Wild Card - Whose Shoes?

55. Steven Russell - children in care deserve better

• Gill Phillips @WhoseShoes

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When I originally set up the Wild Card - Whose Shoes podcast series, I wanted to provide a way of amplifying the voices of people who inspire me and who are making a difference. Steven Russell simply had to be a guest because his story is so important. 

Steven tells his own story of growing up as a child in care, the emotional trauma and insecurity that can result, but showing huge resilience and strength, surviving the system.

Everyone who works with children or has children in their lives needs to hear it – such an eye-opener about trust, relationships, language, assumptions and so much more. 

Steven is now inspiring children and young people in similar circumstances to believe that they can be anything they want to be, and role modelling this in such a powerful way.  

Steven’s own childhood story is so powerful we focused on that and will record Part 2 to tell you more about this work. You can find out more in the links – Elements - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! #DripByDrip #DayByDay

Huge synergy with the #MPFTWhoseShoes project we are doing with the Children and Families’ team of Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust, using Whose Shoes to explore different aspects of their service and how it can be improved. Our forthcoming module, to be launched on 15 July, explores the topic of helping children in care have happy, successful lives.

Lemon lightbulbs 🍋💡🍋

  • You have to find your own path; no-one can do it for you
  • Commit your goals to paper; make it real
  • Start small and build - drip by drip, day by day
  • We all need someone to believe in us
  • Looking back at a turbulent childhood through adult eyes brings new understanding
  • You can't force trust - you have to grow relationships
  • Care records need to be written with sensitivity for the grown-up child to read one day
  • Loads of different adults telling you different things is confusing and traumatic
  • Learning about your past while still navigating the care system can be overwhelming
  • The organismic self - the itch inside you that makes you YOU, desite everything
  • Nature versus nurture - fascinating!
  • Living in care made Steven super adaptable
  • Stories resonate because all human beings connect!
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Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

Gill Phillips  0:11 
My name is Gill Phillips and I'm the creator of Whose Shoes a popular approach to coproduction. I was named as an HSJ100 Wild Card, and wants to help give a voice to others, talking about their experiences and ideas. I love chatting with people from all sorts of different perspectives, walking in their shoes. If you are interested in the future of health care, and like to hear what other people think, or perhaps even contribute at some point, Wild Card Whose Shoes is for you. When I originally set up the Wild Card, Whose Shoes podcast series, I wanted to provide a way of amplifying the voices of people who inspire me, and who are making a difference. I had a long list of people in mind, and I've been privileged to speak to many of them. And apologies to those I haven't got around to yet - it will happen. But inevitably, life creates a path of its own. And a key part of my philosophy is to go with the flow. So I'd only known today's podcast guest Stephen Russell for two minutes, and immediately asked him to join me for a conversation, as his story is just so important. As regular listeners will know, I'm doing an exciting project at the moment with Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust, we're working with the Children and Families' team, using Whose Shoes to explore different aspects of their service and how it can be improved. We've managed to hook in Amy Duddy, one of the leaders of the Voice Project in Staffordshire, we're giving a voice to children who are experiencing the care system. And it was in this context that we discovered Steven. Steven was the keynote speaker at the recent 'Preventing children going into care' conference in Staffordshire and I'm told that he blew the audience away. I wish I'd been there. I'll leave Steven to tell his own story of growing up as a child in care, and how he is now inspiring children and young people in similar circumstances to believe that they can be anything they want to be and role modeling this in such a powerful way. So welcome, Steven. I'm very excited about this conversation. And thank you so much for agreeing to join me on the podcast today. Where should we start?

 Steven Russell  2:36 
hank you so much Gill, super excited to be here with you today as well. That's a brilliant introduction. And yeah, I'm really, really excited to have this conversation with you on all different fronts really, you know, when we think about children in care, we also think about where they're coming from, aspirations, where they are. So there's so many different avenues to explore. And yeah, I'm really excited to do that with you today. So to give a bit of an introduction to myself, I spent my entire childhood in the care system. I lived with a total of 10 foster homes, 2 care homes and I attended 5 different schools. The words that I've used to describe my care experience have been chaotic, fearful, uncertain, but also with a tint of adventure as well. You know, not knowing where you are going kind of came with a rare piece of excitement with that as well. And yeah, I mean, I spent many, many years chasing the family that I never had. And when I was nine years of age, my social worker moved me to what was called my 'forever family'. And that was put in The Guardian newspaper for foster and adoptive carers. And I've still got that newspaper clipping today with my sort of big afro, big cheeky grin, excited to finally have his forever family. Yeah, I spent two years with with the family only because it wasn't it ...  wasn't the fairytale ending that I thought it would be. I spent quite a few months isolated by myself in my bedroom. It didn't start off like that, of course. It started off as the fairy tale you know, the holidays and you know, the school, the friends everything was kind of put into place in the beginning for you know, little Steven to have his forever family. But I would say it was probably about six to nine months in to that journey that things started to change for the worse. And what I put it down to was the fact that I, I struggled with the maternal figure. So my new dad, I had a good enough relationship with him, although he didn't really spend much time there. He was always working away. And I kind of got on with my siblings as well. But the mother, my new mum, she, she said, Look, you know, I'm your new mum now. So you got a call me mum. But I didn't want to call her mum. I just felt very, it just it didn't feel right saying mum, I never said mum before. So it was always going to take a while for me to build that up. But I think what happened was she took it quite personal. And felt rejected by me. And I think that rejection turned into some toxic behaviors towards me. And I think essentially was reminding me on a frequent basis that I wasn't actually her biological child. And it started off quite subtle, really, you know, it was things like on the way to the shop in the morning, you know, she would buy her daughter's, you know, a Panda Pop in their choice of chocolate bar, and I just would never have that. And I remember one day, my foster sister said to my foster mum, "How come Steven's not having any?" And she said, "When Steven learns to behave himself, then Steven can have these treats" basically 

