26th October 2023
We are delighted to share an exclusive recording of the ‘Lads Like Us’ keynote session at our recent Evidence-based Practice Conference: ‘Hope for the Future’, held in Manchester on 21 September.
‘Lads Like Us’ was set up by Mike Hurst and Danny Wolstencroft who both experienced trauma, including sexual abuse, as children. They now deliver highly acclaimed training all over the country to multi-agency professionals, considering the impact of childhood trauma on mental health, substance misuse, offending behaviour and parenting.
The recording includes a short presentation by Mike followed by a group discussion between Mike and his former health visitor, Louise (Lou) Hamer, who he credits as being the person who ‘turned his life around’. Lou is now the Designated nurse for safeguarding children at Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB).
In his presentation, Mike speaks about how he was unexpectedly reunited with Lou when she attended their ‘Million Pieces’ training session as a delegate. During the training Mike shared the difference that his health visitor had made to him – and then Lou realised that he was speaking about her! Mike describes how Lou’s professional curiosity looked beyond the challenges he faced to understand the ‘why’ in his story and this was the catalyst for change.
Lou shared how much it has meant to her to be reunited with Mike – it has helped her make sense of her career, to see the difference that she had made – although in Lou’s words, she was only doing her job.
We hope that by sharing this story, every health visitor will take encouragement from knowing that they will have their own examples of people like ‘Mike’, whose lives they have impacted for good. However, only a few will have the privilege to meet up again like Mike and Lou.
The session was very impactful and is captured in this comment from one of our delegates:
“The parent voice session with Mike Hurst and Louise Harmer will stay with me for a long time. I will always ‘ask why’ from now on and think of them”.
Watch Mike and Lou’s session below (Advisory: this video contains adult/offensive language):
All iHV conferences set out to encourage and inspire. We are in the final stages of preparation for our annual Leadership Conference: ‘Leading in a complex world’ on 6 December in London and hope you can join us.
We always like to ‘do something different’ within the programme at our conferences to help us connect with the purpose of our work and think ‘outside the box’. At the Leadership conference, we are delighted to be able to showcase a short excerpt from a theatre production developed by the Champions Project to address the invisibility of children living in homeless accommodation. No spoilers – but this powerful production is breaking new ground in driving policy change using innovative approaches. It really is a ‘must see’.
We have a fantastic line up of high-profile speakers including but not limited to:
- Dame Ruth May DBE – Chief Nursing Officer for England: A Nursing Strategy for Health Equity
- Dr Camilla Kingdon – President RCPCH: Child health challenges: what are the solutions in a cost-of-living crisis?
- Professor Bola Oluwabi – Director Health Inequalities NHS England: Tackling inequalities in child health
- Toni Estevez – Lived Life Solutions Expert, Shelter: Temporary housing, poverty and health.
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity for professional development and also connect with practitioners from across the UK.
Book your early bird tickets today! Available until 31 October.
See the full programme here.
For more details on Lads Like Us please see: https://www.ladslikeus.co.uk/
