Woman's Hour - Hannah Fry, Female Bouncers, Ukrainian Refugees

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

Hannah Fry is a professor in the Mathematics of Cities at UCL, a best selling author, a TV presenter and a podcaster. But in January 2021, her life changed when she found out she had cervical cancer. At just 36 years old, with two young daughters, she was faced with her own mortality. She turned to the statistics to find out what she was facing. But what she found within them shocked her. As a way of coping with the diagnosis, she started filming her treatment and has turned it into a deeply personal documentary: Making Sense of Cancer. What’s it like to be a female bouncer? With the industry saying staff shortages are impacting their ability to keep people safe, they are making plans to hire more women. Michael Kill is CEO of the Night Time Industries Association and Carla Leigh is a Door Supervisor and is setting up her own security business focusing on getting women in to the industry. Over 60 thousand Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the UK since the beginning of the war. Most of those are women and children as most men have been banned from leaving Ukraine. Anya Abdulakh is from the charity Families4Peace, which is helping newly arrived Ukrainians in London. She is working with women like Maria and Olena who both came to the UK from Kyiv in recent weeks. Anya, Maria and Olena speak to Paulette. Do you know what a tweenager is? A listener got in touch and told us she was struggling to work out how to support and understand her 11-year-old daughter. In focusing on teenagers have we neglected younger children? Dr Tara Porter is a Clinical Psychologist and she argues that the 'tween' years lay the groundwork for the teens. She joins Paulette Edwards to offer insights and advice.Presenter: Paulette Edwards 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.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Paulette Edwards. Welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. So today on the show, it's just over three months since the war in Ukraine began. Today we hear of shelling in the Donbass region. Since the start of the war, 14 million people are thought to have fled their homes. 60,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the UK. Perhaps you've met some of them, maybe you're even living with them. Well, most are women and children, as men have been banned

from leaving the country to help with the war effort. How is life in the UK for these women and their children? Is there enough support for them to get on with their lives? We're going to hear from two women who have arrived in the last couple of weeks. And have you ever considered being a bouncer or door supervisor, as we should be calling them? There's a shortage which could be compromising the safety of particularly women as they go out for a night on the tiles. We're going to hear from Carla Lee.

She works in clubs in Swindon and says more women should consider it. She changed jobs due to the pandemic. And that's what I'd like to talk to you about today. And I'd like to hear from you on this. Have you had time to reflect and thought you wanted to try something new? Or have you changed your job due to illness,

changes in your family, moving? Maybe the pandemic has inspired you to try something new. You can text Women's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Check with your network provider for the exact costs. And you can get in touch on social media as well. It's at BBC Women's Hour, or you can email us through our website. Also, we recently had a cry for help from a listener.

Always a good thing to hear from you. She's struggling to parent a tweenager, no longer little but aren't yet teenager. If you're navigating parenting teenagers, maybe you can help us with this. Dr Tara Porter is a clinical psychologist. She's spoken to thousands of young people and she's going to give us some guidance through her new book. But first, you'll know Hannah Fry, Professor Hannah Fry from her many TV and radio shows, including Radio 4's very own Rutherford and Fry. She's one of the UK's leading mathematicians, a professor in mathematics of cities at UCL. And if that's not enough she's also a best-selling author. But in January 2021 her life changed. She found out she had cervical cancer.

At just 36 years old with two young daughters she came face to face with her own mortality. She turned to the statistics to find out more and what she found within them shocked her. As a way of coping, she started filming her diagnosis and treatment and she's now turned it into a deeply personal documentary. Hannah's in the studio. Good morning, Hannah. How are you? Lovely to talk to you. So firstly, then, on the 5th of May, I don't know if you remember this, 2020, I tweeted you because you were on the news explaining the app for contact tracing in a way that I finally understood. And you were looking radiant, stylishly glancing away from the camera as you spoke. I gave you my hashtag for favourite lockdown interview.

So that's what happened in January 2021. That was six months after that. So you'd gone for a routine smear test in November 2020, hadn't you? Yes, I did. I was supposed to have the smear test letter came through. Now, I don't know what you're like with smear test letters. But for me, it's not like, right, emergency stations, drop everything, get down to the nurse immediately. It's just not really like that. It's sort of, okay, I'll put it on the to-do list and it's something I know I need to get to and uh this of course was uh you know in 2020 the pandemic uh it was it was in March when I got the first letter and we'd just gone into lockdown I was had kids at home

you know there's a lot of stuff going on and it just didn't reach the top of the to-do pile um until much later that year until November November. And it was when I finally went for this smear test that they discovered that I had cervical cancer. Did you ever think then that there was anything wrong at that point? So the thing is, I just had a baby. And I mean, your body's just all over the place after you've had a baby. So looking back, I did have symptoms, but it wasn't like I was, you I was doubled up in agony or anything. It was just, they were slight enough that I could dismiss them. I wasn't paying attention really to my body enough, I think.