Gill Phillips  6:33  
Goodness 

Steven Russell  6:35  
But I wasn't, I didn't feel like I was misbehaving. I mean, I was cheeky, I was, you know, I was ... I wasn't an angel or anything, but you have to appreciate where I'm coming from. And yeah, that just, it just got quite messy over sort of a year and a half period. And, yeah, it ended basically, with my foster mum saying, "Because this hasn't worked, they're gonna put you into a children's home. And in children's homes, you get bullied. So you're gonna wish this had worked", basically. And I just remember my social worker collecting me with my bags packed, and my foster mom didn't even come, she was at work. She said she couldn't make it. She was at work. So she didn't even ... she didn't even see me. It was actually my older foster sister that helped me pack and put my stuff in the car. And so now I'm on the way to my first care home. And then, yeah, it was just, it was just a bit scary, I suppose just not knowing where I'm going, who I'm going to live with. And, yeah, it kind of changed from there. Because I didn't have faith in ... in the adults, I didn't I didn't have any faith in the care system itself. I just kind of felt like I was just being picked up and moved around. And I think the most traumatic part was that it was glorified as what was meant to be my forever family. So that always stuck with me that the key word 'forever'. So I learned as a young person that forever doesn't mean forever. So and again, that's why I'm quite passionate today about the language that we use with children, young people that when we're thinking about their care records are how we write or how we say things, or the words that we choose to use, we just have to be mindful of what that might mean to them. Because for me the word forever now, you know, even till this day, I still struggle with what does forever mean? And so yeah, my, my care experiences - we could have a whole different conversation on my care experience. I'll give you some of the highlighted bits. And yeah, when I went to my first care home, I was introduced to someone called Dave, who was a care worker in the home. And Dave was just somebody that all of the young people love to be around very jolly, very vibrant, happy smiley, always playing with the young people football and conker picking, you know, all the things that children used to do. And yeah, just got quite a close bond with with Dave and then fate would have it that when I moved from that home, and I got put back into the system and around the foster system and things. When I was 16, I actually bumped into him in Erdington. And yeah, I was in a pretty, pretty dark place at 16. You know, addicted to cannabis. Mixing with unsavoury characters. Occasionally, I'd walk around with a knife, you know, and Dave was somebody who said, "Look, you know, I can see you in a bit of a tight spot. It'd be cool to do some mentoring with you" and I rejected that at first. I didn't feel like I needed somebody coming into my life helping me. but Dave was like, "I've got no expectation. I've got no nothing here. I just, you know, just want to help where I can" and Dave spent well, even till this day, really, the next few years moulding and building and conditioning me. And to the point where he's, you know, I was stabbed at 19. And Dave came to the hospital. And, you know, he said he could be seeing me in a morgue this morning. And I just went back to my house in Aston at the time. And I just had this cathartic moment, I just had to grab the first piece of paper I seen, which was just an old utility bill that was addressed to my foster brother, because it's my foster brother's house. And I turned it over to the blank side. And I just started writing down just ...  I wasn't even thinking, I was just writing down everything that I knew that I had to, I had to achieve. It wasn't even a case of I want to do this. It's like, this has to happen. And I remember writing it down, because I've got the paper still with me today. Move out of Aston, stop smoking, stop drinking, get a job,  learn how to drive, save money, talk to people with more respect. And smile more. I just put that ... to smile more. And within a space of a year. So from 2005 to 2006, I went on this journey. And, I achieved every single one of those things by 2006.  

Gill Phillips  11:12 
Wow 

Steven Russell  11:13
And Dave came back to me and he said, Do you know how that was done? Do you know how you did that? And I says, "Yeah, because you were helping me, you were guiding me". And he says "No, you don't understand". He says "when you wrote that down on the paper" he says "you blue tacked it to your mirror in your living room. So that every morning you'd wake up, you look in the mirror, and you'd see that reflected back at you". He said, "You see for the first time, Steven, he was accountable to yourself. You wasn't accountable to your teachers, to your social work to your mentors, and you certainly wasn't accountable to me. Because whether you decided to do these things or not, you know, I would still have I would still have been here to support you. But you had to do it for you, you had to make that decision".

