Woman's Hour - Breaking patterns in relationships. Why nursing may be undervalued. Raising a child with autism from an ethnic background.

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Over the past few weeks we've been hearing women’s personal experiences about their relationships and why things went wrong. Today it's the turn of a woman we're calling " Sadie".Nurses are under-valued across the UK because of an old-fashioned view that caring for others is a ‘feminine characteristic’. That’s according to a new study, commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing. Jenni talks to Dr Anne Humbert one of the authors of the report and to Dame Donna Kinnair Chief Exec and General Secretary of the RCN about what needs to be done to change the public perception of the profession.The domestic abuse sector is facing a sustained funding crisis, with the Women's Aid Annual Audit showing that 64% of refuge referrals were declined last year. The number of refuge bed spaces in England is now 30% below the number recommended by the Council of Europe. Sarah Davidge the Research and Evaluation Manager from Women's Aid talks about what they think needs to be done to plug the funding gap.Getting the right information and support to raise a child with autism can be difficult for any parent. But if the child is from an ethnic background, research has shown that this can act as a 'double discrimination'. Why is this the case? We hear from Pam Aculey whose oldest son has autism and now has produced a series of children's picture books. And Venessa Bobb who has two children with the condition and now runs her own charity - A 2nd Voice - set up to help families like hers.Presenter Jenni Murray Producer Beverley PurcellGuest; Dr Anne Humbert Guest ; Dame Donna Kinnair Guest; Pam Aculey Guest; Venessa Bobb Guest; Sarah Davidge Reporter; Milly Chowles.

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.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 29th of January. Good morning. In today's programme, the impact of a sustained funding crisis in the domestic abuse sector. Women's aides say 64% of referrals for refuge had to be declined last year. What needs to be done? The last in our series of damaging relationships, one woman suffers the control of another. And a double discrimination.

Why do parents from an ethnic minority find it hard to get support if their child has autism. Now nobody will be surprised that the nursing profession is notoriously underpaid and that it's becoming increasingly difficult to recruit and retain people who may have chosen to work in the ultimate caring job. The Royal College of Nursing has come up with a report which definitively pinpoints the reason why nurses, it says, are undervalued because of the old-fashioned view that caring for others is a feminine characteristic. It's an assumption that's contributed to the suppression of nurses' wages and working conditions for generations. The study was carried out by the RCN and Oxford Brookes University. Dr Anne Humbert is one of the authors. Dame Donna Kinnair is Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College.

Donna, why do you think we are so stuck in the past with this? I think it's necessary for us to have a conversation because nursing has changed somewhat since 1948. It's now an all-graduate profession and you will recognise that the depth and breadth of knowledge that we have learnt about health and diseases and other things will impact on the knowledge that a nurse requires and the clinical skills too. I mean we are keeping more people alive than we've ever kept before and therefore I think it's about having that conversation that the knowledge that people will have of nursing is a bit out of date. And actually, nurses do far more. So we need actually to update public knowledge about the nursing profession.

And when you were doing the research on this, how shocked were you to find that this terribly old-fashioned attitude persists? Well, I expected to find these attitudes, but I find that there is such a tension between what, as a society, how we view nurses and perception that nursing is about caring. It's really typically associated with what women are doing with low tasks because we see that our mothers and sisters doing them in the home for free. And that's completely at odds with the reality, the science, the techniques that nursing as a profession relies on today. So how, Donna Donna do you get around the idea that it's a woman's job and it's about cleaning babies bottoms and making sure people are comfortable and making sure they get a drink it's much more than that. So I think that starts in the same way that we've done it with other professions with education and aspiration so if you think about the way in which we've

educated women to be engineers or doctors or to study medicine, I think it's exactly the same with nursing because actually once people understand the technical and clinical and knowledge skills that you have to have, they are more likely to be interested. So when I go up and down the country talking to school children and you say to them, well are more likely to be interested. So when I go up and down the country talking to school children and you say to them, well, how many of you would like to know anything about nursing or would like to be a nurse? Some girls might put their hands up, but none of the boys. And actually, when you say how many of you know a nurse, there's a few more boys that put their hands up. And then when you start to explain some of the things that