So 36 at the time then, a four-year-old and a two-ish-year-old. You didn't know to what degree the cancer had spread. What went through your mind when you heard the word cancer then when you went to get your results, Hannah? So it just felt, it felt like it was happening to somebody else, if I'm honest. I think the whole experience is quite a lot like being slapped around the face in the sense that you are. It happens so quickly from just a normal life not you know not thinking of anything and then all of a sudden I'm a cancer patient it was such a quick transition that I was just left in in shock just reeling from it but I think also because it was it felt like it

was happening to somebody else in the moment actually it meant that I could almost look down on it and be a bit more find a bit more humor in the in the darkest moments of it but also I think remove myself from it and try and think about the process itself rather than just what was happening to me which is really what the documentary is about yeah and process maths is what you go to for your comfort. So your spherical thing that your tumour was compared to was a gobstopper in your surveys. I think that might have been my comparison. Was that yours? That's yours.

It's not a medical term, weirdly. It's a Hannah Fry gobstopper. When I've had challenges with my health, I've soothed through reading or maybe peeking at the internet, you turn to stats to see what the rates of survival were. What did you find out then? So the key thing for me was that it looked as though it might have spread into the lymph nodes. And if it hadn't got into the lymph nodes, then I had a really good chance of survival. It was around 95% chance of survival. If it was in one lymph node, that dropped to 60%.

But if it was in two or more, then the odds were against me. So it dropped to 40 at two and lower and lower as the number of lymph nodes involved went on. So that at the time was the big unknown. We weren't sure how far it had spread. And so the surgeons decided to take a very radical treatment to treat it as though it had spread very far and then really look to see how far it spread after the surgery. Let's talk about the surgery then, the radical surgery that you had. What did that do to your body then?

Oh, gosh. So it took about a third of my abdomen out. So, I mean, one of the good things, as it were, about cervical cancer is that you have quite a lot of tissue surrounding it that's not vital for your survival. So there is actually quite a lot that you can take. So they take the cervix, they take the uterus, they take the fallopian tubes, they take the top section of the vagina, they take the tissue that surrounds it. So essentially there's nothing now between my bladder and my bowel. And they also took all of the pelvic lymph nodes. So for you then, in terms of your future, and I suppose that's what goes through our heads, isn't it, when we get any kind of treatment, your fertility. How was that to process?

Yeah, that was quite a hard thing if I'm honest so I have two children already I have two two little girls and so I think it's quite difficult to explain why it was so hard to to accept that I couldn't have a last baby but I think the thing for me is that just because of my circumstances and and what was going on at the time I had to go back to work really quickly after both those babies you know I was back to work within sort of six weeks for both of them and in my head I'm one of three too I always had it that okay I'm gonna time the third one so that I can properly enjoy that experience so letting go of the fact that I can no longer have that third child, that was quite a big part of coming to terms with everything that had happened. So processing that with the stats then, and this is what we see quite a bit in the documentary.

You talked a bit there about chances of survival and about your lymph nodes being enlarged. So they were removed. Can we talk about when the stats actually started to shock you then you were looking at yeah so i think in a lot of ways that the stats really started right at the very beginning because when you have uh you know i think normally when you're treating somebody as a doctor right you it's like if you've got a boil you just lance it right if you've got i don't know going with a rash put some cream on it right you there's a thing and you do a thing to it yeah the thing is with cancer is that you are dealing with what is often an invisible enemy that may or may not be there there's so much uncertainty ahead of you and so it means that when you're deciding on the treatment you have to make a calculation about how much risk

you're willing to take with that person's life really and in every direction so you have to work out how much you're willing to risk the cancer coming back you'll have to work out how likely you think it is that the cancer is actually there but you also have to take into that that calculation that the really the long-term impact that will have on somebody's life to treat them. Because cancer treatments, you know, these are not nice treatments, right? They're very life changing treatments. So really, I think the stats were always there. But I think it wasn't until later that I realized that this calculation had been made really without me having a chance to put in my values into the equation.

But I think a bit later, so in the documentary, I think one of the stats that I found really astonishing, which was the thing that changed my view really of how we approach cancer treatment. It was a story that was told to me by David Spiegelhouter about a group of a thousand men with prostate cancer. And what they did for these men is they split them up. So half of them, all of them had quite early stage prostate cancer and half of them, they cut it out. They had radical surgery like I had had for cervical cancer. But the other half, what they did instead was they just paused. They didn't give them any treatment at all. They just watched to see what happened. And after a few years, they look back to see what the differences were.