 Steven Russell  11:53 
And Dave said, "Look, you know, I haven't brought anything out of you. I've shown you what was already inside you". And that taught me a valuable lesson, particularly when I'd go on to work with young people in residential care. That it's not our roles as mentors and practitioners and social workers and counsellors to bring something out of the child. It's our role to shine a light onto those dark corners to show them what's already there that they couldn't see. And that's exactly what Dave did for me. And that is a 100% winning formula. Because when you can create that mindset, you don't have any expectation of the child to do things that you want them to do, well, I want you to go to college, I want you to be successful, I want you to stop smoking, I want you to stop vaping I want you to get a degree. And actually that the child probably agrees, like I want those things as well, like I do want to be, you know, successful. But that gap between what you want for that young person, and what's actually happening can be quite a large gap. And so what Dave did is he came into that gap, he got his torch of optimism out and started to shine it on those dark corners until I was able to see it fully clearly for myself. And that's when I wrote that on the paper. And I made that decision that everything was about to change. So 2005, I was 20 years of age, I started working in residential care. I spent 13 years with this company. I worked my way up from support worker to senior to Deputy Manager to interim manager. And then I went on to become a family support worker, specialist family support worker for two years in Birmingham. I achieved my level 123 Person-Centered Counselling qualifications, Mental Health First Aid, safeguarding, all of that, and then I started working in the schools. And yeah, after that, I just decided that I wanted to do something. I always had this itch inside me Gill, to be quite honest with you, I always had this creative itch that was always itching on inside, that was always saying to me, you are destined to just do your own thing. You're not destined to dance to someone else's beat. You're destined to create the beat. But until such a time presents itself, you will have to learn and gather knowledge along the way. And I was sat down in a primary school, I'd been a specialist family support work for about two years at this point. And I sat down with an executive head teacher in Tamworth. And she'd said to me, you know, you're the only representative of the company in this school. And we've noticed some incredible differences in the young people's emotional regulations and behavior. Have you ever thought to yourself about creating your own projects, your own service - and I kind of sniggered to myself? Oh, no, no, I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing. And because she mentioned it because she'd said it to me, I couldn't get it out of my head. So then I sat in my car and I looked in the rear view mirror and I looked at myself and I said, right? What is stopping you from creating your own support service? And I came up with a million reasons. I was like, "Well, I haven't got the funding. I haven't got the network. I don't know any of that". And I was like, no, no, this isn't, this isn't going to work. But then I remembered writing that stuff down as a 19 year old,  how I could achieve something by writing it down. So what I started to do is actually the, the power really is in the paper and the pen, because the paper and the pen is an extension of your thoughts. And so if you can bring it out of your mind, and put it onto the paper, that is number one, just like I say, to young people, your first objective in the morning is to make your bed, that is your first objective. Because if you can get out of bed, make your bed, fluff up your pillows, straighten out your quilt, then open up your curtains, then go and brush your teeth, you've already started the process of achievement. Now, you don't need to measure achievement. So well, it's you know, it's not a big achievement to make your bed. Actually, in the grand scheme of things. For a lot of these young people, it is a big achievement, because they've actually got up and opened their eyes, and they've got out of bed and you know, made the bed. So that was always my mindset like this is where drip by drip, day by day comes from is a strapline that I have within Elements that it's the small, tiny pieces, that when they're all put together, they create this bigger picture. And part of the work that I do of young people is to try and not not for them to focus on big pictures. You know, it's quite adverse to maybe what the teachers and the parents are telling them where you need to focus on your education, and you need to focus on the college and you need to focus on where you want to be in life. And that picture can almost be too big for that young person. So I am the person that goes in and says, "Forget all that. I want you to focus on brushing your teeth, I want you to focus on making your bed, I want you to focus on combing your hair, I want you to focus on saying good morning to the first person, I want you to focus on all of those small details. So that when the bigger picture comes, you'll be ready for it". Yeah, we're not here to climb mountains, we're here to start the process of climbing the mountain. So yeah, that's just to give you a bit of an idea. 

 Gill Phillips  17:41
Wow! So I'm, I'm worried that anything I say is gonna sound like a big cliche, because it's such an incredible story, Steven, and you've told it so eloquently. And I'm just picking up on so many different bits of it. I mean, the maturity of you at 19,20 compared with 19,20 year olds in my life, who've obviously had a lot more privilege and family support, and, you know, all the things that so many young people take for granted. I just think the way that you kind of checked yourself and wrote that list. And, I mean, obviously, the other thing that really jumps out to me is Dave, and you know, I think all of us need a special person in our lives and special people who probably don't realise ... I mean, it might be with Dave, that I'm sure he does realise, but he's probably doing that with so many young people day in, day out. It's what he does, not just as a job but as a human being, but the way that he's inspired you and it was things like ...I wrote down ... "I can see you're in a bit of a tight spot". And that just seemed to be ... that kind of phrase, you know, rather than judgmental. You're in hospital and you've been knifed. Or those kind of moments when someone could come in and lecture you or tell you what you need to do. And you know, they do it from the best position, but it just feels as if Dave was just like, in your shoes and saying the sorts of things that will actually help you move forward rather than just be another adult that you didn't quite trust in this system. And my goodness, what reasons not to trust, and when when you talked about the 'forever family' and like someone demanding that you call them mum, I mean, mum is such an intense relationship. You'd hope that that would grow and how much more special that would be when that child chooses it for the first time. It could be a long time later but to use that special word is not something you can just, you know, tell people to do. It doesn't mean anything.  

Steven Russell  19:47  
Absolutely. 

Gill Phillips  19:47
Wow.  

Steven Russell  19:48 
The thing is, I didn't even call my own mum, my biological mum, Mum until I was about ... until I was around that sort of age actually about seven or eight years of age because I always called my mom Biddy. And the reason I called her Biddy is because everybody else in the family called her Biddy. So Biddy apparently is an Irish sort of name for someone who cleans a lot or keeps things organized. You know, they're a Biddy. Her name is Elizabeth, but my social worker would always say you can't call her Biddy, Steven, you've got to call her mom, she's she's your mom. It's disrespectful to call her Biddy. But trying to explain that to sort of four, five, six-year-old Steven, who doesn't have any relationship with this person, called mum, was a very difficult concept for me to get my head over as that young child because a) I didn't want to call her mum. And b) I didn't know her as mom. So that it, it basically got drummed into me. And so I started to call her mum, not for my self, not for me, but because it pleased, it pleased my mom, it pleased my social worker, it pleased everybody else. You know, Gill, that throughout my entire childhood, I was always met with the adults in my life ... for the best intentions. And these were some good people as well, they weren't, I'm not saying they were horrible people, there were good people doing the best they could with what they had. That the one thing a lot of these carers, residential support social workers, foster carers that they all had in common, was there was always this subtle push behind me, for me to build a relationship with my mom, you know, come on, you know, she's, she's come this far to see you. And, you know, she hasn't had it easy, Steve, and she's had a really tough life. And, you know, there was always this. Not I wouldn't say urgency, but there was something there between me and the adults in my life that they were always kind of pushing me towards her to build this relationship. And I think I was the only person on the planet that understood my feelings that understood that, I don't want to do that. This isn't something that I want to do. If I do it, then is to please you, it's to please, everybody else apart from myself.  So that I kind of was faced with this element of shame. Like, I felt like there's a bit of shame being put onto me. Because I should be calling you mum, I should be calling her mum, I should be building a relationship with her. I should be trying to build a relationship. But it was just never within me. I mean, even till this day as a 38-year-old man, like, I only see my mum now because of the kids. And ...I haven't got any, I haven't got any grievances towards her. I don't, I don't hate her. I wish her the best. But there's no relationship there. There's no, you know, I do it for my children, because I think they need to know who their grandmother is. They have a right for that. And, and she has a right to know her grandchildren. It's not really for me, I will serve as the mid ground for that connection. So they see her sort of every couple of years, I'd imagine at the moment because, you know, she suffered a stroke a few years back. And I recently made a video actually for my mum, because I felt like she deserved some closure. Because it's only within the past sort of five to eight years that I've come to terms with her life experiences and my life experiences. And now I understand after reading care records and things, how difficult life was for her. And, you know, she was also brought up in care with her siblings, you know, she spent her childhood in care. She would tell me stories when she was younger that I was lucky to see her. Even if it was for a couple of hours. Because when she lived in the care homes, she had to earn points and stars, so she could see her mum, so she could see her parents. 

