Radiate network

Today has been a big day for me. 24 hours ago I was having a massive panic attack and feeling so anxious and stressed that I was doubting the progress I've made over the last 5 months. I felt like I was back at square one. My psychiatrist as calm and pragmatic as ever, said that I was making lots of progress and helped me focus on the real evidence of positive change. He has cut my medication slightly, but signed me off work for 3 weeks whilst I complete my community mental health recovery course and start seeing a therapist / counsellor. He was quite clear though that I should go to the launch of Radiate when I told him about it. Even though I told him I felt very nervous about gong to the launch even in an "unofficial / social" capacity. He persuaded me that such a group would be very beneficial for me.

I'm so pleased I took his advice and went to the launch. Radiate is one of RADAR's latest projects linked to the Doing Seniority Differently research report and recommendations that RADAR also launched today. I'll write more about Doing Seniority Differently later, the report is well worth a read - there's an executive summary and an easy read version as well as the full report on the link above.

Radiate is a network of senior managers who also happen to have a long term health condition or disability. It's still in an early stage and tonight volunteers were sought for an advisory panel for the network. But the early aims of the network are to share best practice amongst and raise awareness of disabled people in senior management roles. Lloyds TSB are supporting this whole venture and the network launched included managers from many different sectors including banks, government departments, IT, construction industry, corporate and 3rd sector as well as disability equality.

The launch was well attended and just the right amount of people so I got the chance to talk to most people. There was a mixture of interesting speakers, Baroness Jane Campbell, Phil Friend, Liz Sayce (who read out a message of support from David Blunkett) James Wates, and Helen Waygood and networking time.

I found the whole evening (only 2 hours long, and over by 8:30) very inspiring I also managed to catch up with some former colleagues and met some very inspiring and interesting people. I spoke to a couple of people with bi-polar which was incredibly reassuring, inspiring and emotional for me.

It took a lot of energy for me to go tonight, and I now feel exhausted but also am finding it hard to sleep. I'm hoping that writing this will help me sort things through in my head and then sleep well. I have my mental health recovery course tomorrow and we only have a week to go until I read my final piece of writing.

Tomorrow I'll write in more detail about the actual report and some of the subjects raised at the launch event.

Inclusive local election event for London

On behalf of: Inclusion London

What to do the elections mean for you?

Election Event
Tuesday, 20 April 10.00am to 1.00pm
Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury – Coram Street
For Deaf and Disabled Londoners

Speakers include:
Adrian Berrill Cox Conservative candidate Islington North
Catharine Arakelian Labour candidate Chingford
James Sandbach Liberal Democrat candidate Putney
Joseph Healy Green candidate Vauxhall

Plus senior councillors and leading politicians of different parties from across London

What's it all about?

In the next few weeks there will be a general election and local elections for Londoners.

This is your chance to find out more about what candidates from different parties think about important issues for Deaf and Disabled Londoners.

You will also be able to put your questions to candidates.

BSL interpreters, induction loop and speech to text transcription provided

For more information contact Jeni Price
inclusionlondonelectionevent@gmail.com Telephone 01273 251 667 orText messages only 07837 802 788

Places are limited. Please complete and return your booking form before Friday 9 April.

Normal service resumes

In case anyone was worried that my blog was becoming dominated with big, life changing decisions, I'd just like to assure you that I'm still taking photos of food I've cooked!


As requested by @EG75 on twitter, so here is a picture of my special cottage pie! It's special because it has cherry tomatoes in it as well as the usual onions, beef mince and carrot. I also put in fresh thyme, some mixed spice and Worcester sauce. The mash is with out cheese because Jase doesn't like cooked cheese and I shouldn't really have it, but the cheese really goes well with the addition of cherry tomatoes.

