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Ben Lindsay: We always have a check in before we get into the
tasks, we ask the question how you doing? What's the emotional
measurements of how you are feeling in your job as well?
When you get an opportunity to build your own culture these are
some of the important things.
Zoe Amar: Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the Top,
our podcast about leadership, digital, and change. I'm Zoe
Paul Thomas: And I'm Paul Thomas. Our podcast is all about
Amar.
leadership, it brings you interviews with leaders who we
believe are driving positive change in the world.
Zoe Amar: Change comes in many forms and we're equally
interested in speaking to leaders who are making
incremental change and shifting the dial within their
organisations as we are speaking about huge systemic changes that
impact the world of work. The driving force of this podcast is
to share these stories across sectors and industries so that
we can all learn from each other.
Paul Thomas: Today we're sharing the first episode of two with a
focus on mental health. This week, we're sharing our
conversation with Ben Lindsey OBE, founder of Power The Fight,
an award winning charity, which tackles violence affecting young
people. Ben shares his thoughts on how his team builds and
sustains resilience and mental strength to cope with the
challenges they face on a daily basis. It's a fantastic
conversation, and Ben is an inspiration. So we hope you
enjoy that one.
Zoe Amar: Our next episode will be our interview with Sarah
Hughes of Mind. And that was also a wonderfully insightful
and thoughtful conversation about the work that Mind does
shining a light on the challenges surrounding mental
health in the UK.
Paul Thomas: So given the topic of mental health this week, Zoe
and I thought we would share a few personal and honest thoughts
on our own mental well being challenges. And the next time
out maybe some thoughts on coping mechanisms and how we,
how we try to stay mentally healthy. So let me start by
asking you, Zoe, how are ya?
Zoe Amar: I'm okay I've had a bit of a overwhelming day, just
with a number of power cuts in this area, and then also, and
then also just the weather and that sort of thing. But yeah,
I'm not too bad. How about you?
Paul Thomas: Yeah, not too bad, not too bad. And it's that sort
of thing? Isn't it that completely disrupt your your day
throw you off your your path. And I guess in this sort of busy
climate, that's one of the things that we all struggle with
is time and if time gets disrupted, especially during the
working day, then that can, that can throw all kinds of spanners
into the works. What do you do? What do you make of time
pressures?
Zoe Amar: I think that's one of the things that can have a real
impact on mental health can't it, you and I have spoken before
about the overwhelm that comes with modern working life and
having a billion emails to deal with, lots of different requests
coming in trying to juggle work and family, I'm sure that is a
challenge that many of our listeners will know really,
really, really well. And then also, there's that, that whole
thing of feeling like you need to be in several different
places at once. And I don't know whether any of our listeners
maybe can relate to this. But I'm one of these people who
there's a very fine line for me between being really busy to the
point where I feel really kind of energised and excited because
I've got so much going on. And then suddenly it gets to a point
where it's like putting an extra plate on top of a really big
pile of plates. It goes from the point where it all feels good.
And I feel like I'm getting lots of things done to actually this
is a bridge too far. And this is getting really quite difficult
now.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, I get that as well. When you're busiest
sometimes that's the most energising isn't it if you sort
of think you know, you can't be beaten, everything's fine. And
you're on a you're on a roll. And then that last thing, and
it's usually a silly thing, really silly thing. It's just
the bit that makes everything topple over and then you. Yeah,
you're in a bit of a spiral, then you can't get back from it.
Yeah. And I think that's the biggest battle for me is this
sense of, of time not being able to control time not having
enough of it. It's passing too quickly. I have a really weird
relationship with it, where I always think it's running out
rather than there's bags of it, if that makes sense. So yeah.
Maybe not glass half empty. Hour-glass half empty.
Zoe Amar: Yeah, I think that is is a challenge, isn't it? And I
think as you get older, that does feel like something you
become more aware of? Definitely.
Paul Thomas: Yeah. And then just you know, and another one that I
sort of wrote down, I was thinking about, you know, what
are the sorts of things that stress me out, and I don't think
I actually thought of this. We've mentioned this several
times on the podcast, I don't think I really focused on mental
health, when I was working full time travelling into London,
that wasn't really sounds ridiculous, wasn't really time
to focus on it. And I think it's the pandemic that forced it on
me. And then obviously, I think, again, talked about this on this
podcast before my dad died last year, and he had vascular
dementia. And always, in the back of my mind, is that sort of
sense of, Well, if he had it, do I have it? So I get inordinately
stressed out by not being able to remember things. And it's
nothing, you know, I don't think it is anything to be concerned
about just yet. That's another thing, should I go out and get
myself checked up? Should I go and have some of the tests that
my dad had, and all that sort of stuff. But that sort of sense
that forgetting stuff and not remembering what's next, I've
got surrounded by post it notes, and always talking about how the
stress of sort of context switching and things like that
can leave you a bit exhausted. But I think it is just that for
the time being, it's stuff that piles up. And as I said, the
context switching between things, but there's, you know,
that that worry in the back of your mind, it's all sort of time
and memory related. And it sends again, you're into a bit of a
sort of a spiral from time to time.