nursing does you can see the amazement in the children's eyes and actually when you finish that conversation and you say how many of you would now be interested you do get a few boys that will stick their hands up. But what's their response when they cotton on to the fact that they're being encouraged to come into a job that is notoriously undervalued, underpaid and overworked. So I think it's about the value of nursing when I'm speaking to young people. However, the start of the conversation is the way in which we get attention paid to the value of nursing. So actually, the report shows that when you come in as a graduate, you're probably on average the same as other graduates. But actually, the experience, skills and knowledge

isn't valued. So we do not rise in terms of our salary or pay the same as other graduate professions. So you're not going to change that unless you start conversing about it. And we do know that male nurses, the ones who do come in, tend to get promotion into management. Why do they do better? Well, this is what's happening across all professions. It's not true of all men, but some men in the nursing profession benefit from what's called the glass elevator. They're able to raise to decision-making positions and use their masculine privilege to just get to those positions

because we keep associating men and leadership. There is a curious thing going on alongside this as well, where as the medical profession has become feminised, am I right in thinking that it's becoming a little bit undervalued because there are so many women doing it? Yes, indeed, that's very interesting. When we look at other professions such as lawyers or doctors, as the proportion of women is rising in this,

it tends to be associated with a loss of status and pay. So how do we change Donna the way nurses are perceived? So like I said I think it's about the education and the aspiration that it's not just women's work and actually promoting some of those technical clinical skills that nurses have today. But there's also the ability of us treating nurses in a good manner, so that we encourage retention, we encourage people to want to join the profession. But, you know, people will also say, yes, OK, we know they can be graduates and they can do their own prescriptions and all

that sort of thing but somebody still needs to make sure that the patient lying in bed has a glass of water by the side of the bed and is not deprived of drinking how do you balance those two things out so i think if you speak to every nurse that is um something that nurses will want to prioritize i think when you talk to managers they will want to reduce our profession to tasks um but nurses in and of themselves recognize that caring for the whole patient so nutrition eat you know all of the care of the skin is equally important to a clinical, technically skilled nurse because that is how you look after the whole patient.

So while we recognise that others would like to impose on our profession their construct or their ideas of what nursing is, any nurse that's been trained knows that it isn't just about the technical skills, but it is also about the glass of water it is also about making sure skin is intact and that the patients are fed and their mouths are clean that's the domain of every nurse so we combine both the care and the compassion but also highly technical skills so it's not one without the other. I know the problem of retention is quite serious and I wonder what could be done to help staff who let's say have their own

responsibilities especially children but have to do 12-hour shifts that are not necessarily predictable. Yes and I think there is a lot but like any other profession or any other role, it is about how you treat that profession. And I think equally, we need to start a conversation about the benefits or disbenefits of the length of shifts that nurses have to do. Because after all, if we're saying it's technical and it's got clinical skills, it is a profession that you need to be aware and need to be on the ball so we do need to start a conversation about whether these 12-hour shifts although they may be convenient for managers and sometimes individuals how good are they for the individual nurses that are trying to deliver care and what have you concluded needs to be done urgently we believe that on the basis of the research we've conducted that there really

needs to be conversations taking place about the recognition of skills for the nursing profession. The nursing profession is unique in that it draws on knowledge that comes from different areas and that could be psychology, medicine, sociology and so on. So to really establish the boundaries of that knowledge claim. We also believe that there needs to be conversations about the sustainability of work. And this is what Donna was talking about, thinking about how we can rearrange work so that it fits. This is particularly relevant for nursing

because it's a profession that is so heavily dominated by women. Nine in ten nurses, approximately, are women. And the needs of women at different stages of their life course could be very different. So a more modular approach or at least some conversations just to address the needs of nurses with that of the service. Dr Anne Humbert, Dame Donna Kinnair, thank you both very much indeed for being with us.