I have to thank my lovely friend Urzula for inspiring me to cook this cottage pie; when we had coffee yesterday she told me she had made a shpherds pie for the first time the other night. Urszula is Polish, she saya that in Poland they have similar dishes but nothing just like a shepherds pie, so it was something new for her to cook. It made me realise that I take the humble shepherds and cottage pie very much for granted so I really wanted to make one. It is one of my brother's favourite meals, shepherd's pie and my Mum would always cook it as a treat for us. In fact for a while when my brother wouldn't eat onions (he said they were worms - I'd like to say this was last year but no it was when he was about 7) my Mum would make him his own separate shepherd's pie!

So the humble cottage and shepherds pie we salute you!

My new venture

I've been getting a few questions on Twitter and Facebook about my new venture, what exactly am I doing and why is it called Hare Onna. My new twitter account is @HareOnnaDiverse. Well soon I hope to be able to sign post everyone to my website, but at the moment it is under construction. I'm slaving away for the web master Jason :-) Actually Jason is being very generous with his web master abilities and I am just working on content for the web site and later today I am going to sketch a design for how I want it to eventually look. At the moment it is very basic, just allowing me to add content in a fairly ordered way.

I tested the website this morning though with my Mac's screen reader, Alex. (Screen readers do exactly that: they read out what's on the screen to visually impaired people - I tend to only use one if I've got to trawl through lots of reading.) I was really pleased because Alex worked fine which is a good start. I now have to try it with some other screen readers and different web browsers.

So what is all this about? Well I've worked for the last 10 years in disability and broader equality rights. I've worked for central and local government, for large and small organisations within the 3rd sector, organisations dedicated to advancing rights and most recently in the health sector specialising in all areas of equality and diversity. I've delivered training to public and private organisations, carried out research, organised events for the European Year of Disabled People including conferences, exhibitions, arts and rights festivals. I've project managed the drafting of Codes of Practice that support rights legislation, I've drafted guidance about that legislation, and I have implemented strategies and processes which have taken an organisation from "thinking about equality and diversity legislation and how it affects them" to being an example of best practice in their field!

I thought I'd use that experience and expertise to help as many people and organisations as possible. I'll be offering advice, training, project management and online tools to organisations who want to make the most of their diverse customers, and work force as well as meeting their obligations under UK equality legislation. I also hope to set up a mechanism to support other colleagues working in the field, a space to share resources and expertise but that's phase 2 of the project! This weekend I'll set out a proper business plan for all of this - heaven know's I've written enough business plans in my time!

So why Hare Onna - well here is a draft of what is on my prototype website at the moment:

"In Japanese "hareonna" means "A woman who brings good weather." Hare Onna was used to describe me after my second visit to Japan in 2009 when I arrived just after a typhoon, bringing with me 18 days of gorgeous autumn weather.

I can't promise to make the sun shine or the rain stop but through my advice, training, and online resources I can bring positive change to many organisations. With my accessible, creative and commonsense approach I can help others advance equality and diversity in a meaningful and rewarding way. A Hare Onna for the 21st Century!"

At the moment I'm still working part time at the Nursing and Midwifery Council so only working on background stuff until I leave later this spring. So I'm starting with posting equality info on my twitter account and blogging. My website will have a blog but for now I'll use here.

So I hope this goes some way of explaining what I am going to be up to later this summer. I'll keep you all posted!

The future

After the excitement of my big decision to resign from my job last week I felt quite exhausted earlier this week, but not unhappy and still very relieved. Now things are getting quite exciting for me.

I have nearly completed my "mad writing course" aka the mental health education recovery course, Telling My Story. In two weeks time I should be reading out a piece of writing about "my story" at the final session of the course. I will then post my piece of writing on here for everyone to read, and hopefully enjoy. I have already started my final piece and I have a theme and rough structure for the piece, which is a good start. I have to thank Starbucks for their superb coffee, great views of London and in particular Wimbledon, for giving me the space to write! I was really stuck until last Friday when I spent a couple of hours writing in Starbucks whilst a rain soaked world rushed past.

I'm also making progress with developing a new website with the expert help of Jase. This is for when I go freelance but I want the site to be more than just an advert and cv for me. I'll keep you informed of developments when they are nearer completion but I have a name for my "company" I thought Natalie Salmon Consulting was a bit dull, and I have acquired the domain names for my website with Jase's expert help and support. All very exciting just watch this space!