Zoe Amar: And I think that is really normal. And I do think
there's something about the ongoing impact of going through
an ongoing mental health impact of life changes that tend to
happen around this age, and also that many people will have
experienced during the pandemic as well. I, as you know, also
lost someone I really cared about really good friend of
mine, about a year ago, and the start of this year, after Brad's
six month anniversary was was really hard mental health wise,
it was incredibly difficult, really, really difficult. And
one of the things that Ben talks about in the interview that
we're going to play shortly is he talks about the value of
therapy. And if I hadn't had been fortunate enough to have
access to your therapy, I would have really, really struggled
during that time. So I'm a massive advocate for therapy,
the way I always say is, it's a bit like having a personal
trainer for the mind, someone who can help keep you mentally
in really good shape, and also support you when you're going
through a really rough period. So that is something I would
always always encourage people to seek out.
Paul Thomas: You'll be pleased to know it's on a post it on the
bottom of my monitor. Under my monitor, I've got a poster that
says Do I need a coach? And underneath that it says Do I
need a therapist? But it's on a to do list. But it's one of
those things, isn't it and as you know, you know, I always
like to get football into the podcast, but I listen to a lot
of football podcasts. And quite often, I guess because of the
predominant audience. I think it's wrong to say that
predominant audiences, some of the male football podcast is
going to be male football fans. And one of the things that they
constantly advertises is BetterHelp, which is the online
therapy, which again feels like it's a sort of an idea to
explore at some point. Yeah, one of those things that floats
around in the back of my mind, but I haven't actually activated
yet. So what, well I'm not gonna ask you what sort of things you
discussed with your therapist, but how does that work? Is it is
it a regular session? Or is it something that you can sort of
dial up when you need to dial up?
Zoe Amar: Oh, I'm really happy to talk about this. I mean, this
episode and also the next one amazing conversation with with
Sarah and of course this amazing guy conversation we have coming
up with Ben, I think is good to be open about this stuff. So I
see my therapist every two to three weeks for now, I talk to
him online. And we either talk about things that have happened
to me when I was quite young, I had quite a difficult childhood,
because my dad died when I was basically a child. And that was
really difficult. And other than that, we tend to talk about, you
know, just the sort of like particular things that might
have happened at work, or maybe family that I might have found a
bit challenging. And I always always feel better afterwards,
I've never had a therapy session and regretted it or thought that
wasn't a really good use of an ad. It's a bit like, you know,
when you go to the gym, or you go for a run or something, and
you're thinking, Oh, my God, should I be doing this? And
actually, there's that extra thing, when you go to therapy,
where you're thinking, Oh, this is going to be quite difficult.
And I actually genuinely don't like talking about myself, which
might come as a surprise to people who are 'god she's just
written another of her 500 blogs this week'. But I actually
genuinely don't like talking about very personal things with
people I don't know that well. But it's, it's always been
really useful and really constructive. And, yeah, I
really, really encourage people to do, I think if you're
thinking about doing it, it's a really good sign that you should
do it. And if something doesn't feel quite right, even if you
can't define what that is, then definitely go and see someone
and explore. And if you can't afford therapy, you know, go to
talk to your GP. Because there may be some therapeutic services
you can access to the NHS, or even just talk to a really,
really good friend. I think getting stuff out on the table
having a look at it, there's almost a digital way of doing
things, isn't there of that? What is this problem? We know
something isn't right, but let's define what this problem is. And
I'm a great believer that once you can see the edges of a
problem, even if it's something huge and scary, you got to give
something a name, you give something a name, and then you
can do something about it. So I'd encourage anyone listening
who's not feeling great, or who's just worried about
something, there's some recurring thought or worry or
fear or whatever it is, where you're, it's just coming off
your mind again, and again, it's a bit like that niggly pain that
you might think actually I need to go and see a doctor about
that. Just do it. You won't regret it.
Paul Thomas: Good advice, good advice. Maybe I should take up
myself. I think it's well worth doing that. And of course, you
know, I think one of the benefits of, one of the many
benefits of doing this podcast is that we get to speak to
people with all sorts of different experiences. And this
comes up a lot. So it feels like we sort of have a you know,
every few days when we do a podcast recording another chance
to have a conversation with somebody else that sort of
facing challenging situations. And the benefit I guess of you
and I having that sort of 10 to 15 minutes chat before and after
a podcast recording, checking in with each other and making sure
we're both okay. And on an even keel, I guess is the best way to
put it. So the next time we speak, what we will do is we
will share some of our coping mechanisms, you've already
mentioned Zoe, running music is another one but we can talk
through a bit about how we get ourselves out of these little
episodes of annoyance or frustration or mental ill
health. Anyway, should we get on with our interview?
Zoe Amar: Perfect.
Paul Thomas: So now for our interview with Ben Lindsay.
