Woman's Hour - School exclusions; Women and running; Recovery after domestic violence

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

New Department for Education figures out this morning revealed that 7,894 children were excluded from school in England during 2018/19. This is a slight decrease from the previous year, but otherwise the numbers have been increasing year on year since 2013. Although girls are less likely than boys to be formally excluded, a charity called Social Finance UK released research this month showing that girls are removed from school in such a way that they're often missed from official statistics - something the charity call 'the invisibly excluded'. But what effect does being expelled have on young people? And how are the ripples of exclusion felt by the teachers and parents of the children involved? Ultrarunner Beth Pascall has just completed one of the most gruelling Lake District fell challenges and set the fastest-known time for a woman: 65 miles in 14 hours 34 minutes - taking 50 minutes off the previous best. How did she go from her first cross-country run at six years old to a speciality distance of 100 miles? And how does she balance being a paediatrician with an inevitably demanding training regime? Jenni is also joined by Dr Nicola Rawlinson, a performance physiologist at Loughborough Sport who's researching female physiology and sports performance for her PhD. She discusses why women perform so well at ultra distances and how our bodies adapt to exercise.We discuss the process of recovery after domestic abuse, the way that these relationships can stay with you but also how you can build a new life after. How do those who have survived abuse find their behaviour affected? What do they wish that their friends and family had understood? And how can friends and family can help? With Sue Penna, co-founder of Rockpool who deliver trauma-informed training programmes for those working with survivors of abuse. Sue designed the Recovery Tool Kit programme, delivered to survivors of abuse across the UK, she’s also the author of The Recovery Tool Kit: A 12 week plan to support your journey from Domestic Abuse. And Jennifer Gilmour, an author and advocate for women in abusive relationships, and founder of #AbuseTalk on twitter (live every Wednesday) and the Abuse Talk podcast.

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 Thursday the 30th of July. In today's programme, recovering from domestic violence. Memories of abuse and coercion can stay with you forever but how can you build a new, safe and satisfying life after your escape? And the ultra-runner Beth Pascal, what drives her to run 65 miles in 14 and a half hours

up and down the fells of the Lake District? And how could you train your body to go from couch to 5K in only nine weeks? Now, new figures about the numbers of pupils who've been excluded from school have been published this morning. They had been going up year on year since 2013 although today's figures from the Department for Education say 7,894 have been excluded in England which is a slight decrease. A charity called Social Finance UK has released some research this month which says that girls are less likely to be formally excluded, but they're excluded in a different way.

They've called such girls the invisibly excluded. Why is this happening to so many children of both sexes and what effect does it have on the child and the parent? Well, I'm joined by Vanessa Joshua, who was excluded as a pupil, but now at the age of 25 has turned herself around and works as a researcher at the Centre for Education and Youth. Vicky Shields is a teacher at a pupil referral unit and Zahara Parsonage is Associate Director of Social Finance UK. Zara, let me begin with you. What do you mean by invisibly excluded? Good morning. So from our perspective, a formal exclusion is where you're permanently excluded from school or excluded over a fixed period of time. And this informal exclusion that we've identified

is for us classified as persistent absence, school changes or early exits. And the reason it's important is that our research locally in Cheshire West and Chester, where the average rates of exclusion are lower than the national, still showed that 30% of persistently absent children were also experiencing fixed term school exclusions or school changes. And indeed, girls were twice as likely to be experiencing those school changes. So for us, if this is how children are experiencing exclusion with these various overlaps, this is how we should be comprehensively defining it as well.

Why would you say it tends to apply more often to girls? We think that there's a focus at the moment on the kind of official forms of exclusion and we see that coming through the stats today and in the way that media are potentially covering the statistics. At the moment if we're not looking at this comprehensive range of how girls are experiencing the education system differently to boys, we're potentially failing them twice. Firstly, by excluding them through these informal measures, and then secondly, by failing to notice in the data. I'm still not quite clear as to why the girls should be treated differently in so many cases from boys. Why are they not excluded the way boys are formally? It's a really good question, and it's one that we're going to work with our local teachers