And there was no difference in the survival between the people who'd had surgery and the people who hadn't. But the people who'd had surgery were essentially left with non-functioning penises right so erectile dysfunction bladder incontinence problems with their bowels too and so what they'd done essentially in in in leaning into that urge that you have when you have cancer in your body of i just want to get rid of it cut it out of me i don't want it i just get it out what they'd done is they actually hadn't gained anything in terms of their chance of survival but they'd paid this really heavy price and I think you know that that story is very particular to early stage prostate cancer but I think knowing that story and realizing that actually our fear of this disease and our instincts to just want to get rid of it

aren't always the right thing to do. I'm talking to Professor Hannah Fry, mathematician. I was a bit nervous about talking to you because I just scraped through my O-level maths, actually. So women going for their cervical screening, that's fallen slightly in England and Scotland in the recent years. You actually got your first letter to go, as you said earlier, for your cervical screening in March 2020,

but lockdown happened, you put it off. It was only at the second letter, six months later in November, that you got your smear done. I think most of us will understand or have done similar, as you were saying. How did you feel knowing then that you could have found it earlier, Hannah? So it weighed heavy on me for a long while, actually. It really, I felt very guilty about it, that maybe I had had a hand in the disease growing. Until actually I met a doctor while I was filming the documentary. I went to go and speak to a doctor Margaret McCartney who's up in Scotland and she uh was talking to me about screening and she said something that just

released me from all of that guilt because she pointed out that okay let's imagine that I had gone to that screening test six months at six months earlier we don't know what would my would have been in my body at that point in time we don't know what would have been in my body at that point in time. We don't know what it would have looked like. And it's quite possible that they could have taken a smear and it all would have looked fine or there would have been a bit of abnormality

but not enough to worry about. And they would have said, don't worry about it and we'll see you again in three years. At which point I definitely would have been a goner. And I think the point actually as a society, we do tend to really blame women for cervical cancer because, you know, why didn't you go for your smear test? Why didn't you follow it up?

I remember there was a lot of this around Jade Goody's death. She died, of course, from cervical cancer. And actually, you know what? This thing is just dumb luck. There's nothing more to it. It's just, you're just unlucky. luck there's nothing more to it there's it's just you're just unlucky and it's nothing that you do and it's nothing that you no decisions that you make are changing this it's just a roll of the dice as to when your smear test happens to be and what it

happens to see in that time but we do need to go for our screens of course of course absolutely yeah so it's i suppose for you when I was watching the documentary, I was thinking about the objective Hannah and the subjective Hannah. And, you know, when you made the same decision even despite I mean chemotherapy wasn't an issue and that is part of what you focus on um you're doing very well as well we need to say that but um do you think that your decision would have been different if you'd had the stats before you were in the position where you needed to look at the treatment? I think the main reason why I wanted to make this documentary is that it's not so much about regret or wishing that things had gone differently. I think it's much more about how I didn't feel empowered in that moment to ask all of the questions that I wish I'd asked.

I didn't feel as though the choice about risk had taken my values into account. And I didn't feel as though I was really given the opportunity to understand the balance that was being made. I'm not expecting, I mean, look, I'm a maths professor, right? I absolutely do not expect everybody wants the same level of details as I want. Totally not. But I do think that there are some things that are important to you, if there are some things that are important to you that you want to preserve. And for me, it was my time with my children. For other people, one person in the film, for example, it's time in the outdoors. I think that actually we could probably do better

at taking that into account and really empowering people to feel like they're at the centre of the patient journey. And can I ask you, obviously Dame Deborah James, we're all seeing her and feeling it for her, told the world that she's now in palliative care. How important is her experience, do you think, in our understanding of cancer and treatment? Oh, I think it's really fundamentally important.

I think that the decision that she made to invite us into her final moments, really, I think it's so brave and so impactful. But I think that it makes a difference because I think that actually we get to wander around our lives pretending that death doesn't really exist. You know, every day we're not surrounded by it. We kind of get to pretend a little bit that we're immortal, you know, because we can expect to live long into our 70s and 80s. And I think that because we're not used to seeing it because I think our

culture sort of tries to hide death a little bit I think it means we're much more scared of it and I think that that fear ends up changing the decisions that we make and those calculations that we make when we're in that moment that we are so terrified of living with any kind of shadow over us that we will pay any price, no matter how heavy, just to be free of it. And how are you living with cancer then? How are you living? There's a one in ten chance that your cancer could come back. How does that feel then? Are you living your life differently, do you think, Hannah? I think I am living my life differently, but I don't think that that one in ten statistic is is hanging over me at all really if I'm honest I think that the whole experience has left me um much less fearful of death if I'm honest I think obviously rather I have a longer life than a short one but I am quite happy to I think what it's done is it's made me realise that life isn't a problem to be

solved. It's an experience to be had instead. And so I'm much more free of all the things that I was worried about before. I think I just, lots of stuff has just floated away and it's great. I feel, I think I am in many ways happier than I was before it. Incredible, isn't it? Incredible. Lovely to meet your mum on the film as well. That was nice. It was lovely.

Professor Hannah Fry, thank you so much for joining. It's been lovely to meet you. Still going to give you the lockdown best interview that's on news. So sometimes you watch a documentary and you don't learn that much. I learned a lot from this documentary,

Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry. It's on BBC Two at nine o'clock on Thursday. And if you need help and advice about dealing with cancer, go to our website where you can find links for organisations that can offer you support. Hannah, thank you so much. Thank you. So it's just over three months since the war in Ukraine began.