And we'd like to hear from you. What's been your experience of nurses? And what do you think of the profession? You can text us or, of course, you can email us. Thank you both very much indeed. Now, we've talked for some time about the effective cuts in funding on the provision of refuge for women trying to escape violent and abusive relationships but the women's aid annual audit published this week shows the extent of its impact 64 percent of referrals for refuge were declined last year and the number of beds available in england is now 30 percent below the number recommended by the Council of Europe. Sarah Davidge is the charity's research and evaluation manager, and she joins us from

Bristol. Sarah, 64% of refuge referrals being refused sounds a very high number. How many women does it represent? It relates to about 23,000 referrals. We know within that you may find one woman has been referred more than once, but you also are not accounting for all the women who've attempted to look for a refuge space and haven't found one because no vacancy to apply for and more than one referral has been received. When we look at the fact that an estimated 1.6 million women experienced domestic abuse in the last year, 11,500 women supported in refuge just does feel like the tip of the iceberg. What about their children? Because a lot of them will come with two, three, maybe four children. Absolutely. Women can flee with all kinds of two, three, maybe four children. Absolutely. Women can flee with all kinds of family sizes, up to six children sometimes. From the research that we've done, we know that more children than women are in refuge, actually,

because an average of 1.2 children per woman. In spite of this, we also know that a third of the refuge services in the network in England weren't resourced to provide specialist support for children and that less than half of the vacancies posted during the same year could take a woman with just two children, reducing to less than a fifth if she had three children. So obviously the challenges for larger families are even harder. Why is the number of bed spaces so low? I mean, way below the number recommended by the Council of Europe. Definitely. The number has been increasing very slowly over the last 10 years that we've been monitoring this,

but it's not keeping up with population. So as you say, there's still this 30% shortfall. Mostly this is down to lack of funding in the sector um the impact of cuts uh funding cuts and funding uncertainty we know is the biggest challenge that services face as we say in the report um this this can be uncertainty over where future funding is coming from meaning that services can't plan ahead you can't look at expanding if you don't know whether you're going to keep your core funding for what you're already delivering um funding not covering full cost so uh challenges that way and again that impacts on whether services are able to plan ahead services are running um areas of their work

at least one area of their work, without dedicated funding. We know about half of the services that responded to the survey we talk about in this report said at least one area of their work was run with no dedicated funding at all. And that did include refuge services. So you can see in this environment, it's really hard to think about expanding and those extra spaces are not being commissioned. I guess the other thing to point out, it's not just about the number of spaces that's presenting the challenge, it's the accessibility of those spaces to all women. So we know that, like I said before about children, less than half of the spaces were available for a woman with two children.

Only around 1% of them were in rooms which were wheelchair accessible. So if a woman or her children need rooms that they can access for various disabilities, then that becomes really difficult. Only 5% of vacancies would even consider a woman who wasn't eligible for benefits as a result of her immigration status. So there's just such a raft of challenges. It's a big issue that needs to be addressed. At your conference yesterday, you discussed women with insecure migration status. What particular problems do they face? Is it just the funding question?

It's not just the funding question. That is a big part of it, obviously, lack of access to benefits, because at that time, that unstable time in your life, women often have to leave work to be safe. So being able to rely on the safety net of the benefits system is vital to survival for many, many women. So if you haven't got that, that's a huge barrier for you. There are other barriers that migrant women can face. Language barriers is another practical one and particularly if a woman has been brought to this country

by an abusive partner who maybe has prevented her from learning English, from being able to seek support outside of that immediate family environment. The abuser may hold on to her passport, to the documentation that she needs if she tries to leave. So there are a number of practical barriers, but there are also the more structural inequalities and racism that they might experience.