Zoe Amar: We are very excited to welcome Ben Lindsay OBE to
Starts at the Top. Ben is founder of power the fight
launched in 2019. It's an award winning charity which tackles
violence affecting young people, creating long term solutions for
sustainable change and acting as a link between the community and
policymakers. Ben was winner of the charity times 2022 Rising
Leader Award and one of the evening standards progress 1000
London's most influential people for 2018. He's an experienced
presenter, trainer and facilitator, with more than 20
years spent working with high risk young people in the field
of gangs and serious youth violence. Ben began his career
developing programmes in some of the most challenging estates in
London. In 2003, he became a learning mentor at a primary
school in the Borough of Lewisham before joining the
Lewisham Youth Offending Service, where he worked in a
number of roles including leading the Early Intervention
Team, whilst at Lewisham Ben develop several successful
programmes including the groundbreaking Knife Crime
Prevention Programme Double Edge for offenders of knife crime,
which was featured in the Gang and Group Offenders - A
Practitioners Handbook of Ideas and Interventions. In 2010. Ben
develop the gangs and serious youth violence strategy for
Camden Council, and then went on to work for the mental health
charity MAC-UK leadding their mini map project. Ben was chair
of the Greenwich independent advisory group until 2016,
between 2016 and 2020, and was lead pastor at Emmanuel New
Cross in southeast London. He currently sits on the Mayor of
London Sadiq Khan's violence reduction unit reference group,
and on the cross party youth violence commission. His first
book, the number one bestseller, We Need to Talk about Race:
Understanding the Black Experience in White Majority
Churches, was released in 2019. Ben was awarded an OBE in King
Charles I New Year's Honours List for services to communities
in southeast London. Ben, welcome to Starts at the Top.
We're so happy to have you here.
Ben Lindsay: Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's always
funny when I hear all that stuff, which you just say... is
it really? Is that really me? But yeah, apparently it was. So
yeah, that's, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for
having me.
Zoe Amar: You have quite the bio. And You've obviously done
so many amazing things, which we're really excited to talk to
you about. And obviously, there's a common thread isn't
there running through all this fascinating, very valuable
experience you've had around tackling violence affecting
young people. Could you take us back to the moment when you felt
you found your calling?
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, I think the moment probably was
around 2001. And I was working in the city. And I was working
for Ofcom, no I was working for Oftail, which then became Ofcom.
So kind of all around telecommunications. And that was
one of the first jobs I had coming out of university, it was
one of the press office managers for Ofcom is a very interesting
time, when kind of mobile phone licences were just being
distributed. And it was a very busy time. But at the same time
in the evenings, I was just working in, I was just
volunteering in youth clubs and youth centres. And what happened
was at the time, I just recently started going to church and I
kind of became a Christian, even though I was brought up in a
Christian home. I've kind of discovered Christianity for
myself. And it was at that moment where I felt Oh, well,
what does this really mean? Yes, I get the individual personal
relationship I now have with the church and with Jesus, but what
does that really mean for the community? How do I give myself
and serve the community? What does that really mean? So me and
a few friends just decided to go to various estates in southeast
London. We'd take our turntables and microphones, and we'll just
go and serve kids and I loved it. But then it got to a point
where I was doing a lot of that stuff in the evening, and my day
job, and then there was an opportunity to take voluntary
redundancy in 2003 at Oftail before it became Ofcom And I
just thought, you know what, I think I can, I think I can maybe
do this full time. But there was a young man called Emanuel who,
who lost his life 2004. And I suppose that was the moment
where I thought, actually, we need more, we need more people,
like myself, who grew up in southeast London, who
understands the culture, understands what young people
families go through. He was a lovely young boy, we used to do
a football club in a local secondary school. And, you know,
I think the environment around him caught up with him and he
lost his life. But I suppose that was the first young person
I had known and worked with and mentored who had lost their
life. And I was like, Okay, I don't want to see anybody else
lose their lives. So let me just put as much energy and time into
this, as I could, so it was probably, the early 00's were
the moments where I kind of felt my calling.
Zoe Amar: And that was the moment that really spurred you
on to make a difference it sounds like.
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, I think the way I look at engaging with
trauma and engaging with particularly young people
impacted by violence or at risk of is that itthere's kind of two
avenues you can go down one, you've experienced trauma and
pain, suffering and via and yourself. And what tends to
happen is that people will then think, because I've been through
that experience, I can give my learning and my experience to
young people in that way, which I think is, which is fine. I
think there's another approach though, which is probably where
I sit, which is okay, I have not personally gone through knife
crime gang crime, I've not personally been in a gang. I've
not gone to prison, I grew up around a time when that stuff
was around me. But my lived experience isn't that. And
therefore, because I can slightly detach my emotions, I
can actually maybe be a good person to practically
proactively work in this space. And that was me, I just thought,
well, actually, I'm not traumatised by this stuff. So
let me come with as much help and support as possible to the
young people around me. That was just something which I felt I
could do. And that has served me well. As time has gone on over
the last 20 years, the communities that I've worked
with the families and young people I've worked with, I
suppose, because I am quite trauma informed in where my
approach is just meant that I can probably take the sting and
the emotion a little bit out of the work that I do, because I've
not lived through it myself. Whereas what I've seen with some
people with with the with lived experience, there always comes a
moment where burnout comes, and I think that happens to a lot of
people. And it did happen to me around 2011. But I think it
comes quicker with those who have had lived experience, and
particularly when you haven't got the clinical support
clinical supervision around you. So I think that served me well,
that was probably my moment where I felt I could do this,
because I'm just looking at this from a slightly different perspective.
Paul Thomas: How did the young people react to that around you?
Are they? Did they sort of think well, actually, if you haven't
been through this, then how do you know, what do you know?
Well, they did they look for a mixture of both that lived
experience and somebody that's grown up around it?