and partners in the next stage of our research. So even when we were controlling the data for things perhaps more associated with boys, like violent behaviour, this trend still came through. So now we're entering a piece of work with parents and with teachers to try and do some more qualitative research to get their views and get their voices to understand really what is driving these figures. But I come back to that point that if we've identified this invisible trend in our local figures we have to ask the question whether it's happening across a broader geographical area as well. Well and that was to be my next question because the research that you've done as you say is based on one local authority Cheshire West and Chester. How confident are you that it will apply to other

parts of England? So as I said the exclusion rates in Cheshire, West and Chester are below the national average but what the local authority and schools recognised was that they had to really understand who is at risk of exclusion if they're going to effectively target interventions. Now our findings when we completed the research really echoed a lot of those that we see in the national data and that were cited in the TIMSA review. But we've also uncovered these new insights, such as potentially gender bias. So our ask is that we carry out that same joining the dots of our national data sets in order to really understand what's happening. And again, that's why we're asking for this

comprehensive definition of exclusion. We think there's a real opportunity here to sort of reframe what do we mean by our excluded children? And as the statistics show today, it's probably more important now than ever. Well, the Department for Education figures, as I said in the introduction, have appeared to go up each year, although this year they have gone down just a little. Why has it over the years been rising, would you say? So I think what's important is, sort of as our research alludes to, is thinking about this more broadly. So rates of permanent exclusion are 70% higher than they were five years ago. And we know that the outcomes for these children are significantly worse.

They have to work harder. And what we've talked about in our work is that exclusion is an event that happens in a child's school life. But the drives that go behind it go way beyond the school gates. So as an example, our data showed that 15% of pupils had some form of special educational need, but they were accounting for 60% of the exclusions. So we know which children are at risk, and we need to work better to build this early intervention piece of work that prioritises the vulnerable children. And my belief is that until we have that proper evidence on a national basis, which is driving the locally led interventions, such as the difference that we'll hear about, then I don't think we're going to see a significant decrease in our national exclusion rates. Now, Vicky, as a teacher who used to work in a mainstream primary, but now teaches

as a pupil referral centre, how often were pupils excluded in your mainstream school? Yeah so it definitely happened and I worked at a school which I would say was very very good for inclusion and we had that at the heart but that was the reason that I decided to join the difference was because we were still having to exclude children we were still getting to the point where we felt like we didn't have another option. And that felt really wrong because often they were, like Sarah said, our most vulnerable children, the children that school should be there as their safety net. And I was on kind of path to become a headship. And I just thought there's got to be another way. It never sat right, the decision with any of us.

So when I read about the difference, I thought this was something that I really needed to be part of to ensure that I could help these children. What sort of reasons were given for excluding a primary school child from school? Well, they would be, you know, often varied, but generally it was about the safety of the other children. At primary, you're obviously a community and you need to make sure that everybody has the right to a safe environment. And sometimes it was felt that actually children were becoming so aggressive or violent that it wasn't possible. I think also there's a feeling amongst mainstream that maybe another organisation will have the answer or will be able to provide better for that child. And I think one of the things that we have to realise as educators is that we are the experts with those children because we work with them every day and that actually exclusion is very rarely the right answer for that child because these are really vulnerable children as Sarah said most likely to have social care involvement to be from poor

backgrounds to be disadvantaged and that exclusion is a traumatic event for children. How different is the Pupil Referral Centre? I think it's not as different as people think. You know, people paint a picture of children who are permanently excluded or pupil referral units. Courtyard, which is part of the TBAP Academy where I work for, is full of amazing, smart, funny, charming children who are really keen to learn. You know, lessons happen, learning happens, fun happens. And it's full of staff who really, really care about them. So why are the children so much better behaved in that school than they were in their previous school?

Lots of reasons. But you know what? I think a lot of it is to do with relationships and relationships have to be at the core of everything that you do with children. I think especially in secondary, we see a lot of language around zero tolerance, discipline, badly behaved. And I think that's really sad. Why are we not seeing language to do with compassion, with understanding, with nurture around young people? These are the skills that we should be teaching them. This is how we should be interacting with our young people. It should be at the heart of everything we do. I know you don't have many girls in your pr you i think as they're called that's right yeah how do they behave compared to the boys um i think um there's as girls are possibly more tend to internalize um so it might take a bit longer to see the signs um they might become very quiet or introverted can be a tendency um and so i think maybe you have to as a teacher we need to skill ourselves up to look at the underlying causes underneath

that behavior which is one of the things that the difference is really keen on about actually we need to look at behaviour as a form of communication and boys and girls do tend not always but to tend to communicate their distress differently and as educators we need to make sure that we can look out for those signs now it's very stressful i know for the parents of children who are excluded um i spoke to stacy earlier her son was excluded when he was six he's now in a pru and she didn't seem to get much support when her six-year-old son was excluded. They said it was inappropriate behaviour, so I asked her about that.