And those present a significant barrier to women. Now, the Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, was at the conference yesterday. a significant barrier to women. The Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, was at the conference yesterday. What are you hoping, as a result of what he said, the government will do to help? Well, we know that the government have invested some short-term pots of funding into the sector since 2014, and this is indicative of the commitment

that they've got to build on that and to create a long-term funding solution, which is what commitment that they've got to build on that and to create a long term funding solution, which is what we need to be able to build a resilient sector that can meet the needs of all women and children who need it. Women's Aid have put a figure for that investment in a report released at the end of last year of 393 million a year, which is just a drop in the ocean compared to the 6666 billion that domestic abuse costs society every year. So alongside this funding solution, it's really important that we look at how that funding is delivered, at having an effective and compassionate commissioning practice, so that the services that are running are providing the right levels of emotional, therapeutic, practical support to all women and children who need it.

And safety. And safety and a place of safety as well. Absolutely. Sarah Davidge, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. And again, we'd like to hear from you. If you have had experience of the lack of funding in this sector, we would like to hear from you. You can tweet us or you can send us an email and you don't have to give us your name. Thank you very much, Sarah. Now, still to come in today's programme, the double discrimination that can be faced by a child of ethnic background with autism.

Why is it so difficult for parents to get the right support? And the serial, the fourth episode of Jackie Kay's Trumpet. Earlier in the week, you may have missed Marion Dunn on Monday explaining why she's adopted boxing for fitness in her 50s. And on Tuesday, a discussion about the Tolson case and the need for a review of the operation of the family courts when sexual assault and domestic violence have an impact on a family's future. If you miss the live programme, you can catch up by downloading the BBC Sounds app. Just

look for Woman's Hour. Now, during the last couple of weeks, we've been talking to women about the impact of finding themselves in a relationship which they begin to realise is damaging them. What has gone wrong and how have they managed to escape? The reporter is Millie Charles. In the final part of this series about breaking free from damaging relationship patterns, I spoke to a woman we're calling Sadie, who describes her ex-partner as a narcissist. My friends had often commented on me being in codependent relationships and me being codependent, and that used to really annoy me,

I think because I just didn't understand what it meant. I thought codependent was when you're frightened to be on your own, but I'm really happy on my own. What I learned much later on is that it's a different kind of loneliness if you've gone through trauma at some point in your life then it creates this hole or this loneliness this deep feeling and when then you get attracted to other people perhaps you've been through similar or some kind of trauma and then you're both trying to essentially fill each other's holes so that's what I learned about codependency. Tell me about the relationship that kind of spurred you to seek help.

I felt like I was just in a good place in my life and I met this person and I felt perhaps a bit suspicious about her because she very quickly came into my life. She was very in love with me very very quickly and I felt like I was the one putting the brakes on so yeah I think there was a voice already saying I'm not sure. Have you got an example of what kind of boundaries she was pushing? Wanting to stay at mine a lot wanting to stay over very quickly we spent every night together and that's quite a difference if you spent a year or two alone so yeah just little things like that at first always finding a reason

to for us to be hanging out together and me just not being able to say no because I mean I feel rejected when people say no so then I don't want to do it to the other person and what was it that attracted you to her in the first place I think sadly her flattery got her everywhere you know she then went on to say she it was love at first sight for her but for me it was my first proper girlfriend so there was a lot of fear for me a lot of of unknown, a lot of overcoming. Being with a woman for the first time properly like that, it was a lot. So it was just there was so much going on in my head that it wasn't a whirlwind falling in love for me. It was like a really steep learning curve, so much to deal with. So, yeah, it was perhaps a bit more bamboozling for me.

So it sounds like she pursued you very much, would you say that's fair to say? Yeah, I had reservations. She was a lot younger than me. But I guess I got flattered by her really knowing what she wanted as well. And so, yeah, it grew for me. Yeah, it just grew. She grew on me, I guess. So how did the relationship develop? She started off really really supportive and you're like wow I've never been with someone that's so kind and so supportive and so helpful and I started to see that she was troubled quite depressive I could see that she

self-harmed a bit and I'm just a very caring and supportive and loyal person so I guess I felt like that was the the dynamic between us but even after a month the cracks started to show these it's really blurry for me now the conversations that we had but I was less in love and I was very able to stay calm while she was twisting and turning her words and really going at me and I was just able to be very logical with her. But these weird fits, they were like fits or like these weird anger, weird turns in the conversation. I was holding it down at first and then I remember the first night that I flipped out and screamed at her,

oh my God you you hate me you hate me and I was screamed that and she stopped immediately and then went really quiet and went really weird for like a night a whole night and a day and it became more and more regular until I mean we're talking by the end it was like she was coming at me and attacking me verbally in different ways multiple times a day. And I only had the energy to defend myself for what I guess I felt really counted. So talk to me about the kind of dynamic between you, how it sort of changed. I realise now it's narcissism. What happens is, so they build you up.