Fighting continues as Russia has been relentlessly shelling the east of the country as it tries to push out those protecting the Donbass region. 14 million people are thought to have fled their homes and as of last week over 60,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the UK. So most of those are women and children, as most men have been banned from leaving Ukraine. Refugees who have come to the UK via the government schemes will be able to live and work in the UK for up to three years and have access to healthcare, welfare and schools. But what is it like for these Ukrainian women arriving in a new country and trying to start a new life? Anya Abdallak is Ukrainian herself.

She came to the UK in 2006. She's a trustee of the charity Families for Peace, which is helping newly arrived Ukrainians in North London. Women such as Maria and Olena, who were both came to the UK from Kiev in recent weeks. And I'm pleased to say they're both with me now, along with Anya. Anya, good morning. I'm going to start off with you, Anya. We're going to talk about the work that you're doing to support women and their families from Ukraine. Other people have been keen to jump on board to help with that as well.

How is it going? Thank you so much for having me. We are very happy to see that only starting a few months ago, actually, that we managed to run weekly events for moms and kids who came from Ukraine over the last few months or weeks even. And it's going very well well we see a lot of moms coming so last weekend we had over 100 families with the children we see that they're happy to meet with each other chat with their issues we're helping them to sort their life here and we also understand there are a lot of things to be solved as well. So you're volunteering your time to help. Do you think the government, Anya, and local authorities

should have done more to support those women? What would you like the authorities to be doing, for example? If I have this wishful list, which I know is challenging, it's very hard language-wise. Women come to the new country disoriented and there are a lot of resources available. It's very hard language-wise. Women come to the new country disoriented, and there are a lot of resources available. But it would be much easier with some help lines in Ukrainian to help those people to contact.

It's just because they are all trying to learn their English as hard as they can, and some have some good level, but majority of them do need some support just to understand, okay, this is the phone line I can call and ask where to go from there if I have a question about the school or childcare or GP. It's just to make the process a bit easier. But I know it's a big ask, but the language is kind of, I think, the main kind of issue for now. Big part of it.

So I'm going to go to Maria and Elena now. So I'm going to start off with you, Maria. When did you leave Ukraine then? Can you tell us a bit about that journey, please? and honestly it was the hardest journey in my life as I lived in Kiev and you know even to reach to the closest city to Kiev for example Zhytomyr city it is about 135 kilometers so our travel was about 13 hours because you know all the road it was just a traffic jam and that's it so we spent many hours just in car and then when we reached the border we also spent there about two full days staying in the line and just across the border and honestly it was first and I hope that the last kind of that experience in my life because it was it was difficult and it was scary at the same time because you are staying in the line and Actually, you don't know for how long you will have

Your fuel there is no fuel stand stations around. You don't know how much time you will spend there more. I mean, will it be one day or several days? And that was really difficult. It sounds pretty full on. So for you then, how is life now that you've arrived in the UK? What's happening for you then, Maria? Actually, now I'm settling in and I'm starting to use the new country, the new rules, you know, and just discovering for myself this country. So as for now, I feel myself much more confident here as I'm here for about five weeks and um i like it i'm i appreciate help of all people who are around us and our host and people who make a different kind of meetings for ukrainians and helping with some information with the support, even with psychological support.

So it's really important and we appreciate it much. I'm going to talk to Elena now. So Elena, how are you doing then? How long have you been in the UK? How has it been for you? Hello, everybody. everybody our life in in in UK and I think normal for now is better than we were in in was a key in in key region and I am very happy to be in touch with Anya for for her help for us and our host and all the Britain's neighbors they are give

some supporting for us they give some clothes or toys and now the first First problem for me is adaptation for my three child. One of them in secondary school boy and another in infant school and they are in different school. And it is very hard to reach from one school to another in a limited time with a pushchair and a small baby. Yeah, that's a bit of a challenge, isn't it, I suppose, getting them all to school in different areas. So how's it been for the children then? What have they told you about their experience in the UK, Elena? I told them that it is our lucky journey. I don't speak in details about war. They had some bombs when we were in Vasilkiv, but don't see another crime like this.

And they spend, I think, a good time here. They have already friends here. And they go into the park, to the swimming pools. I think their adaptation is better than adults. Yes. Adaptation. I'm going to talk to Anya now, go back to you, Anya. So you're based in North London. I think their adaptation is better than adults. Yes. I'm going to talk to Anya now, go back to you, Anya. So you're based in North London.

And as we've said, you are offering support. Do you know if there are any other charities? I mean, in Sheffield, we've got City of Sanctuary offering support to Ukrainian refugees in our area. Are you aware of any other refugees being supported in other parts of the country then, Ukrainian refugees, Anya? So we have Ukrainian hub calls, which kind of on a bi-weekly basis, which unites various charities supporting Ukrainians. So it's run by Ukrainian associations, so a section of Ukrainians in Great Britain,

plus some other Association we just put together resources trying to share some information by weekly basis and I kind of believe that this help has to be covering smaller area of people so you really can talk to people and help people so we're trying to so North London we focus on our area there are people in I know Cambridge doing similar things. There are people across the country. So obviously, depending on availability and resources, but we are kind of trying to get in touch and help each other and share the news.