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, it's a really good question. So I think it's
this, there's levels to it. I don't know if I think there's a
bit of a myth that young people think I can only relate to, to
the ex gang member. Or I can only relate to the person who's
gone to prison. And I always kind of say, Well, do you want
to really engage with the person who got caught? Or the person
who didn't? So that's, that is to say that, you know, let's,
I'm not saying that I've always had a squeaky clean lifestyle.
You know, I've never been involved in anything illegal.
But there's been definitely moments where I've been around
people where you have to make a choice, wherever you go left or
right. So I think my experience would be, I've seen people go
down and take the wrong turn. I've been fortunate enough to
make decisions, whether it's because of people around me or,
you know, just because I was into different things. And I
think ultimately, children, young people want options, they
want to see people who are successes, regardless, it's
like, well, if I can say to you, I'm a success in a way which
didn't involve drugs and crime, or even a stereotypical side of
stuff. I'm not a sportsman. I'm not a musician, you know, but I
am a success. Let's look at that. I think children and young
people, particularly nowadays have his own entrepreneurial
spirit, which most young people have. And they want to learn
them, without trying to sound like too much of a capitalist.
They just want to see how you make money, you know, and and
there's fortunately, there's people around me and in my
circle, who, if it is a money conversation, I know people who
have made lots of money, legally. But if it's even a case
of well creatively I've got, I know people who have, who are
footballers, who are musicians, who are doing positive stuff.
Okay, we can we can give you those examples as well. So I
think it's just about making sure you've got a wide enough
network of people to present different options, which isn't
always a case of, I have to do the street stuff, I have to sell
drugs, I have to do this. Provide the different examples.
And I think we like networking is one of my superpowers, I
would say, and therefore, because I've got a wide network
of people in different sectors, I can use that to inspire
families and young people to move in a different way.
Zoe Amar: And that experience of burnout that you talked about
earlier. That feels like such a common thing with many of the
leaders actually that we've interviewed for this podcast.
People are very passionate about what they do. And often they're,
you know, and I speak for myself, you know, trying to do
almost too much. And the other week, we had Soma Sara, the co
founder, Everyone's Invited, and she talks about some of her
experiences with that. You mentioned that you'd experience
burnout, have you got any advice for leaders out there who might
be on the brink of it?
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. So I've experienced burnout,
probably twice, actually, the first time would have been
around 2010, 2011, I just started working at Camden
Council working on a youth violence strategy. But I'd
worked five, six years prior to that in the Lewisham Offending
Service, working with very vulnerable young people, high
risk young people, families. And I notice, we were dealing with
death, we were dealing with young people being incarcerated
for long sentences, we're dealing with street level
violence in the community. And it just wasn't the therapeutic
support, there wasn't a clinical supervision, there wasn't a
space where you could really unpack the impact of the
violence, which was impacting the communities around you. And
because of that, by the time I got to 2010 2011, I was just
like, I, I'm traumatised, for what I've seen, I've seen young
people lose their lives. I've seen, you know, extreme levels
of violence and criminality, sexual violence, I've read the
crime reports and stuff which are going into courts. And it's
just, it's just too much. So that was the first time the
second time was then in my role as a pastor in the church, and
you're dealing with hundreds of pastoral issues. That time is
when I caught it, actually. And I was like, actually, I need
clinical supervision. I need supervision, which is outside
line management, where I can have therapeutic support. And I
brought this to the church I was working for at the time. And it
was a very new concept, they were very much like, what is
this? We're not sure we want to pay for, you got pastoral
support, Ben you're Christian so if you really have trauma, just
pray and read your Bible, and God will swear and I was like,
Nah, I'm not saying those tools are not necessary. But actually,
what I require is somebody who's trained, who understands trauma,
and I believe the church should be paying for that. So that was
my first push. And eventually, they agreed it went to the
trustees, and the trustees said, Look, Ben is calling for this,
then we should do it. Ironically every other member, every other
pastor, later on ended up having clinical supervision. So I
pioneered in that space. But that was the moment where I felt
I needed somebody who was not connected to the work that I was
doing to give me honest conversations and honest
support. And yeah, strategies. And my advice really would be,
yeah, definitely, if you've got an opportunity, push your
employer to give you that clinical therapeutic support.
You know, I think if we look at TV shows, like, I don't know if
you remember that show, Begins, which was, I think it was on Sky
or something like that. And they had like a psychologist being
employed. I think it's happening a lot more nowadays. And
there's, there's lots of examples where I think it's
saved something like 1.4 billion of businesses when you have that
type of therapeutic support in space. But yeah, I think you
just have to catch it. And what was helpful for me, actually, I
did this for eight, I started. I think it was like 2013 After
having a conversation with my employer at the time, which was
Emmanuel Church, London, and I spoke about all sorts stuff. I
thought, initially, it was just going to be about work. But
actually, I found myself talking about race as well, and racism
and my own history and what I was feeling at the time, I
didn't realise it, but it was preparing me to write my book.
And then actually, when I wrote my book, and it came out in
2018, when George Floyd happened in 2020, I felt an immense calm
it was very, obviously, it was horrific, which was going on,
but while everybody else was like, oh my goodness, we're
having to have this live conversation about racism. I
just felt at peace because I dealt with my own issues with
race and racism for the last eight years. And it was
fascinating. So definitely my advice for people is, and I
always say this, get therapy even when you think you don't
need it. That is my advice to everybody I meet, but it served
me well. And then it served others well.