So at first you're not doing anything to earn this adoration. But then they start halving that. And then you start working twice as hard to get half of the reward. So manipulative. And the other thing that would happen was in enclosed spaces. So if we were in public on a train or if we were in a car together or in the back of the taxi, she had me locked in a space and she would start. And there were times when I ran out of trains, I ran across busy platforms, I ran out of moving cars like to run away from her because she'd get me. One of the worst verbal attacks I ever had was in the back of a taxi. And I was sat there, like, physically shaking

and wondering what this taxi driver, if he understood us and if he heard everything that she was saying to me, and how could anyone be saying these things that she was saying. It was like, oh, horrible. Why did you stay? I stayed because every so often I would react narcissists they want you to react

it's what they're desperate for they will come at you from every angle until you snap when you snap the whole argument becomes about you snapping the whole focus and then forevermore everything in that relationship is all about those five times that you snapped not the six times a day they come at you but the five times in the whole relationship where you broke I felt so guilty for the things that I did that I went back into the relationship trying to prove to myself and to her that I was a good person did you have any fun together well that's the other thing isn't it it's um the love bombing so after the argument then you get love bombed so yeah unfortunately quite a lot of our relationship

was made up of her um you know making it up to me you know she was up for adventures she was fun but of course you're living for the the good moments they're renowned for being very sexual and good in bed and yeah but yeah towards the end I think I was so worn down so how did it end it ended the only way it can end with narcissists you have to completely cut them off she came to the door I had friends all gathered around me she's banging at the door phone calls so basically yeah the long story short is you have to delete and block and the one thing you have to delete and block at their numbers you have to have people with you to stop them because they're going to come to the door there were letters there was in the end emails I had to work out how to block emails and so yeah the only way which is

very very painful for I understand for her it must have been very, very painful, but you have to delete and block them. And her ex-partner had also done the same thing, completely deleted and blocked her. It sounds like, you know, the strength of your friends around you helped you to do that. My friends, they were there to pick up the pieces so many times. They heard her screaming down the phone. They saw the way she controlled me when we were out. They saw her screaming down the phone. They saw the way she controlled me when we were out. They saw her text messages pinging up on my phone. They saw all of that and they just, they gathered round. I have a friend who is like a personal trainer and I started

training and doing martial arts. So I decided I needed to train and exercise the anger out of my body. She pushed me around physically. She was very physical with me. And so I wanted to become physically strong as well as mentally strong. And how did you start to put yourself back together after that? What do you think was the most useful thing for you in sort of your recovery from that relationship? Understanding my personality, understanding my traits and my patterns. I had a mum who suffered from depression a lot so I was like the entertainer I was the peacekeeper between my mum and my dad

who were separate entities I was very much a go-between just only ever getting attention really if I was being useful and helpful just learning boundaries boundaries. What feels good? What doesn't feel good? Does this feel unhealthy? Is this making me tired? Or am I putting myself out there for someone else when really I need to just look after myself? I think we all have to learn that in life. Tomorrow I'll be talking to someone who researches this kind of relationship and a counsellor. How do you identify and break such patterns?

And what do we know about what makes relationships strong and satisfying? Now it's not easy for any parent who has a child with autism to find good information and support but research carried out by the National Autistic Society found that children from an ethnic background are less likely than white children to be correctly assessed. They're often said to have behavioural issues or difficulty with anger management. Nearly a quarter of them have been excluded from school and the society dubbed it double discrimination. That was in 2014 and six years on, nothing much appears to have changed.