 Gill Phillips  24:03
My goodness.  

Steven Russell  24:06
She had to behave herself, basically, to have that right here.

 Gill Phillips  24:12 
As so controlling isn't that? Yeah.

Steven Russell  24:14 
Absolutely. So I would have an understanding of her world now. And what what life was like 

Gill Phillips  24:23 
Well,I saw that film, Steven, I watched that film that you've made and it's just so beautiful. And I just think it's just such a lovely thing to have done and I'm sure for her obviously, but also for you because you see people locked into, and obviously with really good reason, all these emotions and things that they can't move on from and I think I remember you saying and tell me if I got it wrong that you didn't forgive her because you've got nothing to forgive her for.  

Steven Russell  24:53 
That's correct. 

Gill Phillips  24:54  
And I think that links with what you've just said, that as you grew up yourself and became a man that you understood her life differently and how difficult it was. 

 Steven Russell  25:03
Absolutely.  

Gill Phillips  25:04 
So there's so much understanding there ... 

Steven Russell  25:06 
Absolutely. 

Gill Phillips  25:07  
... that what a cathartic, hopefully, thing to do

 Steven Russell  25:10 
Oh, without a doubt, 

 Gill Phillips  25:11 
And a lesson for for all of us.

Steven Russell  25:15 
100%. I mean, it was something that at the time when I was thinking about doing this, I didn't want to do it. I didn't feel like I wanted to do it. But I felt like I needed to do it. And I think that's the difference, isn't it between what we feel is the right thing to do. But struggling with that. But then also knowing what if you go through that pain barrier, because that was a painful thing for me to create the video and I'm sure memories come back, of being in the park with my mum and then her crying when she has to go and she knows she's not going to see me for another six months. And me trying to look at it through the eyes of five, six year old Steven and not, at that point, not really caring, not really being too upset about it. Because who is this person to call mum, you know, most of the time when she'd come over, I'd just be rude to her. And she'd bring sweets, pops, toys and things to kind of use as a bit of a way to build but I just didn't want to be with her. So it was very difficult for me to make that video because all of that emotion came flooding back. And how  she's navigated this very difficult terrain in the world. You know, if you just look at the circumstances of how I was born. My biological dad was married to my mom's sister before I was born. So I was born in 1985. They were married in 1982. They had three children together. And he just had a very toxic relationship with alcohol. And then one day came back, he would regularly beat his wife, he would regularly harm her. And then one day he comes back and gets a kitchen knife and attempts to kill her but doesn't succeed. badly injures but doesn't succeed in killing. But goes to prison for a couple of years, comes out of prison, and then gets with my mom. And then a year later I'm born. But when I've read for my care records, and I've understood the the sort of the background to what was actually going on. Nobody would have mentioned to me growing up as a child that my dad was prostituting my mom, nobody would have mentioned that. And even when my mum spoke about my dad, she said he was a loving man and he cared for her and did get angry when he was drunk. But you know, he was a loving man. He was a God-fearing man. He'd always have his shoes clean. My mum would always tell me everything good about him. She would never ever, ever tell me anything bad about him. But I had to learn through other family members care records. And when you put the pieces together, yeah, my dad was what it was. My dad's brother actually said to me "Look Steven, I didn't want to be the one to tell you this. But how do you think your dad got his flat and the car that you drove?" And I was like, "Well, he worked for it, I don't know. What do you mean? How did he get it?" And he says, "Well, your mum". And I says, "Well, my mum's never worked. My mum can't work because of her mental health and because of epilepsy and things and my mum was only 19 when she had me". And they said  "No. Your mum was earning the money for your dad". And I was I right? Okay. So all right, that makes sense. So when my dad died, my mum was by herself. But she still would have had clients so to speak, she would, she still had to pay the bills, because even though this aggressor that was, you know, harming her and you know, causing her a lot of physical harm. She still depended on him for you know, the basic food and clothes and bills to be paid, a roof over your head and things. And she's obviously got me as a newborn baby. I was four months old when my dad died. So yeah, that's my mum was having to do things that I don't think she wanted to do to put food in my belly. And to make sure the lights were on, if that makes sense. So then to lose this person, she was really on her own. I mean, she she's had epilepsy from when she was a little girl. She's had undiagnosed mental health issues. As I say she grew up in the care system. She's been abused a lot of her life. And then she's 19 years of age having me. I can't imagine what that was like for her. 

 Gill Phillips  29:57  
No, I can't.

 Steven Russell  29:58
No friendships. A lack of family, no job, no income, she can't read and write. Social services are trying to take this child of her. And then I think my mum just cracks one day because I read in one of my care records in Steelhouse Lane police station in Birmingham, "Miss Russell brings baby into the reception of the police, puts the baby on the counter, says she can f*cking keep him, walks out and gets into an unidentified male's car and drives off". And then I read further through the records and it says that there was a lot being done to try and repair the damage to try to build for a family assessment. There's a place called Appledore Family Assessment Center, something like that, where they were trying to, I suppose, get my mum to bond with me or trying to get my mum to, but it just didn't work. And then at six months, I was just removed because she was just putting herself in risky situations. So as I went into care system from six months of age, and I didn't come out of it until 18. So I've I haven't just been in the care system. I'm, I'm a literal product of you know, some young people, they go in and out. And they ...

