place now and I hope that Christmas is much easier for you this year. Now, if you have been affected by anything we've talked about on the programme, then you can get help and support over on the Woman's Hour website

or you can go to the BBC Action Line website for help and support too. Now, the Taliban have banned women from universities in Afghanistan with immediate effect from today. This comes after girls were excluded from secondary schools earlier this year and means that Afghanistan has been taken back to the Taliban's first period of rule when girls couldn't receive any formal education. Well the order has been condemned by several countries as well as the United Nations. And this morning, we're hearing of armed guards being placed outside universities, stopping women from going in. My colleagues on the World Service spoke to one young Afghan woman who is a recent graduate, and she's still in contact with lots of current female students.

She gave this reaction to the news. Rumours were a few months ago that the Taliban are going to ban women from going to universities as well. But we didn't think that it will happen this fast and this soon because these students are in the middle of their final exams. I was really shocked and I couldn't believe it. The students' message made, they are completely hopeless. And they were saying that we were studying and we were preparing for our exams tomorrow and receiving such messages. We don't know what to do. They were just confused. It's really hard to tell how they feel right now because as a woman in a country that you're facing so many things and you're dealing with them, you're accepting them and still you're having that courage to go and study and work.

You're getting such news that you're no longer allowed to study and get graduated. So it's really hard. Well, Catherine Philp is the diplomatic correspondent for The Times, and she's recently been in Afghanistan and has just come back last week. Catherine joins me now. Hello, Catherine, thank you for coming on the show. Hi there. Listening to that clip there, what's your reaction to that? I mean, she says it's really hard. That's possibly an understatement.

Was it expected that the Taliban would ban women from universities? And what is the reaction you're hearing at the moment? No, I don't think it was expected. The Taliban's edicts against women have come thick and fast and very unpredictably recently. As recently as March, the Taliban had said that they would let girls come back to secondary school. And then on the very day they showed up with similar scenes to today where there were armed guards hopes of girls that they will be able to resume their education by saying to them that once they've created the correct Islamic environment for their study, they will be able to come back. So when I was in Afghanistan last week, I was speaking to, you know, heartbroken young women who whose education had been halted at the age of 16 or 17. And so that they could never finish the high school and get to university.

Now, this is of a completely new order to stop women going to university at all. What we had seen the Taliban do before previously was that they limited the kind of courses that women were able to undertake at university. And there were things like essentially women could become doctors because under their edicts, they wouldn't want a male doctor to touch a female patient or to treat a female patient. So they could sort of see the rationale of allowing women into those professions. I frankly cannot imagine what they are thinking now that they have cut off an entire generation to those professions. And what will happen if this is how extreme the Taliban are planning to be going forward. Are women going to be allowed to see doctors at all if there are no female doctors in the future?

And of course, 50% of the workforce gone as well. I mean, when you say there that the women you spoke to were heartbroken, there's a striking quote that I read in one of the BBC articles online today from a student. And she said, I believed that I could study and change my future and bring the light of my life, but they destroyed it. It's so prevalent that that hope has gone. What does it mean for future generations in Afghanistan? Because as you say, that's a whole generation and continuing in the future of women

that are going to be lost from the workforce. Absolutely. I mean, you've got these girls who can't finish secondary school. So they, you know, they're looking. I mean, it was very difficult to even ask these girls, you know, what do you see your future as being? Because their future has just been extinguished. The light has gone out. The most hopeful things that any young girls I spoke to could say to me was we hope there will be another change. We hope for a political change, meaning either that they hope the Taliban would go or that the Taliban would change their mind because the Taliban had sort of been holding out this, you know, this faint hope that things might change. I think that with this new edict on university education, we're really getting a strong sign here about who within the Taliban, because it is a very

fractious organisation and there are huge disagreements between different groups there. But I think what we're seeing here is that the very conservative Kandahari wing of the Taliban are the ones who are prevailing. I mean, we've seen an absolute flurry of new restrictions on women coming out in the last few weeks, some of them very bizarre, women not allowed to walk in public parks, women having to cover their faces. Now, what's quite interesting is that the burqa, which used to be such a symbol of women's oppression, is sort of no one even has it in Afghanistan anymore. There are very few of them left. So you see women wearing a hijab and then they wear a surgical mask that they've been using for covid just to

cover their faces to to um you know to to comply with that edict but we've seen in the workforce we've seen men and women separated so for example you cannot work in the same office um private or public uh service you can't work and there's rules now of where you can sit in the car, that you can't go to parks or public baths. So it's just adding to a long list, isn't it? Yeah, you can't buy a SIM card now if you're a woman. I consistently had to travel in a separate car from my male photographer because I was not allowed to sit next to him.