Vanessa Bobb has three children, two of whom have been diagnosed with autism and she's set up a charity, A Second Voice. Pam Akili has three sons, her eldest was diagnosed three years ago and she's produced a set of children's picture books. Pam, why do you use the phrase double discrimination coined quite some time ago? Like you said, it was coined many years ago and unfortunately from personal experiences I still think that's completely relevant. My eldest son is mixed race and he was diagnosed three years ago. And we found it really, really difficult to even get a foot in the door to get that diagnosis. I had to really, really fight for it.

And when I did speak to health professionals, I was basically told that he had behaviour issues, maybe had symptoms of ADHD. I had to go back for about nine months before I could convince them to try and start the process of diagnosing him. Were you treated equally, you and your husband? Not at all. Because your husband is white. Yes, he is white. Alex is white. And it's quite interesting that you say that.

I think after the third time of going back, I told Alex, you go on your own, please. And you speak to health professionals. And we had completely different experiences. After the first time of seeing the paediatrician, Alex came back and said, had a really, really good discussion with him. And he's basically said that, yes, we're going to start the process of diagnosing for autism.

And obviously I was overjoyed at that point because that's what I'd been fighting for for such a long time. But the key point is that I had to fight for it. And I felt like my husband kind of went in there. Different questions were asked. I felt that the questions were very much targeted to me as his mother, as motherhood and how I was, you know, bringing up my child. And for the dad to walk in and ask similar questions, but be told that, yeah, we're going to start the process.

It did really hurt. It did hurt. I'm not going to lie. Vanessa, what about you? How difficult was it for you to get a diagnosis for your son and your daughter? The FANU was diagnosed in 2008 with autism ADHD. Prior to that, his challenging behaviour was just seen as my parenting skills. It's when he got excluded, that's where the alarm bells were there. But even though I thought he was just a bad child, because that's what I was told as a mother, once he had the diagnosis, I think that's where the problems more started. Nobody wanted to accept the label.

For my daughter, Michaela, she was diagnosed with autism, ADHD and epilepsy between 2017 and 2018. It took longer for my daughter because they said that she was copying her son, sorry, my son's behaviour. But for me, I just knew her behaviour was very different because her brother at the time by then was in a residential school. So for me, it was fighting a system where everybody just said it was my parenting skills. This is very recent that your daughter had these problems. How common would you say these kind of experiences are even now when so much research has been done on it it's still i would say it's always been there for

communities but i think when it comes to um as we're talking about double discrimination we're talking about black autistic children it would take 10 times longer the evidence is there when they do research most of the research is aimed as as we've always been told, as middle class white boys. It's not looking at the diagnostic tool where when you're looking at black children, behaviour issues is always seen the first thing when they see a black child running down the street. So when we're talking about my child is acting inappropriately, they're quick to say it's because of my child's behaviour. Why did you decide to set up your charity? I set it up because nobody was speaking for me. It wasn't that it was for my son at the time. I just felt as a black mother, nobody was listening to me. At the time, I came and said, it's going to be for the black community. By then, I was dealing with poor white families. I didn't see nobody like me.

And that's when I thought, let me just look at community and not look at just the black community. And how important, Pam, have your picture books been for your child's development? They've been absolutely amazing. I mean, Walter was completely non-verbal up until the age of about four, four and a half. But we quickly realised that he was very connected with books and visuals

and he used that as a means of communication almost. And then I realised that there were no books where children like Walter could see themselves in the pages of those books. And that's what kind of spurred me on to write these picture books to kind of champion inclusivity and diversity. And it's really helped him because he can now relate to the character, not just visually, but just also through some of the things that the character does, which is very similar to him and his autistic traits.