So it's not, you know, as we are mostly Ukrainians who run it, we try to pool our resources, who know everybody, put WhatsApp groups. So there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes to make these things happen and just share information. How do you feel being able to help these women and their families and their children? How does it feel for you, Anya? Being a mum myself, I think it's very important because I understand that for the child, even six months in a year,

it's a very big difference in how your life is shaped. So maybe for the adult, like your previous speaker, Anna, was saying, it's more the journey of experience in life. For a child, if you fall out of education for six months, if you don't get into life kind of routine, development happens so fast that it's important. So for us and for mothers, the trustees who I work with,

it was very important to make sure that we do help women, but mostly moms to make sure that their kids are kind of knowing what is available. They get their language going, they get to the schools. So it's very rewarding to see that the moms are feeling less stressed when they come to us because we talk about different things and then they have more time to focus on the kids and they have time and kind of help kids to get to the schools, organise after school activities. So for us, this kind of aspect of the kids is very important. If I can just go back to Elena and kind of talk about that a little bit more. So Elena, I've heard people saying if mother is happy, then the children are happy too.

How is that working for you then? Do you feel as if you're grounded and you're being supported and you can look at your children and see that your life in the UK feels as if it's if it's growing well? Elena? Yes, I am happy that my child feels good here and I feel this support too and I think I live in this part of London and to be in touch with such good people here like Anya

her support is very important for my family and I think for another families almost too. And I also try to find a job to realise myself and for our life. That's great.

And can I just go back to Maria and ask you about, because you're seeking employment, what would you like to do? Well, yes, actually, now I'm looking for the job opportunities. And honestly, I would like to continue to develop myself in that sphere in which I used to work in Ukraine. So as for me, I work in procurement and I'm looking for some kind of this job here as well. You said that you had a chat with a psychologist. How useful was that for you then? Did it help? Yes, you know, it was really helpful. Actually, we have this like one hour support psychological meeting on Saturday's group. And, you know, it's like a chance for people who have same feelings

and same fears just to share and to share with each other how do they solve this, you know, how do they go through this? And it's really important. Sometimes you can hear from another person what you actually feel and it helps you like to solve this and to go through this. Really, it is very helpful.

Do you think you need help with anything else, Maria? Is there anything else you'd like some support with? As for now um actually i think some you know some basic spheres there are closed but the most important for now is to find a good job and i think after that um all of us will feel ourselves much more confident. I think this is the most important. And if I was just to say to you, Anya, then, we're expecting more people to arrive. How long do you think your services are going to be needed?

The Ukrainian MP, Kira Rudik, was over in the UK trying to speed up the visa process. Are you in contact with anyone who is waiting for a visa, Anya? We do have a few parents who already got in touch with us through sponsors and they're waiting for the visas and we are now talking also with Camden to organise kind of a bit of bigger network

to support people who are coming. So we're keeping it flexible. We are here to help and I think with the time the councils are going to be more involved as well. So we are hoping it's going to be more manageable and we're kind of going to do it as a joint effort, more than just us as volunteers. Right. So still plenty of work to be done

and still plenty of people coming over so that we can keep an eye on them and take good care of them. Anya, thank you very much. Anya Abdullak from Charity Families for Peace. Maria and Elena, thank you very much as well for joining us on Woman's Hour. Thank you ever so much for just giving a little bit of what your experience is like and the challenges that you're facing as well. So I'm asking you today, I'm being ever so nosy, and I'm asking you about your careers and whether or not you have ever decided to take on a new career, whether or not it's something that you've been

brave enough to do, you know, due to whatever circumstances, maybe you've decided that you wanted to change after reflecting during the pandemic, maybe changes in your family or moving house have meant that you've had to change your job or maybe it's something that you're considering at the moment. Well, Morag's got in touch. She said as a result of the pandemic, plus a new mental health diagnosis, she's opted to step back from her reasonably successful business

and take on a full-time employed role. It's in the same area that she loves, so clinical animal behaviour and the offer of security of income and support was too good to turn down. So off Morag goes in a completely different direction. Anonymous message, after breast cancer I left HR and moved part-time to publishing while recovering from fatigue. Then the pandemic limited job availability and i stayed in publishing i have realized that i love it i don't miss the stress and the commute of my old life having an illness actually set my life on a happy track so get in touch and let me know whether or

not you've made changes that have affected your employment due to changes in your life. Get in touch on the usual numbers. So you can text Women's Hour 84844. Texts are going to be charged at your standard message rate. You check your network provider for exact costs on social media. You can get in touch at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. So what about this then?

