I am delighted to be releasing this episode of Taking Action for a number of reasons.

First, and most importantly, it features two really committed and passionate people in Gwenne and Jennie, who have an excellent project to talk about.

Secondly, it highlights work in health, which is an area that I haven't featured enough in the series.

Thirdly, it touches on a lot of themes that have been developing across this series. Their work recognises that childhood trauma may have long-lasting effects on self-regulation, mood and behaviour and can increase the likelihood of developing adult mental and physical health conditions. This growing awareness has led to mental health services becoming necessarily more trauma informed. This is reflected in a paradigm shift in nursing education, which is moving from a diagnostic model of trauma care to a psychological, trauma-informed approach. The emphasis is on what has happened to the person instead of what is wrong with the person.

The University of Stirling developed a new undergraduate nursing curriculum based on the six principles of trauma- informed care published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This has led to the development of the (T)AASKED model, the aim of which is to equip nursing students with the skills and knowledge to work in a trauma-informed framework and to improve the experience of mental health service users. Jennie was central to the initial development of this work and Gwenne is currently taking it forward.

• Here is a super video about this work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhMgzKjRvxs
• The Stirling Programme is featured in the ACEs Journey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hik0_sfbF6I
• It is featured also in the booklet: https://connectedbaby.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ACEs-Journey-book-screen-190625.pdf
• AND it features in the academic paper Suzanne Zeedyk wrote on Scotland’s ACEs Movement, published in 2023. In fact, the paper ends with a quote from Brodie Paterson, whom Jennie mentions in the podcast as one of the team who developed the Stirling Programme. https://connectedbaby.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ACEs-Journey-Article-.pdf

Angus Bell's story is remarkable. His experience of attending a well known boarding school in Scotland is utterly horrific, but Angus has certainly taken action. He took legal action against the school that he attended and won a significant settlement from them. He gave testimony to the Scottish Child Abuse Enquiry. Both of these actions took considerable courage. They meant confronting his own awful experience and the damage that it had done to him. They also meant taking on very powerful forces, which we can legitimately talk about as "the Establishment" in Scottish society. He has been prepared to be public about all that has happened to him and to engage with the media and with the police.

To his considerable credit he has not done all of this not in a spirit of retribution or revenge, but in a genuine effort to ensure that what happened to him will not happen to others. He is always positive and determined to discuss what can be done to improve the situation for young people in boarding schools now and in the future

He has also taken action to overcome his own trauma and talks interestingly and informatively about how he has done that, This is only one of the ways in which Angus's interview resonates far beyond the world of boarding schools. He is very aware that many of those who attended boarding school are not casualties as he was, but are damaged by the experience nonetheless. They still occupy a disproportionate number of key positions in our society and the damage that they carry is then transferred to wider society.

He is also describing bullying and the abuse of power which too many young people experience in other contexts, so this is an episode which has much for all of us to reflect on and learn from, regardless of our background.

Angus highlights the work of Seen & Heard https://seenheard.org.uk/ who have been a huge help to him and that of the Edinburgh Academy Survivors group https://easurvivors.info/

Angus is interested in sharing his experience and ideas more widely and can be contacted at angusjjbell@gmail.com

Upstart Scotland - https://upstart.scot/ - is a remarkable organisation. Here's the link to a very old video by way of introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMaxhELpG7I. It takes a special campaign to bring together academics, writers, educationalists, forest schoolers and police, but Upstart does that and more It has engaged parents and politicians and built partnerships to attempt to establish a Kindergarten stage and a later start to formal education in Scotland. What it hasn't managed to do is to make that change a reality and we hope that listeners will go online and sign their petition to the Scottish Parliament. You can hear Willie talk about that in the podcast.

What Willie also manages to do is to place the campaign in context. It is not simply about a structural change in education. It is about building resilience and agency in our children. It recognises the pace of change in our wider society which Willie likens to a speeding bullet train while change in education barely keeps pace with Stephenson's Rocket, which, as almost everyone will know, is an original train with no resemblance to a rocket. It recognises the loss of childhood, the mental health crisis and more. It is a wide-ranging discussion and an important one for all of us.