Why did you decide to write your own? Because I got so frustrated with having to go online and see there was nothing out there. And I thought, you know, I can sit here and moan about the fact that it's not happening or I can try and and add to that change and I thought right I'm going to write it because I'm writing it from personal experience as well um and the feedback has just been phenomenal it's been it's been so humbling um and it's been so great to think that finally our children are being are being heard and being seen um because we all

want to have that part of that belonging and i think by having these books and showing children at an early age that differences are good and not something that we should be scared of and we should embrace those differences and that's so important how generally would you say autism is viewed within the black community once you've got your diagnosis, what do people say? It's difficult. It's a tricky one because there's things like, depending on where you're from, there's language barriers, there's cultural barriers and stigmas. I have been speaking to a lady who English is not her first language.

So in her native tongue, there's no word for autism. So the closest they get to it is someone who's got mental health issues so the stigma on both sides which makes incredibly difficult for families and carers to get the help and support that they really need what's been your experience of how the community sees it i may be a bit controversial here i would say from my experience being part of the national society diverse perspective was that it took only 130 people that came forward when we look at education survey 11 000 people came forward i would say my experience being in the white community discrimination is that everybody will know about autism, but the cultural perspective is always not looked at where that's where the discrimination comes.

In the black community, my experience, I've always felt that I've always felt isolated. I felt that I've always been sabotaged. I've been told that I'm mentally ill. I've got issues. I seem to always be labelled that I'm the problem. So what I've had to do is just go alone and connect with other families that way. We've all just all come together and we've had to fight a different fight. So double discrimination for me is no matter where I am as a black mother, I'm fighting the fight because I'm always being told I'm still the problem and I just need to get on with it. How do you cope with them when you're out with them and they may be behaving in a way

that surprises people. Okay well my children are 14, 17 and 18 now so the two younger ones at the time I would say I used to be embarrassed, the spitting, the biting, the slapping, the inappropriate behaviours but I learned to become thick-skinned. Now they're older they don't really want to go out with me, not because I'm a bad mother, it's just that they want to do things on their own they prefer to stay on their own or but people say that I should force them to go out but they don't want to go out I've got to pick my battles wisely when it comes to when I decide that I want them to come somewhere with me but I wouldn't say that they're rude it's just that when they're very direct in their conversation people say you know

your children have got no manners they should know how to talk to people it's just that when they're very direct in their conversation, people say, you know, your children have got no manners. They should know how to talk to people. It's just that if they don't know you, they're not going to talk to you. And that's more, I would say, my son in particular. My daughter now, they say that she learned how to mask because she was the one that was, as they said, she was the abuse child because she went through a lot of emotion abuse in primary school because she was left undiagnosed.

How is your son doing now? Well, Walter is six. We tried him at mainstream school when he first started school and he lasted about five months and we pulled him out. He almost started to regress and we made the decision that he needed some more specialist one-to-one support. So we moved him actually to a specialist school and the transformation has been phenomenal.

It's like a completely different child, different learning style as well, which is what he needs and i think sometimes in mainstream they try and mold an autistic child to become more like a mainstream child um and that's not the case we should be finding what their strengths are and what their positives are and kind of harnessing those um as opposed to you know trying to dampening or silencing their autism, which is completely the wrong thing to do. Vanessa, you're nodding at everything Pam is saying. I went through four tribunal appeals with my son between 2009 and 2011. The first two I represented myself.

The last two I decided to get a legal aid at the time because I didn't understand what I was fighting for. I just knew that my son struggled in a big class he went into a independent school he did well but again when you he may do well in the school but once he's outside the school the resources weren't there so you found it was harder for me to try and maintain then he managed to get into a residential school where I would say everything just fit into place he became Nathaniel where he felt appreciated he his strengths were looked at um Michaela now I've gone she was a school

refuser so once she got into secondary school that's where everything went pear-shaped that's where she really got her official diagnosis and I think as girls on the spectrum they're the ones that I've left on the shelves because they have to struggle with a lot of you know hormonal things and for my daughter now I'm going through tribunal at the moment now with my well actually two of them the school she's going at the moment now is a specialist school she only started September last year she said mum I don't want to be there I don't fit in so what it is is that even though you quick to say I want my child to be in a specialist school, we have to make sure that the school that they're attending is meeting their needs. I was talking to Vanessa, Bob and Pam Akuli. We had lots of response from you on the discussion about nurses.