Talking about changing careers, have you ever considered being a bouncer or a door supervisor, as we should actually call them now? That's what they're actually called. Well, the world of door supervisors need you, especially if you're a woman, because of the staff shortages the sector is facing. Now that life is getting back to some kind of normal,

three quarters of night-time businesses, including bars, pubs and clubs, feel that security staff shortages are undermining their ability to keep people safe. We know this is a big concern for women as 80% say they want venues to take their safety a lot more seriously. Could training more women to get their security industry authority badge enable them to work on the doors? Could that be a solution to both of these issues? Well, to discuss this further, I'm joined by Michael Kill. He is CEO of the Nighttime Industries Association. And Carla Lee, she's a door supervisor who works in clubs in Swindon she's setting up her

own security business focusing on getting women in the industry I started by asking Carla how it's feeling for her I only just joined this year after the pandemic so I love my role I was at work this weekend what made you decide to do it then? What was the trigger for you? Years ago, I have worked in a hospitality sort of industry and bars and restaurants. So I just decided I needed a second job. My kids were grown. They've all sort of left home or one's just leaving school. So I'm a single parent, needed a second income and always been interested in security. So I just thought, right, let me just go and apply for my CIA badge.

And yeah, so off I went and that's how I got into it. Let me ask Michael then. So Michael, do you think it'd be great to have more door supervisors like Carla then, more women in the role? Absolutely. My wife has been a door security supervisor, a head door person for over 20 years. And she only came out of the role to follow a different sort of career. So, you know, and she she loved it. It was absolutely she was she got so much out of it and I think the thing is is we need more women within this role because they just add so much of a strong dimension in terms of welfare and diffusing situations they just add so much and I just don't think it's publicized as heavily in terms of the what women add to this role and how important they are.

And, you know, they create this really, really strong balance within teams, which I think is a really big part that they play. Let's just go back a bit and talk about the shortages that we were mentioning there, Michael. What's actually causing them? Well, it's a range of things. I mean, as you can appreciate, things like Brexit have caused the issue, the environment that we are having to work in, the rates. But there are also some challenges around the new training regime, which now requires you to take a training course

that is longer. So it's up to, I think it's either five to seven days, but you have to do a first aid course before. And I think, as was mentioned, the challenge that you have is if this is a secondary job, you're not going to give up a four week holiday to do a training course to go into a secondary job. So it makes it very, very difficult and possibly the consideration around the market and the way that it works within the nighttime economy, particularly door supervisors, is a real challenge. But, I mean, you know, there were a plethora of reasons. Displacement from the pandemic. You know, people have not had that work for nearly two years.

They've had to go and find other work. So, you know, and the security of that other work is going to take precedent just in case something else happens within the environment that we're talking about. So I think there are a range of issues, but they need to be remedied moving into the the festival season and that those periods when security are going to be relied so heavily upon let me just go back to carla for a moment carla can we talk about the training then you said you went for your badge earlier what did that mean then what kind of how did you make room for that training as well yeah you know like I worked full-time so

I had to yeah take my holiday it was four days training and very intense course three women and 20 men so you know I was luckily I had all the the male support so a lot of them you know were working in that environment so they found it quite easy where you know I you know us ladies were sort of new into it and we had a lot of support and a lot of them have you know now we all sort of work together I was gonna say do you support each other then you talked about the support from the men but as women do you support each other as well yeah no definitely the group that i work with now in swindon you know they're fabulous i feel so safe um the comments we get from um the public that you know they they feel safe that the women are happy that they've got me so that they can come to me i i'm like

that they're second eyes because i see a lot of people, they may be getting hit on and they're not feeling, you know, they're not feeling it. They may be a bit drunk. They're not, you know, they're very vulnerable. And this is when I sort of step in and just, you know, just make conversation. And I have diffused a few situations where, you know, the woman was just like, oh, thank you so much. You know, you know, I think that's why I think it's really important and that I want to push more women, especially, you know, around my area. I've only been working around the Wiltshire area at the moment. But, yeah, this is why I want to push more women security.

I'm here for support. I've set up a Facebook page for any women that want to know how to get into it, because I think it's been seen as a male dominant field. I think women don't really look into it. Michael, can I just come back to you for a moment and ask about, just going back to shortages, you mentioned Brexit there. Can you put a bit of meat on those bones for me, please? Well, I mean, we as a workforce have had a particularly in the security sector have had a very diverse workforce and during the pandemic many people went back to their home

countries um the the challenge that we have is with the sia figures and the home office coming forward suggesting that there's 248 246 000 246,000 door security badges in circulation. The problem we have is the figures that suggest which ones are active, which ones are actually in this country. And the other thing is, is where you've got a static security badge and a door security badge, many people that do static roles, which are things like guard offices, et cetera, bought the door security badge

but would never ever work on the door so there is almost a false economy in circulation of exactly how many active badges there are and we talk about um women within the security industry there's a suggestion that there is 10 which is 24 000 plus but, we don't know how many of those are true active badge holders. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done by the regulator, the SIA and the Home Office to really understand what the challenge is. But Brexit has been a part, not all of it, but a part of the challenge moving forward. Can I just ask you both?

So I used to be a teacher. I'm now a radio presenter do you think i've got the credentials that i'd need for a door supervisor yes yes carla any woman can be a door supervisor because i think that you know there ends the impression that you've got to be this big tall you don't need to be like that you're like the common influencer in the job you know you could be any shape, size, you know. And I suppose you can go in toilets as well. I went to London recently. Well, I came to London recently and a friend of mine with a friend of mine and in the toilets were two young women with their drinks talking about, you know, because of spiking, because of the dangers that women face when they go out on the tiles.