None, none at all. It was just one letter to say that he couldn't come back to his mainstream school, he wasn't allowed to go near the school and that was it. There was absolutely nothing what was the effect on you of all this i would say mostly embarrassment quite self-conscious obviously because being a single parent you almost feel like you have a stigma anyway but then it was

wouldn't go near the school his friends he didn't have anything in contact with them and then I felt judged as a parent of a child who has issues and it just escalated really bad um and it was just myself and him so I couldn't then be angry or anything like that because he then needed me to be his safe place so So it's kind of internalising a lot. What was the effect on him? How did he cope with it all? He went into himself, really. He cried a lot and then he just shut down. He wouldn't express his emotions.

If anything got too angry, too emotional, he would just shut down, clench his fist, and then he wouldn't move, he wouldn't talk, and it was talking to a brick wall, because there was just nothing I could get from him, and it took him a while in this new school to actually break down those barriers, but since, I mean, he's come on leaps and bounds now, but it was just literally a slap in the face for him, and he just, he couldn't cope. I mean, he was six at the time. He's nine now.

Now he is, yes. How has his new school helped you? With his new school, I feel like I could go then with the even slightest of problem and they are willing to first of all listen without judgment and I think that is a main thing parents struggle with or me personally is that you always felt there was some sort of judgment placed on you as if the parents should have all the answers so if I go and I have a query about maybe he's seen something and he's had a nightmare so he's been up late which then might affect his behavior

I feel I can say that to the teacher and the school and they are willing to listen and not just write everything off as his behavior maybe there is a cause maybe there is something that we maybe just take a few more minutes to talk to him and he then responds to that I feel the the school really is there for myself and for him and for that reason I really couldn't thank them enough and I was talking to Stacey Vanessa if I can bring you in here um because you went through this yourself what happened at your first secondary school um so the first secondary school um so obviously i started in year eight and i was eventually excluded in at the beginning of year nine um and in between it's it's not as though i was you know uh fighting or kicking over chairs or tables it It tended to be what would be categorised as persistent disruptive behaviour.

So not handing in my phone, not wearing proper uniform, things of that nature. And what about your second one, second school? So in the second one, the behaviour pretty much continued. I never really enjoyed that school and I was quite blindsided when I was excluded the first time um so I went into the school to be honest I'd say I don't want to say with a bad attitude but I certainly wasn't happy um and the behavior just kind of persisted and I know you had the label of being naughty or bad when you went to the second school how damaging was that for you I think it's incredibly damaging it means um any little

thing I do is assume that I'm doing it because I'm a bad student um so for example one of the things that became an issue in my second school was that I would miss lessons or go late but what they didn't realize was I wasn't necessarily happy in the school so that's why I was missing lessons but instead it was just taken that I'm a naughty student I don't want to learn and I'm going to be a distraction to the other students so it quickly escalated into a permanent exclusion. We heard from Stacey how difficult it is for a parent. How did your mother cope? My mum took it really badly, if I'm honest. My mum's a single mum and she was also, well, she still works in a school as a TA.

So there was almost a double embarrassment of, you know, I failed my child and she's being excluded. And then on the other hand, it's like I work in a school. How are my colleagues going to take me? So it was definitely something that was very difficult for my mum um definitely and I'd say it was something that she felt a lot of embarrassment about um how then Vanessa did you manage to turn yourself around get to university and get a good job I'll be honest it was a very difficult road. I came out of school like many students with less than five GCSEs. I had three GCSEs and a D in maths so not very much. I then went to college for two years. I first did a level two and then I went on to a level three but I