Zoe Amar: I completely agree with that. Ben, as you were
describing that earlier, everything you said really
resonated with me. And I was trying to explain this to
someone I mentor, actually about the value of leaders and
therapy, and I, I just feel that everything is connected, isn't
it? So it's really interesting what you were saying about the
professional and the personal. And before I had therapy, I
would kind of put those things in different baskets. But
actually, everything's connected up, isn't it?
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. I think you. Yeah, this idea that
you can somehow separate your personal life from from your
professional life, I think is a myth. My organisation Power The
Fight, we like to say that we are trauma informed, which means
for us, we're in this space where every single member of my
team, whether you're my EA, to my frontline workers, gets
clinical supervision. Now, that is expensive. If I'm going to be
honest, that is like an extra 40k a year to my budget. But
because of my own personal experiences, I really value that
highly that my staff have an opportunity to talk to somebody
else outside of line management supervision. And I think we also
create reflective spaces as well as a team. So we're very much
like how can we learn from one another, which is really
important. We have this employee scheme as well, which is outside
of the organisation where if there's things which people want
to talk about, and they don't feel like they want to talk
about it in the context of Power The Fight, then they can go
there as well. At every single space and moment, we want to
create trauma informed opportunities, and therapeutic
opportunities where my staff feel that they can get the best
level of support. And we always have a check in even in my
senior leadership team meetings, we spend the first 15 minutes
just we ask the question, how you doing? Let's talk
personally, if you want to share, but let's also, before we
get into the tasks, what's the emotional measurements of how
you are feeling in your job as well? Are you feeling
overwhelmed? Are you feeling stressed? And if this is the
case, why, and we do that we go around the table to do that. So
I think we have you know, I these are things I never really
experienced working in Youth Offending Services Community, in
statutory organisations like these, just you haven't really
got the space to do that. But when you get an opportunity to
build your own culture, these are some of the important
things.
Zoe Amar: That's great. So you're really normalising this
conversation about mental health and creating space for it.
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of new things in there.
So, for example, the first time, so one of the things at my age
of 45 years old, it means that I'm in this space where I get to
manage younger people and older people. So what's new for me,
for example, is I'm now managing older women. And we're having
conversations about menopause. And, and the desire for a
menopause policy, and menopause groups being set up, which I
think is brilliant. And, and I've said, Yeah, cool. Let's
let's let's let's look at, we've got a menopause policy, which
we're just looking at at the moment. And there's maybe three
members of staff who are going through the menopause at the
moment. I just think this is not something I experienced 20 years
ago. These are conversations which were not being had. But I
think it's so important that if there's anything which has the
potential to make your work life, not brilliant, not great,
or there's things which are hindering that. And it's
complicated as a man, it's complicated, because I don't, my
first thoughts were, I don't want any, I don't want anything
that somebody is going through for me to feel like that has a
potential to stop you from doing your work well. So it's almost
part of me kind of feels, I almost don't want to know, so I
don't have stuff in my mind. And then another part of me was
like, no, no, no, this is brilliant. We need to get stuff
out. And we need to have honest conversations, and then create
the work environments which make and help people flourish to the,
to the best of their ability. So that just gives you a bit of an
idea of where my head is at that type of organisation were trying
to build.
Zoe Amar: That's such a thoughtful way to approach
leadership and to think about how you support your team
through these different life transitions.
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, we... Yes, I mean, whether it's
pregnancy or the other thing we, something else we've just
recently done, which I've never seen before. But you know, we're
up for trying other things, that a friend, well she is, she's a
friend who ended up working for Power The Fight because when you
start a small organisation, you just try and get your friends to
work with you. And then it's kind of like, okay, now you have
to go beyond your friendship groups. But she, she recently
got married and, and said to me I had this incredible
opportunity to go to Uganda, and to work, and I wonder whether I
could spend three months remotely working in Uganda. I
was like Oh, wow, the two hour time difference, I was like it's
not too bad. Yeah, the Internet can be in and out. But you know,
you get that in the UK as well as it's been demonstrated. So
we've really thought it through looks at the policies, looked at
insurance. And yeah, she's out there for three months with her
husband and their son. And yeah, I like to create the
flexibility. She's having an incredible time out there and it
has not really impacted the work, she's a digital content
lead, so she could still gets to run our socials and stuff like
that. But it's things like this, which I think as a smaller
organisation, you can attempt to try these things out and see how
it plants, how it works out.
Paul Thomas: And I think we've all been through that, as you
mentioned, the pandemic when we were talking just before
recording, and Zoe and I have noticed that when the
conversations that we started with leaders, and we've had you
know, this is, we've done over 50 episodes now and had lots of
conversations with lots of many, many people. And the common
trend is that we're all starting to ask more questions of, you
know, what is it that I want from my life, whether it's a
sabbatical away from the office, and you want to keep good
people, you want to give them access to that if you possibly
can, all the way through to even bigger life changes, people
moving away, and it's all about that retention of talent, you
don't want to lose the people that are there. And you know,
that there will be other organisations of similar size
out there who are looking at all of these things. There's a
pressure as a leader, I think, to try and keep up with those
trends that people will come into the office and ask for.