Avril said, why not change the name nurse as it conjures up a feminine image in most people's minds to something else like healthcare professional or health orderly. The stereotypical image of the name nurse would prevent most boys from ever entertaining the idea of becoming one. Sarah said, I trained as a nurse as a postgraduate slightly later in life and I was so excited to enter what I hope would be a vibrant, challenging but ultimately rewarding profession. After only three months of working as a nurse when I qualified, I had a mental breakdown and ended up signed off work and in treatment for serious mental health problems. This was partly, although not entirely, brought about and exacerbated by the immense pressure, overworking and stress

that I experienced as a result of nursing. This makes me very sad and I believe is a huge waste for the NHS who invested in my training and development and is an organisation in which I would love to work. Someone who didn't give us a name said, I'm becoming increasingly annoyed listening to this discussion. I know lots of examples of basic neglect of patients in hospital, particularly older people. My mother-in-law had the same drink by her bed for days. We monitored it daily. My aunt was shouted at overnight because she kept asking to pass urine she was anxious a friend who's a nurse was absolutely disgusted by the nursing care given to her father who was left in stained clothing for days i really am not interested in the needs of nurses the basic care is everything someone else said have been listening to your discussion of nursing.

I've been a nurse and midwife for more than 20 years. I work from 7.30 to 8.30 during a day shift and for me as a mother of three, this works with my husband's busy work schedule, but it's hard. And I often feel completely exhausted and overwhelmed as we constantly face shortfalls in staff and increasing workload. Someone else said, My 16-year-old daughter had cancer and her mainstays during treatment were her chemo nurses. Yes, they were extremely technically skilled, dealing with very toxic chemo. But the lifesaver was their compassionate humour, yes, in a teenage cancer unit, and care of my daughter as a person. Yes, they dealt with her skin breaking down, hydration and nutrition when she couldn't eat

but please nursing champions don't focus solely on what you do for the body no matter how clever that is care listening understanding the person inside the body is what you often uniquely do someone else said my partner is a highly skilled, highly qualified community specialist nurse with 35 years experience. She's continually told by what most other clinical staff agree are totally inept administrators or senior managers who don't seem to care about patients, but only about their box ticking, that they should work their allocated hours only. However, they have no staff cover for their often very sick patients. This causes my partner and her colleagues to work typically 16-hour days with no breaks. Something needs to be done about this or there will never be any difference.

Pat said, excellent points, but would like to add wage freeze for the last 10 years. And then on the question of black children and autism, Alexandra sent us a tweet which said, my heart goes out to those families who are suffering with double discrimination. Autism spectrum disorder is hard enough. My son is ASD and is being bullied at school. Found out today that after reporting bullying, he is the one being excluded from activities and not the bully. And Anthony said, I'm in the office on my own today, so able to have the radio on.

As a father of a 14-year year old boy with autism and learning difficulties, I have to say your contributors echoed many experiences that myself, my partner and other parents of autistic children have experienced. Earlier, specialist intervention is a must and special schools are key to this, but there is simply inadequate provision across the country. Now do join me tomorrow, if you can, live at two minutes past ten, and we'll be discussing breastfeeding in Uganda, where women seem to be struggling with giving their babies enough milk because their husbands are drinking it. New research looks into the reasons and consequences of this practice,

and I'll be speaking to one of the researchers tomorrow about how it's being approached in Uganda. That's two minutes past ten tomorrow morning. Join me if you can. Bye-bye. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Anna Delvey was due to inherit $67 million. I'm so excited about what the future holds. She secured huge investments for a project in New York.

She was very confident in her words. And yet, it was all a lie. She's a con artist. Join journalist Vicky Baker as she delves into a real-life scandal. We'll mix drama with documentary to tell the story of Anna Delvey's rise and fall. Fake Heiress, a new six-part podcast on BBC Sounds. I was watching this whole thing happen thinking it can't be true. Download the free app to listen.

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's 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.