realised that BTECs weren't necessarily for me so I decided that I wanted to do A-levels at the time I also really wanted to get into UCL so I became kind of aware of the kind of grades you need to get into certain universities and I'll say I was quite lucky I went to the college that I ended up finishing my A-levels in and I spoke to the head teacher at the time the principal sorry and I explained you know I've been excluded and I don't the head teacher at the time, the principal, sorry, and I explained, you know, I've been excluded and I'm not like that anymore. And I was able to use my level three to show that, you know, I am capable of getting good grades, but it definitely wasn't easy. And even when I was doing my A-levels, it was a lot of nights in the library

kind of catching up because there's a lot of stuff you miss academically when your education is disrupted like that. So I had to work incredibly incredibly hard i worked two jobs at certain points um it was very hard and it wasn't something that was easy but you did it so well done sarah there's just one point i want to put to you we've heard from the department for education who said we'll always back head teachers to use exclusions as part of creating calm and disciplined classrooms that bring out the best in every pupil but permanent

exclusion should only ever be a last resort. The practice of off-rolling a pupil is unacceptable and we're clear that pressuring a parent to remove their child from school or using informal exclusions is unlawful. What do you make of that? I think that's a good bold and all

encompassing in statement i think i will come back to my point that you know looking at our research which was in war local area but we are calling for this comprehensive understanding of what's really going on because children in contact with social care were four to five times more likely to be persistently absent from school and that that absenteeism increases around the time of any type of exclusion so be that formal or informal so these are our most vulnerable children who are missing out on school and the support that's available to them meanwhile we know that education is one of the most protective factors in a child's life. So for me, the current way of exclusions system, it's not working and it's just not making sense.

Well, Sarah Parsonage, Vicky Shields, Vanessa Joshua, thank you all very much indeed for joining us this morning. And of course, this is the subject on which we would like to hear from you. If you've had experience of having been excluded when you were at school, or if you're a parent of a child who's had these kind of problems, please do send us an email, or indeed, you can tweet. We don't have to use your name. Now, still to come in today's programme,

recovering from domestic violence. The memories of coercion and abuse can stay with you for life, but how can you build a new life after you've escaped? And it's 40 years since Julie Walters first played Rita. She began on the stage in the West End

and Educating Rita became a successful film. Rita, you may remember was unhappy in her work as a hairdresser and in her marriage, signed up to the Open University and changed her life. Well, next week to celebrate Willie Russell's play, we'd like to hear from those of you who've been educated like Rita later in life. Let us know your story in an email through the website. It's bbc.co.uk

forward slash Woman's Hour. Now, Beth Pascal is what's known as an ultra runner. And earlier this week, she set the fastest known time for a woman to complete one of the most gruelling Lake District fell challenges. But why would anyone want to push themselves to such an extent? And how do you prepare your body to do it safely? Well, Dr Nicola Rawlinson is a performance psychologist at Loughborough Sport and Beth Pascal is back to being a paediatrician but she's here to talk to us now. Beth congratulations. Now distance speciality for you is 100 miles. What drew you to this ultra running? I guess it started off as just curiosity. I wanted to know what I was capable of and when I started doing long races it was purely just to

see if it was possible you know and I had no intention when I started running of you know winning races or breaking records that sort of came later. How determined were you to break the speed record in the lakes this time? If I'm honest I didn't think it was possible. I for sure I was very determined but I trained really hard but I certainly would have bet against myself. I think myself and no one else really expected me to break the record. So it was a big surprise last Friday, to be honest. So what was it like when you'd achieved it?

It was amazing. I mean, the whole day was fantastic. When you have a good day in the fells with good views and you're feeling fit and moving well, there's really nothing else that I enjoy more. The feeling of sort of moving efficiently across the difficult terrain is just so joyful. It's fantastic. And running downhill fast over scree and rocks, it's just really playful. And yeah, it's just great fun, really.

So I really enjoyed it out there. And Nicola, how does the body have to adapt to do what Beth does? Yeah, obviously, it's such a gruelling physical challenge. There are a few things that we tend to see in people who are well trained from an ultra endurance perspective. Efficiency is a really big one. So being as least wasteful with your energy as possible. Obviously, every little bit of energy that you burn per mile that doesn't contribute to you moving forwards is multiplied over many, many miles in an ultra event. So we tend to find biomechanical changes and naturally settling into quite an efficient movement with the many training miles

that ultra athletes do and specific strength adaptations as well so stabilizing around your ankle knee and hip joints just to make sure that as much energy as possible goes into propelling you forwards we also see what we would refer to as fat adaptation and so people who are very good at using fat as a fuel you can only really absorb and use a certain amount of carbohydrate when you're exercising and so being able to rely quite heavily on fat as a fuel is a real advantage when you're exercising over long distances. So we see quite a lot of adaptations around the biochemical processes, essentially, that support fat metabolism.