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, and I absolutely... the pandemic
change everything, you know, hybrid working, you know, what
you can do online, I just, it was just an opportunity for
people just to reflect on what's important. So, yeah, it was a
strange moment, as we know, but I think it was also the force
moment for everyone to say, right, what matters? How much
productivity can I realistically achieve? How does it impact my
emotional mental health. And I think as a small organisation,
we've had to adapt to that, you know, a lot of my team works 4
days. So my team take, like every other Friday off, you
know, that's been it's been agreed, so they can have a
longer weekend. For me, I mean, you can't see our offices but
we're in Peckham in a shared kind of office space, but we
have three offices here. And it's a it's a very nice space,
you know, aesthetics is important for me. But I think
sometimes when you think about the work we do with young
people, you think you've got a youth centres, and I didn't want
that I wanted us to be in a space where you'd actually want
to enjoy come into work, we've got lots of plants around this,
a wine bar on the top of our on the fifth floor, there's spaces
where you can just, it's a very nice space, equipment wise, I've
always said, I want people to not have broken equipment. So
people have, like nice mobile phones, and in some of this
stuff, some people might think, doesn't matter. But I actually
really want to honour and respect the people who are doing
incredible work. We're talking about working with very high
risk families, very high risk young people going above and
beyond to keep communities safe. And the least we can do is give
them a phone, which doesn't break down. So it's kind of
these things all, for me matter where you've got an opportunity
to be, to get present the best version of yourself when you're
at work.
Paul Thomas: Yeah... You're certainly giving me food for
thought because I'm a trustee of a local organisation here in
Hertfordshire. And what we do is help people in crisis. It's
that, it's that battle between whether they're paying for power
or whether they're paying for food literally, and being able
to help people with that sort of thing. So the people that work
in the team are constantly faced with conversations really
difficult conversations with people. And we brought that up
as a recent trustee meeting about mental health and well
being and it was, no, it's not that we want you trained in how
to recognise it, is we want you to go into some kind of therapy
session yourselves because you're dealing with this stuff
day in and day out. So it's really, really important. I just
wanted to pivot a little bit, but sort of staying with a
mental health angle, I guess. So I tried to do a bit of research
over the last couple of days. And it's, it's one of those
things, I think I'm dipping a little toe in and it's just
gonna go deeper and deeper and deeper. So forgive me, but I'm
sort of not all there. But I was listening to your interview with
Guvna B on your Power Talk Podcast. And it was fascinating,
there was a couple of things that sort of really resonated,
and it comes back to the mental health and well being, I can
walk out my front door here, and I can walk down to the park. And
I don't feel threatened, I can put on my running gear. This is
something that I thought was very funny when you talked about
running, but I could put on my running gear. And suddenly, I'm
conscious that I'm running behind people, and I might scare
them and beat them out of the way. But one of the things you
mentioned, one of the things that Guvna B mentioned was
stepping outside your door in your local community can be,
your on a constant watch. And you talked about things like you
know, when you go running, you put on brightly coloured gear,
so you don't look threatening running behind people. He talked
about going to Parliament and changing his look by putting his
hair up. And what I'm interested in just exploring for a minute
is that mental toll that that must take on young people living
in your area where every time they leave the house, and this
isn't just work related, every time they leave the house, there
is that thought in the back of their mind that something could
happen. They're always on watch. Can you just talk a little bit
about how that sort of presents itself in the work that you're
doing, that constant threat of something could happen that
perhaps I don't feel, as a tall white man. Zoe probably feels
going out where you've talked about, Zoe when you go out for a
run or when you go outside of your front door that
vulnerability. Just talk to me about that for a bit if you
don't mind.
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, so it's a great question. And I think
context is everything really. So my context very much was growing
up in the 90s as a teenager, in the shadow of Stephen Lawrence
being murdered, and Stephen was a friend of some of my friends
and, and he was murdered a mile away from the school I went to,
and I was 15 at the time. So for me, it was a moment, maybe the
most important moment of my youth. And it was at a time when
the National Front before the BMP and before EDL, the National
Front were the people who were after mainly young black boys,
and were prepared to really harm them. So that was my context.
And our parents would say it's better that you walk in a group
than on your own for safety now that would have been deemed as a
gang nowadays, but it was literally like, yeah, we're just
gonna walk together, can we feel safe, Fast forward 30 years, and
it's a slightly different ballgame for young people now.
Where was my biggest concern was why young men who wanted to kill
black boys, a lot of the kids in a South East, in a London
context, you know, we have to be careful when we talk about race
and violence in a London context, violence affecting
young people disproportionately impacts black and brown
communities. That doesn't mean that this is a black issue. And
always say this if you take a place like Cleveland, in
Middlesbrough, or near Middlesbrough, in Newcastle and
those places, which is a population where percentages is
98% white, they have the highest rate of knife crime in the
country. Second is West Midlands, that's a Asian
population. And then you have London. So we have to just, I
have to always clarify that it's not like race or violence
doesn't necessarily correlate in that way. However, what I engage
with a lot of kids, a lot of black children that are black
and brown kids is a fear and anxiety about children who look
like them. So when I'm in school contexts, and I hear a young
person say, Do you know, Ben, are you honestly saying that
when you see someone who looks like you, you don't fear them?