On resigning from my job

Yes, a lot has happened in the 10 days since I wrote on my blog last! For most of that time I just didn't feel like writing. I made a big decision on Tuesday this week to resign from my current job. I don't have anything lined up job wise and I'm keeping an open mind about maybe working freelance, or looking for something else permanent or working as a temp for a while. One thing is for certain and that is I'll be working part time and I'm going to take some time off after working my notice before launching into anything new.

I'm extremely lucky to have someone as supportive and sensible as Jason in my life who helped and encouraged me to make this decision and has made it possible for me to take this bold move. I'm very excited about the future, something which I haven't been for such a long time. The last time I felt this excited was... well I don't know... nothing has been quite as perfect for me as now.

When I look back at the important decisions I've made in my life I have usually chosen the cautious option, the one I'm most familiar with or I have been forced to take the option which offered me the best financial reward but not the most happiness.

I think I've often taken the cautious but ambitious route with work because I'm fundamentally concerned about how being partially sighted will affect me in work. I chose teaching because I knew how a school worked, I knew what the physical environment would be like. But I was terrified of working in a supermarket when I was 17 because I didn't know how my visual impairment would affect me in that unknown environment, so although I'd got through the interview I turned down the job. Heaven forbid that I'd have to ask for help! In the last 10 years since leaving teaching, I've stuck with jobs in the public sector because I know there is more chance of a public sector employer employing a disabled person. I've then put tremendous pressure on myself to achieve, to be the best, and not be defined by my disability. It's lead to me taking stressful jobs and making them more stressful. The exception to this was working at the Disability Rights Commission, it is such a shame it closed down in so many ways.

For the first time in my life I have made a decision which is not cautious and which will make me feel content and the feeling is totally liberating. I can recommend it!

spring

A picture I took last spring

It doesn't feel very spring like at the moment but BBC2 is running a tv programme every day this week called "Lambing Live." Following the lambing on a Welsh sheep farm. It's wonderful watching the lambs being born and the older lambs gamboling in the field. I just wish the weather would keep up with the TV schedule and warm up a bit! Saying that our local blackbirds have started really singing in the morning and evening which really cheers me up.

Caunton Beck

I'm up in Doncaster again at the moment visiting my parents. Tomorrow we are going to visit my brother and my nieces and nephew. Today we went to a pub in Nottinghamshire called Caunton Beck. We had a lovely meal there. Although the pub is a "dining pub" it was fairly traditional inside, I liked the fact that it had books in the windowsills, pictured above.

We all had a lovely vegetable and bean soup for starter which was delicious and then I had the chili with salad whilst my parents both had portobello mushroom with Italian cheeses with vegetable.

Instead of a pudding I had a coffee with fudge, mints and chocolates. I didn't actually have the chocolates, Mum and Dad did as I am not having any chocolate until my birthday which happens to fall on Easter Sunday, so I'm saving my chocolate intake for Easter Eggs!
Below is a picture of my Mum and Dad after enjoying their meal.

Here is a photo of me looking rosy cheeked and plump.
Afterward we wanted to go to Hodsock Priory to see the snowdrops, which apparently the place is famed for this time of year, but it was closed due to a private function. Hope the people at the function enjoyed the snow drops!

a dogs life

I forgot that I had taken this picture of a sleepy Millie the chocolate labrador when I was last at my parents. I took it on my mobile so its not brilliant quality but I think it sums up the lazy life of "indulged dog." She has her own soft fleece which my Dad places on her own chair in the living room. That chair used to be my brother's when we were all at home nearly 20 years ago.

I wish I could be as effortlessly relaxed as Millie is!

I did have a relaxing weekend though, which is good as I have a busy week ahead with a tweet up on Tuesday, coffee and lunch on Thursday with writing group people, and on Saturday I'm having a night out of cabaret, dinner, and after show party!

PS a tweet up is when people who tweet with each other on twitter meet up in real life.

