Skills For Justice Awards 2023

These two muppets…

We set off down the day before, with it being half term my son was off school and mum was choka with work so our little one came down with us. Bryony was amazing and helped with travel and accommodation and made us feel like V.I.P’s.

I knew the journey was going to be graft because when Mikes around Jaxon he goes into 9 year old mode and constantly made him laugh the whole journey doing silly accents and taking selfies together on snap chat filters. luckily it was the fast train and we where there in just over a couple of hours.

Beauty And The Beast’s

We landed at the hotel to be greeted by one of our amazing mentors and ambassadors Mr. Keith Fraser who is also the chair of the youth justice board for England and Wales, but tonight he was just our friend Keith. We went for a meal and relaxed the best we could with the excitement of getting our trauma imformed messages to some reeally important people who have the power to change and save peoples lives.

We needed to be on point and have an early night Keith did his little boring tourist bit on the way back to the hotel pointing out the sights and the history of things, we gave him a hug and arranged to meet him in the morning for the big day.

Little one was excited when we got to the hotel and the room had a terrible view in Jaxon’s opinion, so he complained to reception and they upgraded us to one with a stunning view of the London eye. He’d seen one with a view on the website so he went full Karen and they sorted it straight away.

The Digs

Too Posh To Push

We made our way over to the Queen Elizabeth ll centre, the ques where massive, fortunately we didn’t have to que and got pushed straight in through security. Wed never been in somewhere so posh in all our lives. There was someone playing a violin in the reception bit which was a first. It was like a military operation we were introduced to some important people CEO of this that and the other then taken to a back room and interviewed about what we thought about the awards and stuff.

We were then shown the room and stage we were going to be delivering our key note on and met by a very organised lady wielding a clip board like the sword of Excalibur who looked like she didn’t take no shit, (she turned out to be lovely and really supportive her real names Louise Connor, she’s the commercial director at Lemon Zest Events) Were notorious for running over our allotted time as we get carried away trying to get our message across and struggle to shut up. This comes from not being heard for many years and silenced, we’ve now found our voice after some one gave us permission to speak and we’ve not stopped since. I thought I’m not messing with this super Karen she was like the final boss of Karen’s.

We did the mike checks and stuff and rang one of our Lads Carloid Hylton aka Manchester Hypes from CreActive club and got him to send us over the #ASKWHY Track.

If you’ve not heard the track, here it is it sums up all our key messages and is an massive part of our national campaign and part of the million pieces training we have delivered to 19,000 professional’s and practitioners across the UK who come into contact with people who’ve experienced trauma.

The big Cheese

We got our selves a brew after being ushered around and looked after by the amazing Bryony Nixon who’s the head of marketing and workforce development and was introduced to a guy called Jeremey who’s one of the big bosses with a hand shake that would take you off your feet, he was proper cool and a bit eccentric we liked him. Then a few more CEOs it was hard to keep up with who was who, we don’t normally mix in these circles with these London folk who aren’t supposed to talk to each other but where all really friendly so that threw us.

Keith then introduced us to this smart looking guy who had people running about after him turns out he had the longest title in the world and was the Secretary of State for Justice The Rt Hon Alex Chalk, had a little meeting with him and he asked for our key note to be sent over to him as he had stuff to do.

Keith knew him and filmed it and is going to send it to him, hopefully well get a proper meeting with him and get right on his case about the links to Trauma and offending and offer him up some solutions so watch this space for that one.

Brum, Brum.

We were sat on a table with a lovely lady called Caroline Corby who’s chair of the parole board for England and Wales so I said to Mike we need to be on our best behaviour and didn’t want to have to keep nudging him to shut up and to kerb the shit jokes and save them for later.

We also met 2 amazing lady’s from Doncaster Prison who won an award who were going to be linking with as well.

We were also sat with a guy who looked like Leonardo DiCaprio in the Wolf of wall street he looked proper familiar turned out he was off the tele it was Tom Gaymor commentator from SKY Tv for F1/IINDY Car. What a mint bloke he was had a good chat with him and spoke to his wife later really supportive of what we do and what we want to achieve hopefully well get to meet him again as well. Proper humble guy who gets it.

Our Time To Shine

We couldn’t wait to get on the stage and give a 30 min rendition of million pieces it normally takes 3 hours but time wasn’t on our side and we were only supposed to be giving a little taster. This was going to be a really struggle as we wanted to throw the Trauma Informed, Professional Curiosity kitchen sink.

I started off with the standard trauma and trigger warning and explained what we thought trauma informed practice was from our side of the charge desk, spoke about our solutions to reducing reoffending and the links with unaddressed trauma. Spoke a little bit about my behaviour speaking a thousand words and being labelled a little shit then conditioned by professionals to think id never amount to nothing and the impact all that had on me as an adult and how I ended up in prison and stuck on the revolving door of crime and punishment and becoming a professional service user stuck in victim mode. Time was short so jumped on to how a person saved my life and asked why i was behaving the way i was and asked me about trauma. i spoke about the guy who asked me why and gave me permission to speak at 33. we couldn’t get home enough that professionals need to be human beings ask the right questions be brave and exercise professional curiosity. Threw in a bit of lived experience for good measure to weponise peoples empathy, we don’t want you to think about what weve said we want you to feel what weve said.

Mike finished off with what little time was left as id talked for a bit too long the clip board lady was ok though and wasn’t twitching to much. Mike got everyone to stand up while he read out his ask why speech and spoke about the power of one and how powerful the people are in the room and how they could make such an impact on peoples lives. Mike also shared some of his own lived experience and explained how it no longer defined him., and that he was the person he is today because someone asked why.

We finished up and left the stage to a standing ovation which was amazing as wed been heard.

We then got the biggest hug like a dad would give his sons from a guy called Jeremy Newman who’s the chair for skills for justice, I said to mike fukin hell Jeremy nearly broke my back he’s said I know me too, If Jeremy every looses his job we both agreed he would make a good WWE wrestler. He was a proper Don we loved him.

To Top It Off Mr Gaz Mills won an award For Best Newcomer

And guess what he’s a Northerner form Warrington probation office who we know. Well done Gareth we salute you bro, hopefully see you soon too.

Thanks For Having Us !

Final big up to Bryony and all her team who went above and beyond to make us feel welcomed and supported they couldn’t have done enough for us we feel truly blessed to have been rubbing shoulders with the beautiful people of London. Not forgetting Kye who initially interviewed us another amazing human being. And a big thanks to Keith for being Keith.

Hope fully you can understand the spelling and the grammer.

Help us put 0161 on the map in London

Good by from us you contact us on danny@ladslikeus.co.uk Mike@ladslikeus.co.uk or contact our PA Kate@ladslikeus.co.uk ( shes the organised one )