I think I've read somewhere that you eat quite a lot. Is that true? Yes. Yes, I mean, you need to eat a lot if you're going to do a lot of training and run long races, for sure. So how much training do you do? Because you've got your paediatrician's job and then your ultra running. What's your usual training method? I wouldn't really say I had a typical day of training because it's so variable depending on how much I'm working.

So if I'm working a 13 hour shift I might only run for an hour a day but on my days off I might run for six eight or ten hours so yeah it varies a lot and in preparation for a big race or a big record attempt I'll try and up my training quite a lot so I think the the the peak of my training for this I was probably doing about three or four consecutive days of six to eight hour runs. Do you enjoy that part of it? Most of the time yes I mean you I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy a majority of it for sure some of the time it's hard work. And when the weather's bad or you're tired, it's not always easy to get out and train.

But yeah, the vast majority of the time, it's fantastic. Yeah, I just love being in the mountains, really. Nicola, what would you say is most important for success? Is it about your physical capabilities or is it about personality? I think it's probably a mix of the two. When completing races over such long distances, undoubtedly there's quite a significant physical element to it. Your physiological machinery needs to be really well tuned

to cope with the duration, but also the varying intensities up and down hills. But the psychological component is really, really crucial, too. We refer to something called tolerable discomfort in the sports science world. And that's essentially, you know, we know it's going to hurt hurt but how much can you put up with um and what we tend to find from a research perspective is that athletes in comparison to non-athletes have have quite similar pain thresholds in terms of the point at which you begin to feel pain but athletes consistently are able to really kind of keep pushing once that onset of pain happens so i think it's a mix of the two how How often Beth has that been the case for you that

that you're in pain but you just carry on? Quite a lot of the time I would say so for sure in in races or in record attempts there's always going to be times which are really tough it's never easy from start to finish. But the more you do it, you come to realise that if you're having a really low point in a race, it's not the end of the world. You always come out of it. You always have multiple highs and lows as the day goes on. So it's something that I've learned to not be particularly phased by, I suppose. Now, Nicola, there is something which I have to say just saying it frightens me called the couch to 5k over nine weeks project what happens to the couch potato

to their bodies trying to achieve that? Yeah so there's a few different things that we would normally see when people start to engage in regular physical activity. One is to do with the cardiovascular system so the heart like any other muscle in the body responds to being used so that kind of regular exposure to exercise strengthens the heart muscle so we might see things like a lower resting heart rate and less breathlessness during exercise once you've sort of completed that program and purely because your heart's stronger and it can deliver more oxygen per beat so it's less strenuous for you. There's also the kind of again the, the psychological components as well. So we know that exercise, in particular aerobic exercise, releases serotonin in the brain. So aside from the fact that socially you might be doing a couch to 5K program with friends or family or part of a running group,

there's also a biological rationale for psychological benefits and mood shifts as well. OK, I'll think about it. Beth, just to finish this conversation, what's your next big challenge that you're going to do? I don't have any concrete plans at the moment, but I'm just I'm just seeing how I recover from from last Friday. But for sure, I'll have I'll have another challenge coming up soon I'd love to start racing again as soon as races start but there's still a lot of uncertainty around that so we'll see

Beth Pascal and Dr Nicola Rawlinson thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning and if we have inspired you to dig your running shoes out but you don't fancy taking on 100 miles yet there is always the couch to 5k program to get you started if you'd like to give it a go you can find the app it's on the nhs website or there is of course a link to it on the woman's hour web page Now every time we've discussed domestic abuse on the programme, and that's been even more frequently I'm afraid than usual during lockdown, we've received lots

of emails from you recounting experiences of violence and abuse that are decades old, saying things like this happened to me in the 1970s and then going on to recount the relationship as if it happened yesterday. It's become increasingly clear that the effects of abuse can last a lifetime. How are people changed by it and how can you recover and learn to live with it? Well, I'm joined by Sue Penner from Penzant. She designed the Recovery Toolkit programme and is one of the founders of Rockpool. Jennifer Gilmore is in Hull and is an author and advocate for women in abusive relationships. She completed Sue's course early on in her recovery. Jennifer,