Yeah, it seems this is very much a rolling story. New rules are coming in all the time. Yeah, I had to eat separately from him. I wasn't allowed to eat with the men. And different places within Afghanistan also have different rules. And it almost felt as if different officials were competing with one another to become, you know, to be stricter and bring in more of these edicts against women. Thank you, Catherine. As I said, this is a rolling story. Things seem to be changing on a daily basis. So I'm sure we'll be back in touch with you to keep over what is happening in the next few days.

That was Catherine Philp, the diplomatic correspondent from The Times, who's just come back from Afghanistan and told us about the reaction there to the recent ban of women from universities. Lots of you have been getting in contact with the programme about seeing videos about ADHD and it resonating with you but also seeing those more trivial social media videos that have really given you some life hacks or changed your life in some way. I'm just going to read a few out. There's a great one here from Tony who says, I have found through the internet that I only need two cleaning products, white vinegar and soda crystals. And one here that says, for years, I battled with a rubbish vegetable peeler, dragging it towards me very ineffectively. I then saw Samantha Janus on EastEnders peeling

her potatoes with an identical peeler away from her. I immediately put this into practice and realised what I've been doing wrong. I never peel a spud now without thinking of hers. Well, please keep sending those in, those social media videos that have just massively changed your life. I'd love to hear more from that. But now I'm joined by the 24-year-old British Nigerian Ghanaian singer, Debbie. She's one to watch and has been signed to the same record label as the rapper Stormzy. She features on his latest album, This Is What I Mean, and has co- to the same record label as the rapper Stormzy. She features on his latest album This Is What I Mean and has co-written some of the tracks. She also recently supported John

Legend in London. Her singles include Is This Real Love, Cherry Wine and All Night Long. Well Debbie joins me now live in the studio and is going to perform for us but first I wanted us all just to have a listen to some of her singing. Here's some of her gospel sound with Give It To The Water. Debbie, such a beautiful song. I think we're all in awe of that here in the studio and your voice, honestly, it's just magnificent. And you can hear in there the influence of gospel music. And I know that growing up with gospel music was a big part of your life. What does that mean to you and and has your christian faith run through the messages in your music um so i grew up in a

really religious house so my dad was a reverend my mom was a pastor so going to church all the music i was listening to was gospel so definitely like there's some traits that I've picked up like harmonies and just like the general feel of music gospel music but I think yeah that's that's as as much of as much as I have adopted from that world yeah okay so it's sort of your grounding but then I know when you went to college you did a music technology class yeah but hang on a minute because then you went to university and studied finance so how did you move into music professionally at that point away from you know did you just think put the books down I've got to pick up the mic now so in my first year of uni I kind of quickly discovered that music is definitely my calling so I guess even though I was doing finance at the same time anything that was music related it related I was

making sure I was like dipping my toe in and going to open mics doing auditions anything that was music I was there yeah I'll be listening out for equations now um but you know I know you've said you're constantly writing but what is that process for you when you say constantly how do you do it and where do you get that inspiration from um I always tell people I'm a hummingbird so everywhere I go I'm humming and there might be one hum that stands out more than the other so no honestly when you walked in the studio weren't you I saw you like swaying along there yeah obviously going on all the time I always I always hum so one hum might stand out more than the other and that to me is is a process of songwriting you know melody or anything that's catchy or anything that just makes the soul feel good

um yeah that's that's me and of course you feature on Stormzy's latest album you've co-written some of the tracks and collaborated with him on them how did you find working with Stormzy it was amazing super inspiring yeah and obviously like he's from a similar background and did you just find it just worked I suppose as some people you just come together with because I know you've also supported Maverick Sabre did you do you just work and or does it can you work with anyone? I feel like a lot of artists have the same the same energy and the same outlook on life and on art. So there's not really one artist I've never gotten along with. I just feel like artists and people that create have a similar mindset. So you just get along with everyone.

