3. "I could go on it never ends" women's accounts of Sexual Safety

Values audio transcript:

(Person 1) What stands out to me here is I know in the NHS like we’ve got the 6 C’s, I can’t remember them all off the top of my head, it’s like compassion and all those types of things, but do you pick up on that as someone that kind of interacts with services that there is this idea of like these 6 C’s that everybody had to go by..

(Person 2) It depends where you go cos when I come in here I feel that erm I can come in here and I know there are certain people in that office there that will come straight out and have compassion and a bit of understanding a bit of time for you and you go to certain other places and they’ll just be like.. in audible.. so you have got that side of it.. it’s knowing where to go when your like that and people will know where to levitate to general things for service users.

(Person 1) Is there some that embody that more than others?

(Person 2) Usually more so in erm... how can I stay this without being too critical.. you find that more with like erm.. if I put it into bands so you got the hierarchy’s haven’t you, your managers, your team leaders and your care assistants and to be quite honest the care assistants and cleaners are probably more compassionate that a lot of the other staff, so the people lower down that scale, you’ll probably find them more compassionate, I’m sorry but it’s true.

(Person 1) I think like you say though the NHS say we stand by our values..

(Person 2) It’s just a paper trail, we always say as service users we are just a number on top of the page, we are just a number, not seen as people. I’d like to be seen as a person, that’s good value to have, to be seen as a person, as a somebody..

(Person 1) I suppose it’s good to know that there are services, you know you said you come here and you really feel those values so it’s knowing services can embody those values and the services that maybe aren’t doing so well on that can learn from ones that do...

(Person 2) Yeah well the thing that messed up this week, there’s been that many things cancelled in the last 2 weeks, think that’s probably why people haven’t turned up this morning, because there has been a lot of cancellations coz of the holidays and every time you look at your email your like ugh.. was meant to be at CONFIDENTIAL yesterday or was meant to be somewhere else and it’s been cancelled and people get put off a bit, so don’t give out false.. Don’t say things that are not.. so that’s one of the values.. don’t promise stuff that you can’t deliver.

Society audio transcript:

(Person 1) ...and that is scary, it’s ok to get a paedophile in there, if you look at it…inaudible… and it’s like every single day they are picking up 10, 15 men and I’m like wow this is really scary. I mean last night it was 9 o clock and he was on his way to work… inaudible… you realise you actually just lost your job mate don’t you and that was his first time getting caught, so how... inaudible… before they get caught.

(Person 1) Society is too accepting of some behaviours now and it’s knife crime walking about stabbing each other teenagers coz society have got er it’s a throwaway culture now and it does come down to where you live and if you’ve got money, here we are now.. Inaudible.

Profession audio transcript:

(Person 1) So you think about that job and that role that your receptionists have got, that is for the professional side of it.. sometimes they are the agony aunts as well, so its about training them and that’s not just front line staff in the NHS but even on reception in GP surgeries that should be happening as well, but the professionals should have empathy, understanding and compassion and never judge that person because obviously you know what they’ve come from. Always ask them to look twice and if they unsure of something ask the person again as they might ask in different ways, peoples language, yeah and language can be a problem with professionals as well, their language and their, I suppose body language for professionals how you’re looking at somebody and talking to them.

(Person 2) What about body language because that’s really important I think.

(Person 1) I mean if you have no eye contact with your service user, and your too busy looking.. coz you see it in Drs surgeries and they’re just not seeing you as a person, seeing you as a person, you know. And of course we know some people who are mentally ill don’t take care of themselves so that can be another barrier, there’s lot of barriers there for professionals and their boundaries and how they approach people coz erm this week, last week I went to housing aid with a homeless person, I won’t say who it was, a young man in his 30’s and he’s been in the care system since, god knows when, but he’s been homeless since he was 16, took him to housing aid last week and he already told me he had been to CONFIDENTIAL and they refused him to get his nails everything were manky and he walked into CONFIDENTIAL and they refused to let him in because obviously he has an angry attitude he is mentally ill, he’s in pain he’s got toothache he had slashed in the streets… and he was just wanting to get washed and they refused, took him in to housing aid and they told me before I took him in there, you don’t understand they won’t do nothing they won’t do nothing so I took him in and a bit of calm down calm down and he threw his bags on the floor, he’s mentally ill, but that depends on every individual because for me I never let it happen in my circle yeah but you can’t help that when it goes into other circles so the authority was my downfall for me and my first 2 children, my second two children, nah they never touched authority so they’ve never had any issues. So I’ve got 2 separate different ages so that was my environment when I was in CONFIDENTIAL I was in that environment then with my first two children and that’s when my downfall was that environment.. since I’ve come to CONFIDENTAL I’ve had another two children and they’ve never been targeted or anywhere near social services and I’m so grateful that I’ve never once asked them for help down here because that was my mistake was thinking that I was dependant on the people I was in that environment with, I was dependent on social services back then because I thought I had to be, because that was programmed already by them because I was introduced to them as an individual with needs.