And I'm like, well, no, as a 45 year old man and if I see
somebody who looks like me. I'm lightly to just either ignore
them or politely smile or whatever. That's not what they
face. They said, Well, if I see someone who looks like me who I
don't recognise, I look at them as a threat. And that's black
children, that's white kids. That's boys and girls, I've been
in school contexts. So there is an anxiety and a fear which
young people have, which we did not have growing up. And yeah,
so there's that level of it's kind of like young people are
just fearful. This is why our therapeutic work we do in
schools is so important. We're trying to go beyond the
headlines. The headline is knife crime, someone's lost their
lives, what you don't see is what's led up to that, you've
not seen the fear and the anxiety and the concern, which
the average young person will have. Not necessarily because of
experiencing direct violence, but because of the social media.
There's a lot of indirect things which kids will pick up through
Snapchat and stuff like that. So there's there. But then there's
a population of like, I can only talk from my perspective, but
there's a population of black men who, let's say, up between
the ages of 35 and 45, maybe even older, who do struggle with
the racial profiling, which will come from the police, or where
it will come from in the form of academics or teachers. And in my
case, I live in a very gentrified area in southeast
London. And yeah, when I'm running, I am very conscious of
the views that my white middle class neighbours will have of
me. And I know the difference between me walking down the
street with my three very cute children. And the smiles I get
and I can then be wearing exactly the same stuff. And I'm
on my own. And there are no smiles there are people looking
very concerned, some people might be like, Well, no one is
forcing people shouldn't have to feel like they should smile.
That's, I get that. But you can also tell when there's a little
bit of kind of, yeah, feeling of angst, which you pick up very
quickly. And in Guvna B's context. Yeah, he recently had a
situation where he was attacked in Blackheath, which is a very
gentrified area of southeast London and completely unprovoked
attack where he almost lost an eye, just because he was walking
past some white builders. And as shocking as that is, it doesn't
actually surprise me, because like you said, we are always on
guard. And I think going back to the whole mental health stuff, a
lot of actually black men, at least in my friendship group,
therapy is a new thing. You know, again, the pandemic meant
Paul Thomas: it? And that's know, go and get therapy? Well,
that we had to have these conversations on our WhatsApp
groups. But so many of my friends still don't go to
therapists, don't have therapy, don't engage about their own
trauma. We're getting there. But this is a real thing, which is
still impacts us today. So yeah, I think when you look at
it's easy for people to say, I mean, I've listened to a lot of
context, we look at age ranges, the common denominator is fear.
podcasts, and the BetterHealth is constantly trailed on these
But it plays out differently, depending on your age, context,
podcasts. And again, you know, I looked at it, because, you know,
and stuff like that.
my issues are my issues. But you know, that I looked at it and
thought, well, how much is this? And it's even that's
prohibitively expensive for somebody that doesn't have
readily available money. So I know, you talked about some of
the stuff you're doing to sort of try and get through that. Can
you just tell us a bit about what you're doing?
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, you're right. So we put out
during the pandemic, actually, we got some money from the Mayor
of London, to trial, this therapeutic approach because I
think, there's a couple of things, one is expensive, but
from a black and brown perspective, there is, in some
cases, a lot of distrust about white authority. And therefore
when you go to look for clinical support, most of these people
are most of the doctors, most of the clinicians, most of the
therapists, most of the counsellors, most of the
psychologists tend to be white and middle class. And we will go
into trial this approach in a school which was, could we get
culturally sensitive therapists, counsellors, psychologists,
youth practitioners, in a school context to kind of produce, a
co-produced, co-designed mental health approach for young
people. We got some money to do that then the pandemic happened.
And we were like, well, actually, Should we turn it into
a research project? Let's actually talk to 100 kids, some
frontline practitioners, som families, and let's see about
what they feel around therapy, and the connection to violence
affecting young people. And what we got back was we, the
community, do not trust white authority. We appreciate that
might be therapeutic support, which is needed, but often the
waiting lists are too high. There's a lack of trust, and
this term cultural sensitivity or cultural competency kept on
coming back, that we don't believe that actually the people
who want to support us are culturally sensitive. And then
what does it actually mean? So do you understand the culture
and the context that you are serving in, and what we kept in
coming back was actually you've got young people and family
saying, You're not culturally sensitive. But you've also got
practitioners saying, we don't feel confident, we don't
understand the culture that we are working. So you got teachers
who are saying, I'm in this diverse community, this racially
diverse community, different class, to what I'm used to. And
I don't feel I've got the tools to engage on that level. So
that's a massive problem when you've got the young people and
family saying you're not culturally sensitive. And then
I think that's brilliant Ben, because everything you just said
you've got the teachers, police officers, therapists, doctors
saying, I don't understand the culture. So for us, we were
like, well, actually, we need to bridge the gap here. So yes, we
on a practical level, we can create these co-produced
approaches which are engaging with young people, teachers, and
parents and carers with our culturally sensitive therapists
and counsellors, etc. But there's also this element of how
do we train teachers, and therapists and doctors and
police officers to become more culturally sensitive in a very
hyper local way. Now, one thing, which I don't think you
mentioned in my, in my bio, was the fact that I'm doing also a
PhD at Durham University. And I'm looking very specifically at
the lack of cultural sensitivity in teaching. So how did teachers
become...? Did they get that in their training, and when they
then land in a school, which is very different to what they're
used to, what did the school do in terms of their policy to help
them become more culturally sensitive and more culturally
aware? I've just started that as well. So for me, it's really
important that we do present as many spaces and opportunities as
possible for therapy for families and young people, but
also appreciating that our practitioners and teachers don't
feel confident in that space. And we have to upskill them to
understand the communities that they're serving better. So that
was very long winded, but I can't unpack it in any other way.