You click with everyone, really. Just on the right vibe. Well, in a second, we're going to hear your latest single live from the studio, which I'm very excited about. That beautiful piano is waiting there. It's called Cousin's Car. can you tell me a little bit about it? So Cousin's Car is all about escaping I found that when I was writing it I was in like a weird spot in life where everything was quite overwhelming I'm sure I'm sure many people can relate to just hitting a point in life that everything feels like it's piling on top and I me and a producer called Johnny Latimer thought of this idea of getting a cousin's car

and just escaping and getting out whether that means like a holiday or road trip or something just getting away getting a break that's what yeah as you're saying it getting away where nobody knows me yeah having that I love that well thankfully we're going to get to hear from you now if you wouldn't mind going over to the microphone over there all set up for you um well you've been listening to Debbie who will now perform her latest single Cousin's Car with Jay Keys on the piano take it away guys when you're ready we can't wait. Debbie, Jay Keys, thank you so much. That was truly beautiful and some amazing escapism for us all there, I think. The lyrics and the song was just utterly beautiful. Thank you so much. That was truly beautiful and some amazing escapism for us all there, I think. The lyrics and the song was just utterly beautiful. Thank you so much. And of course, you can find Debbie's

singles online. Please do take a look because she is truly one to watch. Thank you very much, guys. Now back to our next story this morning, something I feel extremely passionate about. Almost 121,000 children in England are homeless and living in temporary accommodation at the moment, which equates to one in every 100 children. That's according to new research from the homeless charity Shelter. The charity has documented the experiences of more than 800 families and they found children residing in cramped conditions in hostels,

sometimes up to 55 miles away from their school. Well, I'm joined now by Sam, who after a relationship breakdown, she and her children, a boy and twin girls, found themselves homeless. And of course, Polly Neate, who's the CEO of Shelter, is also here too. Welcome, Sam and Polly.

Thank you so much for joining me. Polly, I'm going to start with you because people will be shocked by those figures. I think it's 120,710 children. That's around one in 100 children are homeless in the UK at the moment. Why do you think the situation has got so bad? I think it's a combination of things, but rents are going up really dramatically. We still have no so-called no fault evictions. So landlords can evict tenants without giving any reason at all. Rents, as I say, are becoming unaffordable.

We have an absolutely drastic shortage of social homes in this country. So people on low incomes often just simply cannot afford to rent a decent home and then unfortunately end up homeless and of course the cost of living crisis is piling in on top of that existing picture that I just painted and it's leaving families and as you say you know five children in every school in this awful situation and just to say when we talk about temporary accommodation um this is often not temporary families can be in this situation for years and children's childhoods can be lost yeah of course that's a whole childhood for somebody isn't it and just on your point about the forced evictions there, the government has promised that

they will come to an end next year. But obviously, the situation right now is going to take a long time to try and deal with. I know you spoke to 800 families with 1,600 children in temporary accommodation across England. But what sort of things did they tell you about how they were living? What did you see and hear from them? um well one of the things that really struck me especially as um you know a parent of two young people who've been through GCSEs I mean one girl of 16 who the only place she could do her revision for her GCSEs was sitting on the toilet with her textbooks on her lap and it was absolutely freezing cold in there as well because one of the biggest issues is lack of space so children having nowhere to play and I've visited rooms in temporary accommodation where it is the whole room

is literally wall-to-wall beds there's no room for anything in the room but beds. And a third of children in temporary accommodation don't have their own beds. So very often you've got more than one family member sharing beds and, you know, no room to play, no room to put a baby down to crawl. I've met a mum who was really scared because her child wasn't meeting his milestones, wasn't learning to crawl. She was getting children's services, were getting involved in the situation. But there was literally nowhere in their room where you could put a baby down to crawl. And we've got, you know, shared bathrooms, shared kitchens um between different households and these are not all families with children some of these are people who are homeless for other reasons drug and alcohol

misuse um ex-offenders um that's not a criticism of those people but it's worrying for um families for single mothers and are particularly badly affected by this situation. Yeah, incredibly. And like Sam, Sam's on the line now. Sam, you're a mum of three children. Does a lot of that resonate with you? I mean, what has life been like for you over the past year? Hi, hello.