They need to take the drinks. You can go into the toilets if there are a problem. It's easier for you to feel accepted in that environment. And can I just ask you, Michael, before you go, I'm not allowed to call you bouncers anymore. All supervisors. All supervisors. I think you'd make an amazing member of a security team because the biggest thing that everyone really should focus on is communication if your communication skills are strong and clearly yours are with the role that you play um at the moment is you know is fundamental and it's it's quite right there is so much to be added if you think about it for a woman within our industry particularly around vulnerability and you know the normalization of some of these behaviors and

spiking there is anecdotally some experiences that could be drawn upon and definitely for other women it's a comfort that can be portrayed within that communication to calm situations down and make people feel safe. I think it's vitally important. So are we more at risk then? Are we more at risk when we go out because of the shortage of door supervisors when we know that sexual harassment and even things like spiking do happen on nights out i mean yes of course it's

going to have an impact if we're not able to fulfill the the levels we require but you know there's a lot of work going in at the moment i mean there's a very different picture in the south compared to the north um and you know on many, we've got to think of the compromises, whether it be public safety in general, counter-terrorism, et cetera. So, yes, we are facing some challenges, but we're working towards, and we've moved from 80% sort of pre-COVID resource level to 87%, and that's narrowing now, but there are still some challenges ahead and I think there's an infrastructure issue

in terms of the legislation and the regulator having teeth. And Carla, why should those new door supervisors that come into the business, why should they be women? Because of the likes of spiking, their vulnerabilities, toilet chair, and we bring the common influence to a situation especially

when you know something may be kicking off with male staff you know i i know personally that we need more like at the weekend there was something like six guys to about 20 women at one stage so you know situations like that and you know it was a busy night and we we need to we need more on board and that's going to be my my role that I'm going to be looking into definitely and do you think you've diffused a situation that a male door supervisor couldn't couldn't have diffused yeah the males can but sometimes when sort of I may sort of you know step in a lot long as it obviously they're then it's not kicking off but if it's just they're just speaking and I

I I come in guys sort of tend to sort of do respect you a bit more with being a woman they sort of tend to calm down and yeah and and can speak to me I may just say you know what's happening and anything that I can help with because sometimes I don't know they might just not feel the the male you know conversation at the time so but yeah they just seem to be a lot calmer with with myself you know I always go in very you know just try and diffuse the situation. So talking about changing jobs I've gone from teacher to radio presenter maybe I'll go from radio presenter to door supervisor as well. Who knows? That was Carla Lee, door supervisor who works in clubs in Swindon, setting up her own security business, focusing on getting women in the industry. Is it something for you? And Michael Kill as well, the CEO of the Nighttime Industries Association. So hopefully you know by now that we're more than happy to hear from you about what you'd like us to talk about.

A listener got in touch with us and her email began, I'm a mother to an 11-year-old daughter and I am finding these tweenager years really difficult. We asked her to tell us a little bit more. Bringing young children up and I have another six-year-old as well, you can encourage your child to eat well and have sleeping habits and all this sort of routine. All these sort of things that you sort of had within your control or within your realm were sort of all happening now away from you. So you don't have that same

contact with schools that you do at primary school you don't know their friends and I'm hoping not coming across as a controlling parent because I am if anything I've let things go so much that I'm now thinking where do I sit within this this child's development she started her periods literally week before 11th birthday maybe I'm trying to preempt what I know is some of the pressures that might be coming her way. I don't think she necessarily feels those pressures yet. She's not on Instagram, but she is on TikTok. She's up in her room a lot, you know, normally chatting with friends and I check in and everything. It doesn't feel unhealthy other than there's this sort of self-enforced isolation that's going on, which I don't really remember having. We had much more of a communal experience. Luckily with my daughter, she doesn't have huge turbulent friendship issues,

but I know other friends do have that. However, I do notice there's an element of lack of resilience, so much drama, dramatic, dramatic. And I can't really remember being quite so dramatic. I'm sure I had my moments. Where do we buy them clothes I mean we can't even find age appropriate clothes for this age group you know their body's changing but you know the clothes are either very age inappropriate or they're just too girly or they're just bigger versions of a seven-year-old's clothes and they definitely don't want that I am struggling with how we go about understanding and parenting this age group. A listener talking about raising a tweenie.

Dr Tara Porter is a clinical psychologist. She works within NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and in private practice. Her book is called You Don't Understand Me, The Young Woman's Guide to Life. And it is sort of a bit of a handbook really for teenagers and young women looking at family friends body image social media she's got lots of experience working with younger children as well so we're hoping that you've got all the answers tara is that all right thank you all the answers so let's just start start off by defining the tweenager. How would you describe a tweenager, Tara?