 Gill Phillips  31:11  
Yes, yeah 

Steven Russell  31:11
I don't know anything different to the actual care system as a whole. I've lived it, I've smelt it, I've breathed it I've taken every step of the way, every fibre of my childhood was built through the care system. So I am extremely empathetic towards young people in the care system. Because of that, understanding that their story is unique to them. My stories, yeah, to me, I would never, I never have and I never would compare my experiences to theirs because everyone's is completely different. But if you just take some of the emotions that are attached, you know, uncertainty, fear, chaos, being worried, being scared not knowing where you're going, I can relate to all of that I can, I can definitely relate to all of that. And having a bunch of adults in your life that are pulling you here and pulling you there, you know, you've got a social worker, you've got a foster carer, you've got a bunch of teachers, you've got a lack nurse, you've got a mentor, you've got a counsellor, you've got CAMHS, you've got a whole bunch of adults sitting around you telling you a whole bunch of different things. And at the same time, you're still having to navigate the care system. And it is very little wonder why a vast majority of children become adults and they hit very serious mental health related issues. And for a lot of them, they do hit I don't know what the numbers are particularly for care-experienced adults in terms of suicide ideation, of the thoughts of suicide or even taking action on suicide. But I'd imagine they're quite high. I see the care system as very much of a make or break situation. I think you will either go on and you will do amazing things of your life, you may go on and have a family or career like you, you really use that experience at whatever point in your journey, but that experience hasn't sort of broken you down. You've kind of used it to galvanize you or you know, "I don't want my own children to go through that" or whatever your story is. But I think it has a very dark side to it as well. Which I don't think people speak too much about it, where your life has been pulled to and fro that many times as a child, that by the time the care systems ready to say you're a 'care leaver' and you're ready to come out of the system at 18 ... 16, 17, 18 years of age. There's that much damage that's been done to your psyche, to your mental well being that even though you've got this smile on your face, and you're like "Yeah, I'm okay leave, I'm ready to go and do my thing", there's so many broken parts inside that I guess for some of those young people, it doesn't make them, it breaks them. 

Gill Phillips  34:17 
It breaks them.  

Steven Russell  34:19 
And they then turn to the drugs, the alcohol, you know, they then turn to this this sort of miserable traumatised version of themselves where they don't even know, they don't even know people any more. They don't know who's their friend, they don't know who's there to look after them. Look out for them. They've been torn that many times. And that part breaks my heart because I think there's more of those than there are the ones that actually go on to sort of where it's made them I suppose, but I don't I don't know the numbers. That'll be an interesting piece of research at some point. I'm sure charities like Become and the Reece Foundation have probably got an idea on some of those figures. But yeah. 

Gill Phillips  35:09 
Wow. And listening to your story, Steven is just obviously so powerful, and I just want you to speak, you know, I don't want to interrupt you. But inevitably, when you hear somebody's story, as well as the story itself, little bits of it will resonate with you, you know, like, like, a knife, really. And as you mentioned the date. So you're born in 1985? 

 Steven Russell  35:37
Yeah 

Gill Phillips  35:39
I had my first child, a boy, in 1985 

Steven Russell  35:42  
Right 

Gill Phillips  35:43 
So he'd be the same age as you, more or less 

Steven Russell  35:45  
Yeah 

Gill Phillips  35:45
And it, it makes me think 

Steven Russell  35:48 
It takes you back 

Gill Phillips  35:49  
Well, more than think ...  feel, you know, like the difference in your life from that date, and to see you achieving now what you're doing, and to have that empathy for young people. And, you know, to listen to you in terms of, I think, so many things have just jumped out at me that I haven't realized in quite that way, obviously, because I haven't experienced it. We're doing this research at the moment working with Midlands Partnership, Foundation Trust, as I mentioned, trying to crowdsource some real Whose Shoes scenario about care experience children. So that will be from the point of view of the children themselves, the social workers, the system and biological parents, and I'm trying to make that real, which is impossible. But to hear things you're saying, like the bunch of adults pulling you in different directions, and all telling you their bit of reality and expectation, and you need to do this, and you need to do that. And then I'm seeing that sort of in technicolour really, alongside your emerging story of finding out who you are, and who these people around you are that you've got to call mum, multiple people that you've got to call mum. And, you know, trying to work out what's happening in your life, and who these people are around you and your biological mum, protecting your dad with all this stuff going on, which could be a good thing in terms of a child and protecting them ...  is just so complex. And to think that you've come through all that. And these various like epiphany moments you've had, where you've written things down where and continue life around to that extent, and put all of that experience back into helping youngsters now.  

Steven Russell  37:33 
100%.  

Gill Phillips  37:34  
Stephen - It's amazing! 

Steven Russell  37:35
You know, something else? I think it's worth mentioning as well, because one of the questions that I don't know whether this question's kind of lurking in the back of your mind, but one of the questions I'm often asked is, What is the difference between a child that goes through what I went through - chaos, trauma pain - and comes out and does you know quite well for themselves and become you know ... that one - versus a child that goes through the same similar experiences, and yet they come out and they go completely left? And the wheels fall off very quickly, and there's prison and there's drugs and all of that sort of stuff? And that's a very, very interesting question. It's a very deep question. And I'll try and answer it in the best way that I can. So when I did the person-centered counseling course, which I was doing for two years, with Coleshill counselling practice, one of the subjects that we spoke about was the 'self concept' and the 'organismic self'. And what the self concept is, is who we believe we are, based upon our experiences, our interactions, who's raised us, parents, all of that sort of stuff. You know, if mum and dad go to church on a Sunday, you're going to church on a Sunday. If mum and dad have Sunday dinner, you're eating Sunday dinner, all of that stuff that we don't necessarily choose as children, but because mum and dad do it, then you know, we're going to do that as well 

Gill Phillips  39:08 
... that they happen to have a special interest that will be your special interest, whether you're interested or not.  

Steven Russell  39:13 
Yeah, absolutely, all of that, whether it's religion, whatever that is ...

 Steven Russell  39:16
Or anything! 