Just want to say thank you to Polly and her team. Amazing, amazing work, what you've set up thank you um yeah it's it's been the worst year I think for my children mainly um it's seeing the difference in my son mainly he's 10 um and just having to having to uproot like both me and their dad both work in the public sector we've got secure jobs we earn a good living um and just managing to make ends meet was just impossible so can you describe to me what the last year has been like where have you been living what has been happening what what was your accommodation and situation like no we I approached my local council um and they put me in a temporary accommodation and just as Polly's just said it was again nothing to do I'm not

judging but ex-offenders and things like that um were all around um did you feel unsafe very very yeah um and my children were just distraught um my son's like I say he's 10 and he's so aware um and yeah we had to move from that place so it it was, again, another move. And then we were in somewhere for eight months. I was first in before that, sorry. I was in my car for like seven weeks because I just couldn't stay there. They had to go to my friends and to their dad in between. And they didn't know that I was staying in my car but I had to yeah it was really hard that sounds incredibly hard what sort of effect do you think it's had on your children

um massive it's been um I mean my local councillor just said oh move them schools just move them schools and my one of my daughters is partially sighted and it's not so simple. For her, the effect that it would have had on her would have been, so I had to travel 30 miles each way to get them to school and back, along with working full time, which eventually I had to drop to part time. But yeah, the one we're in for seven months, it was horrendous. I work with young people anyway, so I'm quite passionate about them. But seeing the children with the drugs all around them and nothing being done,

it's just really hard to see your children be around that and not be able to do anything. It must have been. Sam, I know with the help of Shelter you've now got private rental. Just a couple of days ago you found out that you would be back together as a family and you would have a rental place to live in. So I'm so pleased about that. I just want to read what the government has told us because Women's Hour spoke to the government earlier and they said no child should be without a roof over their heads.

Councils have a duty to provide accommodation and we've provided them with £366 million this year to ensure they can find suitable accommodation and we will bring forward legislation in the new year to ban section 21 no fault evictions. Polly I just want to return to you at the moment because this morning we have been talking about strikes earlier in the programme and various frontline workers and being unhappy with their situation. Today, ambulance staff are walking out over a pay dispute. Now, you've had strikes at Shelter, haven't you? The Unite Union said that a 3% pay increase this year had left some of your staff unable to pay their rent

and very worried about the possibility of becoming homeless themselves. Well, the union I know are now balloting members on a pay offer put forward. So are you paying your staff enough to do the work required to deal with this massive homelessness situation? Well, we're doing everything we can. You know, the cost of living crisis is impacting everyone. And of course it is impacting our staff at shelter. We're a charity with finite resources. We're doing everything we

can to make sure that our colleagues are, you know, are well paid. I won't pretend it's not a struggle because we are absolutely inundated as well with people who are needing our help. So there are some really difficult balances to be struck, but it's great that we've reached an agreement with the trade union. Polly, thank you very much. That's Polly Neate from Shelter and also Sam, who has thankfully just been given a permanent residence in a rental accommodation.

Well, lots of you have been joining me this morning talking about the life hacks you found on social media. I just want to read this one text to you from Lottie in the Netherlands because she says, what's changed my life is a trick filling a good plastic bag with lukewarm water to clean your eyes from your windscreen of the car.

It's truly amazing. It saves so much time and works really well. Well, Lottie, I too have been doing that over the past few weeks. It's a hack I also saw on social media. Honestly, there's so much you can learn from there. But that's all we've got time for today on Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for joining me and for joining in the conversations.

And we look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning at 10. Dance, it entertains us and it connects us. And in my second series of Ultima Busse's Dancing Legends, I explore some more iconic dancers who have been doing just that. Join me, Ultima Busse, as I delve into the lives of these trailblazers and pioneers who have changed the world of dance forever. The tap dancing duo who astounded audiences with their acrobatic skills. The Hollywood legend who showed her versatility across different dance styles on screen. We'll hear about it all, so let's celebrate the magic of dance together. Subscribe to Ultima Busse's Dancing Legends on BBC Sound.

I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.