would you say you can ever be free of the abuse that happened to you? I would say you know it's not easy being a survivor and no one should underestimate the long-term effect of that but if we look at the dictionary definition of the word survivor it's a person who copes well with difficulties in their life and I would say that before that programme I didn't cope well with what I had experienced but moving forward and having the tools because of that programme I was able to put one foot in front of the other I was able to overcome you know triggers flashbacks and move forward with my life and obviously now I'm a very happy married and thriving woman. So Sue how does your program teach women like Jennifer to recognize the effect abuse has had

on them? I think what we do or what I do with the recovery toolkit is take a slightly different approach to maybe some other programs and I think my experience of working in the sector when I wahanol ymdrech i rhai o'r rhaglenau eraill. Ac rwy'n credu bod fy mhrofiad o weithio yn y sector, pan ddod i mewn i'r cyntaf, yn y gwirionedd, beth rydyn ni'n ei wneud, ac mae'n fydd yn fyddus iawn am hyn, Jenny, yn ymwneud â'r ffordd y byddwch chi'n gweithio yn fwy na'r cysylltiad, mae popeth wedi'i leoli, rydych chi'n iawn, gallwch chi symud ymlaen gyda'ch bywyd. Ond yr hyn a ddododd i mi wrth weithio gyda phobl sydd wedi profi llwyr, oedd eu bod yn dweud wrthi i mi, ddwy bethau mewn gwirionedd, roedd yn gyffredinol. Un oedd, pam nad oeddwn i'n gweld hyn yn dod, fel os oeddant yn dweud eu bod yn gwybod.

A'r arall oedd, roedden nhw'n dweud, yn arwain ar eu cyrffau i'r llwythoedd a'r llwythoedd a'u bod yn dweud, bydd hynna'n llwyr. Ond beth fydd yn mynd i'w ffwrdd yw hyn, ar y pwynt y byddant yn bwyntio at eu llythyr a'u ddisgrifio'r gwaelod yr oeddant wedi'i gyrru gyda nhw, yr hyn rydyn ni'n ei alai'n nodi at eu chyffyrdd a ddisgrifio'r gwaith y gawson nhw gyda nhw, yr hyn rydyn ni'n ei alw'n ymdrinolwyr. Felly, yr hyn rydyn ni'n ei wneud yn ein rhaglen yw, i ddatrys y profiad i rywun. Rwy'n credu, os oes unrhyw un wedi byw drwy gyfnod coesif ac yn rheoli cysylltiad,

mae wedi profi trawm. Rwy'n credu bod angen i ni ddechrau newid y disgwrs ychydig o fach am sut rydyn ni'n gweithio amser gyda phobl neu dynion sydd wedi profi ddiffyg ac i fframio'r cyd yn y cyd. Felly mae fy nghydweithred yn gweithio. Roeddwn i'n therapeutydd cyflogol yn iechyd mentol i'r plant am lawer o flynyddoedd. Felly mae fy nghydweithred yn dod o'r safle o feddwl am sut rydym ni'n newid hynny? Beth yw'r newid parmlaen ar gyfer rhywun. Felly, rydym yn defnyddio elfennau o'r rhaglen sy'n cael ei alw'n ymdrin â phrofiadau

sy'n ymdrin â'r trawm, ac mae hynny'n ffwrdd mawr iawn. Felly, rydym yn gwneud ddau pethau bwysig. Un yw ein bod yn rhoi gwybodaeth i'r unigolion sy'n dod ar y rhaglen am wybodaeth a phwyllgor am sut mae llwyddiant yn digwydd, sut maen nhw'n cael eu cymryd gyda'i gilydd, sut maen nhw wedi about how abuse happens, how they get caught with it, how they've got into that position because actually they've been groomed into it. And then we help them identify how that voice in their head is still impacting on that behaviour. Sorry. And then we teach them how to undo that thinking.