I guess people use it to describe that period before 13, don't they? So the sort of 10, 11, 12 year olds who, you know, have got a lot of really important stuff going on in their lives. You know, they're often making that transition from a primary school to a secondary school and they're often starting puberty. So it's some really key developmental milestones going on in those years. And you see them as a neglected group as well, don't you, as well as our listener? I suppose that it's perhaps a little bit the calm before the storm, isn't it? The teenage years, never was prepared, that the teenage years might be stormy but I think it's a really important age because I think you as a parent you do still have some control and you can still stay involved in their lives in a way which is harder in the teenage years and so it's really an age where parents can set down those strong foundations

for hopefully for setting good habits in place before they enter the teenage years and you kind of lose more influence and lose more control over over their lives i don't want to be disrespectful to our young people but listening to you know that person there that mum there do you feel sometimes at that point that you are starting to raise an alien? I really like that clip. I thought the mum was really thoughtful of what her daughter's needs were and she really captured some of the key struggles and I think in her reflecting on the struggles she's probably getting the balance just about right the balance between giving them some freedom and also setting

some boundaries and keeping them involved in family life and and trying to set down those habits that will protect her daughter so it's not easy but when you're asking yourself when she's asking herself those questions I think that that reflects something really important because often in mental health we see people at extremes so we see people who are very rigid and won't change their boundaries or who completely let go of their child and don't stay involved and it's then we tend to see the difficulties so that struggle in the middle when you're struggling with it probably means that you're being thoughtful you're weighing up the different options and in that struggle you may find your answers. Thank goodness for the list

of them because obviously a lot of us will be thinking the same thing which is often the case in those circumstances so let's unpick some of that then let's look at some of these particular points made by our listener feeling as a parent that you're on the periphery of their lives. Is that something that is common then, Tara, do you think? I think it's very common because what's happening is an evolutionary drive in the young person as they go through puberty to start to look away from the family and the home and to look out towards their friendships and their peers. And of course, that's reflected in the structure that we have in society where they move from the

smaller school to the bigger school so they're subject to more influences um the the mum there said about i don't know her friends and she probably is not as involved with her teachers she's just not as involved in the day-to-day life. So a tween can have lots of influences on her and then is interested in those. And, of course, amongst her friendships, amongst her peer group now, those will be her peer group that she, perhaps not those exact friends, but that generation will be a generation where she finds her future partner, her work colleagues, where in the TV shows they watch, in the music they listen to, in the TikToks they're watching, are there future water cooler moments which would sort of define their generation,

what it was like to be 10, 11, 12 at this time. And navigating that through social media, through phones. I mean, if I think about when I was 11, I can still remember my phone number when I better not say it, but I can still remember my phone number from then. We had one phone in the house. My dad locked it, but I learned how to phone anywhere. There's a tapping thing you can do. Let's not go into that.

So the phone was in the hall at home. That's not the case anymore you've got phones that are you know mobile phones that individuals have and you've also got social media to dance with as well so does that does that make make it even more difficult for young people to navigate that tweenies in particular yeah i think that's really the major change since we were that age, isn't it? That one phone that we used to have in the hallway where everyone could listen to your conversations and now the mobile phone gives so much privacy. set down the good habits of phone use and I think there's two things you need to be thinking about there as a parent it's both about the amount of time that they're spending on their phone but also what they're doing on their phone and that latter one is more important so the amount of time they're spending on the phone we worry about that as a psychologist because it can get in the way of things that we know to be good for mental health. Things like spending time outdoors, things like exercising, getting to bed on time.

Those are really important for mental health. But obviously the content of what they're using their phone for is really crucially important and trying to help them use their phone in a way which enhances their life and which supports them in their values they have and we we really don't want them to be using their phone to we know that um viewing lots of pictures of idealized bodies for example can really fuel body dissatisfaction so that's one of the things that we we have to guide as parents then to use their phones in sort of post-social ways and really and in the tween ages when they first get a phone before they get the app or before they

get the game is when you put the maximum amount of leverage to set the rules about that and to say look I'm going to keep an eye on this but while you're while you're learning about how to use whatever it is instagram mum saying she her daughter didn't yet have instagram so when you when the mother gives in to the demand to have instagram she will be able to say well look yeah but i'm going to have a look what you're doing on instagram in those first few months when you've got it there's so much to talk about there tara porker tara porter thank you very much for joining us. Communication, so many other things to talk about,

but we'll have to touch on those another time. It's been lovely to have the conversation and I shouldn't call them tweenies, they are tweenagers. That is important. Thank you so much for listening to Woman's Hour today. It's been lovely just to share your stories and just to talk to some interesting people. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again soon. Hi, I'm Andy Oliver and I'd like to tell you all about my Radio 4 series, One Dish. It's all about why you love that one dish, the one that you could eat over and over again without ever getting tired of it. Each week, a very special guest will bring their favourite food to my table and will be unpacking the history of it and food psychologist Kimberly Wilson is on hand to talk us through the science bit What food reminds you of your child?

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podcast is going to be right up your street. That's One Dish with me, Andy Oliver. Listen now on BBC Sounds. 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.