there. And also everything you described this morning is that
there's something there about the spaces for therapeutic
approaches around the therapy isn't there. So there's the I'm
going to support a resource, you know, very sort of well, and
quite rightly, for my staff to access therapy, but it's also
about reinforcing that through we talk about mental health in
meetings, we think about some of the kind of, you know, cultural
challenges that may exist within the work that we do that will
affect people's mental health and well being so yeah, I really
like the way you've approached this in this very sort of joined
up fashion so that you're thinking about how everything
connects with everything else.
Yeah, I think what we call this ground engagement and air
engagement. So we have this thing at Power The Fight where
we say okay, the ground is very much around the community,
therapeutic support, pastoral care, mentoring, how do you
effectively get the community voice heard. And then you've got
his air engagement is very much around policy and decision
making, the local government and central government and strategy
and if Power The Fight is anything we are the conduit
between the two, we try and get the community's voices and
experiences to move very much a little bit like a water cycle
of, you know, the water impacts the ground and then it impacts
the air and it's kind of like this ongoing kind of circular
movement. This is what we're trying to attempt to do with the
communities who have been impacted by violence and for me,
there's not enough conduit organisations who have got the
trust of the community, but also have got the trust of the
decision makers. I think this is what separates us from most
organisations, most organisations probably fit into
one or the other of those spaces, the air engagement, the
ground engagement. What separates us is that no, no,
we're well respected with policymakers and decision makers
and MPs. But we're also known on the ground level on really
supporting communities around this issue of violence affecting
young people. And I think you've got to keep asking yourself the
question, does the community actually have a say, in how
their communities are governed and supported. And so often it's
not that case. So you have to have people who can speak on
their behalf, and empower them to have that fluidity in those
spaces.
Zoe Amar: I love that point about ground engagement and air
engagement, it feels like the secrets are really good
collaboration.
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, I think collaboration is one of my, my
values. And, and I love and, but it's, you know, I always say to
my children. But you know, when your kids are arguing with each
other, or there's situations which happened in the school
context, and I always say, like, just being likeable, will open
your doors, more than anything else, that you can have all the
intelligence and you can have all the creative ability. But
ultimately, if people like you, they're more likely to give you
an opportunity. And for me, I think the likeability of my team
and who I am, is meant that we've been able to build not
just networks, but diverse networks. And I think when like,
I'm at a charity, for the moment, we have a mixed funding
model, where it is very much around classic funding, like
grants and foundations. But we also work well with corporates.
And yes, we have high net worth individuals who want to give,
but we have to mix it up. And sometimes the money which comes
in from places, which you wouldn't even think would engage
with the type of issues that we're dealing with. But we have
to widen it up, widen our collaboration and partners,
because in the cost of living crisis, it's really difficult,
like our on the ground donations have been cut by 50% in the last
year. And because we've got that mixed funding model, I mean, it
impacts us but with other sources of funding. So it's
really important from a strategy perspective that you do have
multiple funding streams. But a lot of that does come down to
relationship and experience and I've got 20 years in this. And
that is, that helps.
Zoe Amar: D-efinitely, it's all about the relationships and the
network isn't it. Ben, this has been fantastic. Thank you. We've
learned so much from you this morning. I really loved hearing
about your really thoughtful, really innovative approach. Is
there anything that you'd like to share about power the fight
before we wrap up? Where can people go to find out more about
you and your team's amazing work?
Ben Lindsay: Yeah, and I thank you for having me. It's been
really great talking to you guys. You guys are brilliant. So
yeah, you can go to our website, it's www.powerthefight.org.uk.
You can follow us on all the socials which is powerthefightuk
Instagram, Facebook, I feel we might even have a TikTok which I
You're not on there dancing Ben?
don't get involved in, apparently we've got one.
No... I'm good at many things but if you noticed dancing was
not in my bio. So that's something which you will never
see me do even though my team of content lead would love me to do
that. But yeah, you know, there's things that we are
always trying to engage with, we've got Crowdfunder at the
moment, which we're trying to raise 30k for continuing our
therapeutic support. So yeah, there's lots of different things
that you can connect in and engage with Power The Fight.
Zoe Amar: Amazing. We'll put some links in the show notes.
Ben, thank you so much for coming on. It's been wonderful.
Thank you for coming on Starts at the Top.
Ben Lindsay: It's been brilliant. Thank you so much.
Yeah, I follow you guys on LinkedIn and Twitter. So I
learned a lot from you guys as well. So thank you for having
me.
Paul Thomas: Thank you to Ben for making the time to come on
to the podcast. You can find more information about Power The
Fight via their website at powerthefight.org.uk. That's
powerthefight.org.uk. We'll be back in a fortnight with our
episode with Sarah Hughes.
Zoe Amar: You can support the podcast by leaving us a five
star review wherever you listen to us, whether Apple Podcasts,
Spotify or Google.
Paul Thomas: And thank you very much for listening!
Zoe Amar: Thank you and bye for now!
Paul Thomas: See ya!