Steven Russell  39:16 
Yeah, you haven't got a choice. That's just ... this is the address where we live. This is our community. This is what dad does, you know, all of that stuff, right? It shapes who we are, based upon what our carers are doing. So that's the self concept. It's not necessarily who you are, but it's what you're experiencing. The organismic self, on the other hand, is a very interesting part of that. There's like two intrinsic circles that overlap each other. Okay. And the organismic self is just who Gill was born to be. Yeah, it's just who you are at your essence at your core, your instinctive nature. So it doesn't matter what the self concept trying to do. There's always that, you know, when I spoke earlier about that itch inside me that wanted to ... the itch there was my organismic self just saying, "Steve, this isn't you or, you know, this isn't who you were born to be". So the self concept is who you were made to be. The organismic self is who you were born to be. 

Gill Phillips  40:18  
Right 

Steven Russell  40:18
There's a lot, I don't know, all of the mechanics, I was doing a little bit of research into it. But apparently, there's a lot that's already happening before you're born. So your DNA, your genetics, your lineage, the codes that are passed down from ancestor to ancestor to ancestor that eventually reach your code in your DNA, who you are, it's actually got not much to do with your actual mum and dad, your biological mom, dad, it's got a lot more to do with the bigger picture of the lineage of where you're coming from, you know, your grandparents, your great grandparents, your ancestors, that line of lineage has just eventually passed down to your mother and your father, who have then given it to you. So we don't actually share that much DNA just with our mothers and fathers, a lot of it comes from their predecessors. And that has to be taken into account. Because if you're asking me the question, for example, what makes you any different to someone else that's been through all of those terrible experiences? Well, partly, you do have to consider the self concept. Some of that stuff has galvanized me, you do have to actually look at some of what I think are the positives of living with so many people. There is, yeah, let's let's address the elephant in the room. If you have a child that has lived with 10 families, and two care homes, and has been to five different schools, that child has been privy and exposed to multiple amounts of characters, personalities, cultures, ways of living, ways of ... massive amounts of exposure, and that all imprints, so I am almost coded to be around multiple amounts of different people. Some people even said I'm a little bit like a chameleon, because I can just blend into pretty much any environment because that's what I was doing. As a child, I was conditioned to be that way. So there is the sort of concept, but the big one that I really want to focus on is the organismic self, who Steven was born to be. So whether Steven had been through hardship, or whether Steven had lived in Japan, as a child,  wherever you would  have placed me ... when you were born, Gill, we could have taken you as a baby, we could have flown you over to Japan. All right. And let's say your new carers in Japan were loving, nurturing people. Absolutely the most beautiful people you could find. And they raised you in their home. When you get to 25 years of age, let's say you'd never left Japan, right. 

 Gill Phillips  42:57
Okay. I'm there! 

Steven Russell  42:58 
And then you would speak Japanese, you would eat Japanese, your culture would be Japanese, you would have went to a Japanese school, everything about Gill would have been Japanese. Now, when you look in the mirror, you might ask the question, well, I don't really look like my fellow Japanese people in my family. But nevertheless, you would have still felt as though you were a Japanese person. Cos that's all you would have ever known. You would have known what England looks like, here's the point of the  organismic self, it wouldn't have mattered where in the world you went right? Whether Brazil, Africa, it doesn't matter, your core, your spirit, your essence, your being would not have changed, would not have changed, who you were born to be, would have remained the same. So that would be an interesting thing to have 25 year old version of Gill from Japan, a 25 year old version ogf Gill as as you were raised now, as you were when you were 25, put them together, and then see the difference. Now you might even see some physical differences, just because of climate and different parts of the world where you live. I'm not saying you would look oriental or look Japanese. But there would be a slight difference. I'd imagine. In height, weight, hair, skin, all of that might have changed a little bit.  

Gill Phillips  44:13
Yeah 

Steven Russell  44:14  
But your essence, Gill, who you are, your spirit, your core that would have been exactly the same, because that's your inside. That's your ... 

Gill Phillips  44:22 
I agree. Totally.  

Steven Russell  44:24
The Spirit doesn't know about balance, the Spirit is the Spirit. So to answer that question in a very, very long way, I was always destined to become who I am. And it is unfortunate that for some children in the care system, if you just want to use that as a singularity and just focus on children and care. There are a group of children in the care system today that are destined to go to prison, that are destined to be on drugs, that are destined to have seven children that they don't necessarily know, that they are destined ... And I know that sounds like a very morbid way of looking at it, because it is a morbid way of looking at it. But that is the destiny that is the roots. I don't know why that is totally because of what might have been going on DNA structures, genetics, self concepts, organismic self gets thrown in there. But if you look at their life path, and you look at the life path now of say, young people that are either in prison or have got care experienced or that are on drugs, or that you know, they are, they're not living the life, that we would want for them, and track them back to when they was in their early childhood. The wheels were already in motion for them to end up where they are. Now, that's not to say we give up. I'm not I'm not suggesting that I don't go and work with Dylan, I don't support him. But I would be a fool to think that you or I, or school or education or anything is going to prevent some of these things from happening. Right? Do people actually believe that we live in this world where we can just stop all children and young people from falling off the edge of the cliff and getting involved in gangs and, and drugs and alcohol and all of these things? We know it's inevitably bad. We know that it it's not good for them to walk around with knives and things. But there's only so much that we can do as Dave recognized with me. I had to become accountable to me. And Dave was the first person that really stuck with me. And I mean, stuck with me, because I pushed him back so many times. I don't think there's another mentor on the planet that could exceed Dave's level of energy with me. I really don't. I really don't. Because one, he certainly wasn't being paid to do it, too. Definitely wasn't his job. It was out of his remit. And he could have walked away at any points at any any time, "Steven, I'm sorry, I wish you all the best. But I'm not here to be spoken to like that. I've tried to give you out of my kindness, my own heart". He could have done that he could have done that. But he never. He chose not to. He chose to stay. And that makes me think to myself, well, there's a tipping point isn't there?  

Gill Phillips  47:23  
Yeah.  