Jennifer, I know you experienced coercive control. How hard was it then to unlearn habits that you'd developed? What was there stuck in your mind all the time? Yeah, so obviously when I came out of that relationship, it was almost like the blueprint of everything I knew had been sort of altered to this perception and his world so every time I looked in the mirror I would have his voice you know putting me down and my self-esteem my weight was a big problem in that side of things but also in family and friends and he would control pretty much every element of that so who I could talk to who I couldn't even to down to what clothes

I could wear and what I couldn't wear and for me it was really really difficult to unpick and to be honest when I left that relationship I wouldn't have actually known that was a part of it I actually felt that it was my failing as a partner that I didn't do everything right so actually the program for me taught me about the behavior but it also then gave me the methods and the equipment to sort of unpick the habits so there you know it was all in manageable chunks for me and to be honest I don't want to overwhelm myself it's not a good position to be overwhelmed by everything that's gone through so for me to take it in step by step that really helped and for me a lot of what I've experienced you know having that negative automatic thoughts

asking permission so it went to the extreme of me asking permission to go to the toilet in that relationship which you think is a normal thing we should do as a human. And coming out of that relationship, I still asked people permission, even my family members, and obviously they didn't understand. And I had to change it around. So I changed it to letting them know I'm just going to the toilet. So I progressively changed it and then obviously weaned myself out. But it's really difficult. That's just one example.

There's thousands of different things that have come from that relationship and I'm still working on them today. What do you still struggle with then? So for me, it is mainly my self-esteem so one of the examples I would say I was going to try and overcome this year was walking into ASDA which I guess you would think why on earth would that be but um he used to say that I had more rollbacks than ASDA and for me I believe that if I feel confident in myself um I can walk into ASDA and not have that voice and feel put down and feel horrible about myself so for me it's a challenge in getting healthy and feeling comfortable in my own body but that's not an easy task in itself and I think you know

observing and you know I believe that we need to overcome and not avoid so I could just go to Tesco couldn't I and just you know avoid it completely or many other supermarkets Jennifer I have to be careful here you know there are lots of them but what I'm saying is I could have avoided that completely but then that that doesn't work in my recovery process, does it? I need to actually go to that supermarket and overcome it myself. So for me, I've been out of the relationship for six years and there's bits of that I'm still working on myself, but I'm in a really good mindset and it doesn't overcome me as a person. Before, I would have managed it in terms of I would have been maybe

stuck in a difficult position. People wouldn't be able to maybe talk to me or communicate. I wouldn't even recognise what I was doing to myself. Whereas now I can say, actually, this is something I need to work on. I wouldn't have been able to do that before. So what do friends and family need to know in order to help someone in jennifer's position i think the most important thing and part of um some of the feedback i've had about the book is that it is as valuable for friends and family as it is for those that have experienced the abuse is that when you're in an abusive relationship, the decisions that you make, the way you think, as Jennifer's just eloquently described, are based on safety.

We put ourselves into the head of the perpetrator. We have to understand what... Because anything we do may have consequences. So Jennifer's example of having to ask to go to the loo would have meant that if she hadn't asked that, there would have been a consequence of that, either psychologically or physically. So one of the things that's useful for family to know, I think, is that it doesn't, just because someone is free or not living with the perpetrator more than they're OK.

And I go back to what I said earlier slightly. There is this myth about, well, you're all right now. You're not there anymore now. He can't hurt you anymore now and that's not true because of the longer term psychological impact so family members understanding I think from I think the two things are crucial are one that someone might be physically safe but they don't feel psychologically safe so understanding yn ffisigol yn siŵr ond dydyn nhw ddim yn teimlo'n siŵr yn seiliedig. Felly, deallai bod system nerfus rhywun, eu gallu rheoli a rheoli eu hwyliau emosiynol, yn eithaf anodd pan fyddant wedi dod allan o'r cysylltiad. Nid ydynt yn mynd i fod yn hapus. Yn y ffaith, mae llawer o unigolion yn teimlo'n ddifrifol amdano, oherwydd maen nhw wedi colli eu gofidion a'u ffermau. Felly mae problemau diogelwch seiliedig. Ac efallai un o'r materion mwyaf yw ymddiriedaeth, by it because they've lost their hopes and dreams. So there's a psychological safety issue.

And maybe one of the biggest issues is about trust, because the person that I was in a relationship with and should have been the most trustworthy person for me, the person at my back is actually the person that hurt me. So coming out of an abusive relationship, it can be really hard for the individual to know who to trust and there's a there's a sort of process of relearning that really and family members can't expect just to be trustworthy so you you said um sorry jennifer you said right at the start that you you're remarried you're you're happy now but how difficult was it to allow yourself to trust someone again? It actually took me about four years until I fully trusted my husband.