The media - my nightmare experience

My last blog entry about the way the media manipulates the news stories on any given day to make them more "interesting," "shocking" or down right frightening lead to a lot of comments here and on Facebook. I feel it is only fair to state my interest in this area.

About 14 years ago I experienced first hand the duplicit, manipulative and destructive nature of how news is produced in this country. I got cought up in one of those all too common media frenzies or cricuses. I'd love to say I was some minor celeb or one hit wonder pop sensation. But no, at age of 22 I just happened to be teaching English and Drama at a school in Halifax which the Sun in it's own inevitable style dubbed "The School from Hell." The school in fact was like many other failing comprehensive schools in England at the time, except at this school the media got involved.

Anyone too young, or had a life back in 1996 and so missed the Ridings "scandal" here is a link to a bbc news piece which touches on it.

Yes the school had problems, it was a newly merged school in an incredibly deprived part of the country. I went there as a newly qualified teacher wanting to make a real difference for the children. What I experienced there was life changing but it wasn't the children's behaviour or the reaction of my colleagues around me who were breaking down in various ways. It was the media intrusion which has caused me the most problems over the years.

Forget the underhand shenanigans of tabloid journos paying kids a fiver or a tenner or a packet of ciggies, to tell them exsagerated tales of debauchery and thuggery - that was bad but I wasn't naive enough not to know that kind of thing went on. It wasn't being chased down the street by cameras being asked for comments or being phoned at the weekend by journalists. I was a rare commodity, a young female teacher at the school, and blond to boot. Nor was it when every front page in the country ran with the story that a young female teacher, me, at the school had had her "bottom pinched" by a student. I knew the union were likely to leak that to the press, I'd said," ok whatever needs to be done" to it.

No, all of that I was prepared for the minute the media got involved. No for me the part I still can't quite come to terms with was the utter contempt for me and the children I taught, that the BBC showed when they filmed me in secret, teaching and then broadcast it on the news as well as Panorama.

They got access to my classroom by paying an elderly gentleman to use his flat because his living room had a perfect view into my classroom, the only class room in the whole school that had not got any proper curtains or blinds. I taught drama in my classroom as well as English and the day they filmed I was teaching, drama, English and also looking after my form group during break and lunch time because we weren't letting the kids out to play because of the worlds press camped on our doorstep (My great aunt in Perth Australia got to follow the story too.)

The BBC then edited the filming of drama lessons, lunch and break time socialising and one English lesson into one short piece that made it look as if all this "mayhem" was going on all at once. It looked like I let children eat at their desks during lessons, jump around and pull faces at one another. Not good in lessons but fine at lunch time! No faces were pixelated out to protect the children or me. I was warned that the filming had happened on the Monday morning that Panorama was due to go out and advised by the union not to talk to anyone in the media.

Seeing myself on Panorama was bad enough, after showing the edited hatchet job on me they cut to Chris Woodhead then Ofsted chief who said "There is clearly some poor teaching going on at the school." Clearly inferring that I was delivering some of this poor teaching.

Then to my shock my image was brandished across the 6 O'clock and 9 O'clock news. Again as evidence of poor teaching!

I felt humiliated, violated and utterly defenseless. I also felt such shame I felt as though I had let everyone down, even though I was helpless in the situation. Some of the children shown in the footage lost their Saturday jobs for being associated with the school and the filming. Another lad received a beating from his Dad just for getting on the telly, even though he wasn't doing anything bad at all in the footage. I didn't need to have anyone give me a beating, the BBC has done that and I just added to it myself with feelings of worthlessness I had evidence now in film.

My confidence and self esteem plummeted and the aftermath of the media interest in the school lead to things getting worse before they got better. Local trouble makers and bored ex-pupils were attracted to the place once the media left, and targeted the Ridings. A lot of local anger was aimed at the school.

So I had to deal with more challenging situations because of the media legacy whilst having lost just about all of my sanity because of the way the media had exploited me to gain some good footage for a short slot on their TV schedule.

So I have an interest in the way the news is made and reported and I never believe what I see or hear. Nothing is ever as it seems.