Steven Russell  47:23 
That even the Daves of the world at their highest calibre of mentoring gets to a tipping point that says Steven, Dillan, Lacey ...at what point do you become accountable to you? At what point do you take on board all of this stuff, and say, "This is my time, this is my time to look in the mirror, and know that it's just me and that mirror? There's nothing, there's no social workers, there's no magic, it's just me and you". And yeah, obviously, you have to take into account, there are some sort of conditions, whether that's a disability or neurodivergency conditions where, you know, they might not be able to even do that. But I'm talking more towards the young people that have that level of competence. That level of competence between "this is good for me, and this is bad for me. This is going to help me achieve and succeed. And this is going to take me 20 steps backwards", that level of competency, where they have an understanding, is the ones that I'd be more talking about, because I do understand that there are certain physical disabilities, mental learning difficulties that ... for they would watch this and say, "Well, Steven, I totally disagree. Because even if I wanted to have that mindset, there's so much stacked up against me". And I think that's when you'd have to look uniquely, individually at that young person, and try and meet their needs as best you can. But I think it's more of the majority, it's the young people that know ... you don't have to smoke that split. If you don't want to you, don't have to drink. You don't have to go around that gang if you didn't want to, you could speak to someone about moving out of area or you know, there's things that could happen. But yeah, it's it's a deep one, isn't it? And I think fundamentally, there are no right and wrong answers. There are just answers that you work out for yourself whether they were right or wrong. And we kind of have that wisdom to look back behind us and say yeah, I did make a bunch of wrong decisions. However, it's also the wrong decisions that got me to where I am today as well. You know, if my dad hadn't attempted to kill his wife, he wouldn't have gone to prison. He wouldn't have come out of prison got mum and had me.

Gill Phillips  49:58
Yes 

Steven Russell  50:00 
I made I made a very big mistake when I was 18 years of age. And I planned to steal about seven pallets while I was working in a company, and me and the forklift truck driver guy. We arranged it for weeks. And basically it was a simple job. I was just going to put these pallets with the forklift truck onto the back of his van, he was going to drive them down to London, the pallets were worth about £15,000 each, and he was just going to sell them for £5000, the person in London saves £10,000. And we've made ourselves a couple of ... you know, about 10, 20,000 each and got caught, got caught. Didn't get caught putting the pallets on. But when my team manager ... my manager came in, he says, "What are you doing? And so early?" I never had an answer for him. He says we're not paying you overtime, and I didn't have an answer for him. He's like, "What are you doing with those?" So they knew what was going on but couldn't actually ...  Like I said to him as a joke, "I drove a Vauxhall Corsa. Do you honestly think I'm gonna get those pallets in the back? So it was a bit of a ... you hand your notice in and we'll call it a day, basically, otherwise it would have been an investigation, so I didn't want that. So I left. The reason I'm telling you that Gill is because when I left that company, I went to work at DHL, the delivery company.  

Gill Phillips  51:31 
Right 

Steven Russell  51:31 
 And at DHL is where I met the mother of my children. 

Gill Phillips  51:37 
Wow. So if you hadn't had to leave ... all these sliding doors moments, isn't it? 

Steven Russell  51:41  
Sliding doors moments. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, there's a bunch of things that I regret. I'm not proud of. I condemn it myself. I wouldn't do it again. But I'm not a fool to not realize the fact that if those things hadn't happened, then I don't get to look into my children's eyes. 

Gill Phillips  52:03 
Yes,

Steven Russell  52:04 
You know, if I hadn't been done that ... 

Gill Phillips  52:07 
Extraordinary 

Steven Russell  52:08 
I don't know whether I'd have stayed there or moved. But at that point in time, I wouldn't have needed to go to DHL, which means I would never have met Lorna, which means I would never have had the children. It's just very interesting how life has this way of teaching us that. I think it's just a way that you know, what can you learn from the bad stuff like, you know, you've made the wrong decision. But how can you turn that into something into something positive, I guess. But if you look across the landscape, anywhere, whether it's World War, one and two, whether it's slavery, whether all of these bad things that have happened in history have inevitably led us to where we are today, they've shaped the climate of where we are today. So we know that World War One and Two was bad. We know that slavery was bad. We know all of these things were inhumane and should never have happened, however, should they have never happened? Because if you could wish them away today and say, right, I wish that World War One and Two never happened. I wish that slavery was never ... then me and you you don't sit here today having this conversation. 

Gill Phillips  53:10 
Yeah, everything builds, doesn't it and shapes the future. 

Steven Russell  53:14 
I don't even know whether you and I exist, if some of those things never happened. Life is very finely balanced. And I think it's something we have to accept. You know, I look at the horrific things that are happening in Ukraine and Palestine and all of those things, and as horrific as it is, and I decided not to watch the news anymore, because it's just it's, it's too much to watch. Like, it's really it's too much dampening on the soul. You know, as horrific as those things are, in 50 years time from now, wherever we get to in 50 years time, I think you'll have a bunch of people that will look back and say, "Well, that was necessary for this to happen". 

Gill Phillips  54:00 
Yeah. And even just as you're speaking there, my mum, who was married to my dad for 60 years, her first fiance was shot down in the war, a month before she was due to get married.  

Steven Russell  54:13 
Right.  

Gill Phillips  54:13  
She clearly absolutely adored here. And that emerged during my childhood as something that was a story that was you know, very much part of her. But and then I think like you that if that hadn't happened, who would I be? Would I be here today? I certainly wouldn't be the Gillthat could have gone to Japan that I talked about earlier, you know? 

Steven Russell  54:33
Absolutely Absolutely. So it's that it's that acceptance, isn't it? It's the acceptance of ... I might not agree with it. I might not have liked it. I could have wanted it to be different maybe but it's the, it's the domino effect of life. Isn't it nice that one knocks the other and before you know it, you're born and we're here and you know, our decisions then shape what happens next, you know the next chapter. Tomorrow next week. Next next year and all of that, and we're always on this continuum aren't we, of life and even doing this podcast as well, you know, if someone might listen to this podcast and it impacts them in quite a profound way where you mentioned before that there's a certain trigger point isn't there when we get ... 