And he understood that completely. Again, you know, methods that I've put into place in our relationship. So sometimes I don't want to talk about my experiences. And, you know, I use use a method I call it the banana method we use it as a more like a safe word but through discussions I'm allowed to use it and say you know I don't want a banana now but it's my responsibility to pick it back up it gives me that element of control and we've got quite a few methods that we use as husband and wife that helps me you know basically live that happy life and but feel that I'm in control feel safe and be able to express myself

without any repercussions that are perhaps what I would have had real negative repercussion and quite damaging so the fact that I feel secure and have that trust now is just freeing in itself and i would say that when you come out of a abusive relationship people assume that you are free you're not you've got so many things to overcome and you even maybe post separation abuse on top of that um so it's about freedom is really in that beginning parts of the recovery and working your way forwards jennifer just one final question i want to ask you if you could say one thing to a survivor or indeed someone who is still in this kind of relationship who's struggling right now during the covid crisis what would you want to say to her or more rarely him?

I would say that, you know, there is an alternative path. You can choose the path to, and perhaps it doesn't look like it's going to be a happy one at the moment, but actually if you get the right help and the support, then there is a chance for that happiness. I never thought that I would ever feel happy in my life ever again. I thought that was it, eternity, life imprisonment as such. But I've been able to lead a happy and healthy life. So seek that support and help

and if you're out of that relationship of course look at the recovery toolkit I advocate every person who has experienced domestic abuse to read that book first because that really was the key to my freedom Well Jennifer Gilmore and Sue Pennett thank you both very much for joining us this morning. And of course, there are details of organisations which can offer you information and support with domestic violence and recovery.

They're available on the Women's Hour webpage for today's programme. And they're also at bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. You can call for free at any time to hear recorded information on 0800 888 809. And get in touch with us if you have been going through this kind of thing, because we would really like to hear from you. And thanks to both of you. Now, earlier in the programme, we were talking about school exclusions and lots of you wanted to share your experiences.

Sophie emailed, as a teacher of more than 25 years, I would first like to say that I completely agree with the statement that the current school exclusion system is not working. My main concern is where we as teachers are told to keep disruptive pupils in class. This is detrimental to the learning of 29 other young people who then themselves become disheartened at their own progress and ambition within a class. The others will often learn bad habits and behaviours which they would not normally see as acceptable. A second result is that it causes the teachers to leave the profession in droves,

as they're often blamed for the behaviour within their classes whilst not being given appropriate support, bearing in mind that their results will be down accordingly too. And Julie emailed to say my son was threatened with exclusion as a way to try to make him behave and to make us try to make him behave as if we weren't doing all we could already eventually he was diagnosed with having some special needs but two years on we still have no formal support as the level of special need a child has to have

before they can get an educational plan is very high. We are not a broken family. His dad and I are both highly educated and we earn reasonable incomes and it still nearly pushed us over the edge. The lack of help, the judgment, the shame, the expense of private help, the time it takes to get anything done are all overwhelming. And the threat of exclusion on top of that was excruciating and deeply unhelpful. I would have done anything to have someone at the school working with us rather than threatening us. Someone who didn't want us to use a name said, I've been listening carefully to your article on exclusions.

As a headteacher of an infant and nursery school in an area of social deprivation we care for and educate a significant minority of damaged children in all year groups we never ever give up on our children but there are times when as a school we feel very alone in how we support children with very physically aggressive behaviour. We've had to fix, term, exclude to be able to regroup and reassess how we support not only the child but the needs of all the other children in the class and indeed the emotional well-being of staff. The lack of children's mental health support from other agencies and dwindling school budgets continues to make this the most stressful element of my job. Thank you for all your emails about this subject.

And of course, we'd always like to hear more. Tomorrow, we'll be continuing our summer series of how-to guides. This time, we'll be discussing how to end your relationship well. It seems lockdown may have accelerated the process for some couples with one UK-wide legal service firm reporting a 42% increase in inquiries about divorce between March and May. Join me tomorrow. We'll try to offer some suggestions on how you manage it. Join me then.

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