Environment audio transcript:

(Person 1) Never dealt with the first bit of damage for me so ended up causing damage to my other two boys which hasn’t filtered through to the other two thank god, ones just gone through University, no children, 21, lives in CONFIDENTIAL So yeah I am proud of things that’s come, but again I was labelled, I was judged because of my background, where I came from.

(Person 2) And how about society, this is the last one, and this is the big one isn’t it.

(Person 1) That’s exactly that how society see everything, how you are viewed, how you are interacting with society, it’s about a lot of things, about how we interact with society and how society looks at us. And society’s expectations and perceptions everybody else’s perceptions are different and society different ways of life now, society is complex in itself now, because we have that many different erm diverse cultures and beliefs and values so the way society’s ever ever evolving and changing and things that are acceptable now in society that wouldn’t have been acceptable at all. There is a whole shift in society where there is too much acceptance of things now.

Individual audio transcript:

(Person 1) ...Doesn’t matter where they are they could be coming to an appointment where they could still be vulnerable and it depends how we are dealing with them people because some people, erm obviously you gotta be professional but it’s how we come across to that individual, when they are first being presented because we don’t like to be too over friendly but we also want to be compassionate because some people might get the wrong idea that they are vulnerable and especially talking about mental health as well, coz I can see kindness as too much kindness, it’s a bit of a juggling battle here when you are talking about mental health people because sometimes they are not thinking in the right frame of mind anyway when they are coming in, and so I suppose its understanding the complexity of it in their head the way it’s being presented. What is being presented so its looking at what is... I’m trying to put it into the right words...

(Person 2) When we spoke before you kind of said about kind of behaviour and, kind of saying sometimes you wish that people had asked, you know had a bit of professional curiosity or erm kind of just following up of kind of like why is this... .

(Person 1) Yeah because of mental health either shutting down or some people will be over anxious to out spurt everything, so to not look at everybody as that one box, if you know what I mean, yeah its because not everything fits one person. So I know a lot of people say oh yeah it’s got certain traits that come across the same way but yes there is things that are similar but everybody comes across differently and how they are presenting that, so they might not say nothing about it or might take longer to say something about it and some will come out and tell you every single detail straight off the cuff but maybe that’s just because they are going through mental illness coz maybe they have shut up for years and years. Like I when I tried years ago to talk about it, it was shut down again, so after a while you just get fed up and think nobody is listening anyway so what’s the point so when you hear it again you think, I’ve told people that years ago but nobody ever listened to me so, it’s about listening to what that person is saying through that trauma they have gone through coz they are not in a good place at that time when they are coming out with stuff but it’s to listen and listen to the complexities that are involved in that person’s life, if they are on drugs, its…depending on what drugs, sometimes drugs can make your mental health worse but I was the only one that ever spoke out about it and I was actually self-harming as a young child trying to scream for help. I was at the police station – nobody listened, just thought she’s a runaway and then when I got put into the institution that’s when it happened again in the institution so I, for me as a young person I believed that all adults were like that, not just my dad, So I actually believed growing up that’s just what adults do to kids so unfortunately for me I had a complexity behind it, where I assumed that was my purpose in life to be used by men and it wasn’t until I got to 26 years of age where I had a light bulb moment and I had psychological damage with scrubbing in, so there was a lot of complexity to me that I didn’t even know myself so sometimes that is part of the complexity the person can’t even identify it themselves. So that is a very good point actually that that the person has got such a complex baggage pack that they won’t even be able to identify themselves, what is wrong with them and it could be underlined childhood sexual trauma or something that’s happened maybe last week.