Gill Phillips  55:16 
Very personal 

Steven Russell  55:17 
Very personal, yeah, and the powerful thing about stories, the powerful thing about ... and it's always been around the campfires, from the Neanderthals to the homo sapiens, even to the humans. It's just something that's never even till this day, is that when you hear someone tell a story, and you listen to the words, and you listen to the emotion of the story, you can't help as a human being but link it to some part of you. You're always looking for ... 

Gill Phillips  55:44 
It's instant, isn't it? Instant. 

Steven Russell  55:46  
Yeah, absolutely. So you appreciate the story. You enjoy the story 

Gill Phillips  55:50  
That little bit, just grabs you.  

Steven Russell  55:53 
Yeah, but every every human story, every single human story on the planet will relate to you in some way. Because you are also a part of the human journey. And it's almost like, every human story is your story as well. Because you're part of that evolution of people. And it doesn't matter what the story is about. I mean, it could be about something quite absurd. It could be something, you know, that's quite dark. It could be an exciting story, it could be an adventure, but I think we always take pieces of it. Oh, my God, that, you know ... just like you were able to relate a bit of my story in 1985, when your son was born as well  

Gill Phillips  56:36 
Yeah, instantly, as I say 

Steven Russell  56:38 
Powerful, very powerful.

Gill Phillips  56:40  
Well, okay, so this is, this has been absolutely extraordinary. I didn't know what to expect. I'm so so grateful to you, Steven, for telling your story in that way. And I'm sure it will reach so many people. And I think for people to understand just something about being a child in care, having that experience is just gold in itself. So thank you so much. And I hope that a lot of people who work or come across children in this space, and for me, that might be a GP or someone in an outside of the care system, or the social work, you know, all of us in our lives will come across people who've been in different situations. And I think hearing your story is just brilliant, and very generous of you to share it in that way. It might be Steven, that you want to come back another time on the podcast. And we can make a Part 2, with you talking about how you flipped that around and what you're doing now, because I think you've underplayed yourself in terms of you being the Dave now for so many other young people. And I wanted to talk about education and how it doesn't have to be just the treadmill of academic qualifications and some of the things that I've learned just by sort of talking to you a little bit, researching your story. So should we do a Part 2? 

Steven Russell  58:00  
definitely do a Part 2? Absolutely. I'm in the midst of writing a new article. And it's called, "I'm just a teacher". Because one of the things that I'm I'm really soaking up at the moment Gill across multiple amounts of school that I'm in working with students, young people, is the ever growing and increased pressure that teachers are facing now at quite an unprecedented rate. So with the articles that I write, I've wrote two so far. That had been more for the educational sector. The first one I wrote was how to build stronger connections with your students. The second one I wrote, which was quite good was the absence, what am I walking into, and looking at absenteeism and why children are not coming into school and what those children are and things like that. And then this one's called, "I'm just a teacher". And yeah, I usually try and hit it with three approaches, all of the articles. The first approach is obviously my professional side. And just being in schools, things that I hear things that I see, the emotion that I pick up in the school conversations that I've had with teachers. The second part is like DFE latest statistics. Like, for example, 40,000, teachers left the profession between 2022 and 2023, across the UK, and only 4000 of those 40,000 were due to retirement. So you think "Well, what  did the other 36,000 leave for?" And there's a lot of reasons for that: pressures, behaviours, lucrative opportunities in different career paths and things like that. And then the third way that I approach it is from a personal perspective of how little Steven navigated the education system and how some of those things still remain in place today. And now I just want to be able to give like tips and ideas and strategies on how a you can look after yourself as a teacher. But I'm very clear on the fact that I've never been a teacher. And I don't know what it's like to be a teacher. But I've definitely been in and around schools for quite some time. And I've listened to hundreds of teachers, testimonies and stories of what what it's like to be a teacher. So yeah, I'm quite excited about this article. So yeah, once that's done, I'll let you know about it. But I've also got my first book coming out in October. So stay tuned for that as well. 

Gill Phillips  1:00:35 
Wow. So if there are any links, Steven that you want to include in the notes for this podcast, we can put them in? Yeah. Because I think that helps people know who you are, know about Elements that we haven't even talked about - Steven's fantastic company that you've set up. So we can link to that in the notes. I'd ask people also to listen to what's actually been rather randomly the most popular podcast in the series, which is the only one that doesn't talk about health care. And it's a wonderful progressive head teacher up in the North East called Rachel Tomlinson, who runs a primary school that's got no sanctions and no rewards. And I think little Steven might have quite enjoyed going there 

Steven Russell  1:01:17
Oooh, wow, that's interesting. Yeah. Is she on LinkedIn by any chance? 

Gill Phillips  1:01:20 
She's on LinkedIn. And she's a podcast guest that I say has had a ridiculous number of downloads, as I'm sure that this one will, if it, you know, catches the right audience, and to link those two. So much of my work is around connections. And I think to make those links, or perhaps put a link to Rachel's podcast as well in this one, because there's, there's so much synergy. And I think, when we do get the chance to talk again, Steven, and I think, to talk about some of the synergy, you know, the 'Find your why', and the kind of things that ... looking at things from different perspectives, and so on. I think there's just so much still to talk about that links, you know, the tremendous work that you're doing with what we're trying to do through Whose Shoes and the podcast and so on.  

Steven Russell  1:02:04 
Absolutely.  

Steven Russell  1:02:05 
So, wow! 

Steven Russell  1:02:06  
We might need to do a Part 3, Gill!

 Gill Phillips  1:02:10  
(laughs) I think a Part 3 is looming. 

Steven Russell  1:02:15 
We might need to do a Part 3. Yeah. 

Gill Phillips  1:02:17  
Okay. And that's how stories evolve, which is perfect. Thank you so much. 

 Steven Russell  1:02:23  
No, thank you. Thank you for having me.