expert witness work

Accountability

On 31st March, a week or so after the coronavirus pandemic lockdown began, I was contacted by the HCPC.

“I am writing to inform you that we have received a concern about your fitness to practise” the letter began. “We will now carry out an initial investigation into the potential fitness to practise issues identified in the concern. This may involve gathering relevant information from a number of sources.
  
In order to assist with our enquiries, I would be grateful if you would provide the following information:
  
– Confirmation that you are the owner and/or moderator of the site ClinPsy.org.uk.
– Confirmation of whether you, or any of the other owners/moderator of the site have received any concerns/complaints about the content of the forum, particularly regarding [celebrity psychologists]
– If yes, please provide a copy of the complaint/s and the site’ s response.
– If not provided above, you are welcome to provide a brief response to concerns raised.
– Confirmation of your current employment arrangement.
– If applicable, please provide the name and email address of your line manager and HR director.

I replied the same evening:

I own www.clinpsy.org.uk I can confirm that I have never had any complaints in any form about any comment on [celebrity psychologists] on the forum – in fact I have never even heard of [the complainant], and can find no reference to him on the forum. I’m afraid you will need to let me know what comment is being complained about to enable me to respond to it.
As to my employment, I am self employed and run my own small business, so there is no line manager or HR involved – but I have to ask why you would think that relevant when a person is complaining about an unspecified comment on social media?

I then contacted my professional indemnity insurance provider and spoke to Mike Wang, chair of the ACP (he was my MSc supervisor and then my clinical course director, and we have stayed loosely in touch since then) who were both reassuring that this wasn’t a legitimate complaint. Later I got legal advice through my membership of the FSB, to check I had fully understood my legal obligations as a forum owner. All of us wondered why the HCPC would launch an investigation at all, given that I had never made a comment myself about any of the individuals named in the complaint, and the forum had been very proactive in ensuring no defamatory content was permitted. The forum does have a thread about “celebrity psychologists”, where legitimate concerns are raised about individuals who appear on television or in the newspapers making comment as “psychologists” who are outside of the scope of HCPC registration. But I could see nothing defamatory in it. In fact the moderating team had carefully checked the content and I had even posted a reply to remind people about our defamation policy and how to raise a concern. So I started to draft a full reply to the HCPC.

Just to be sure, I spent many hours obsessionally trawling through content on the forum and my social media and could find no interaction with the individual concerned, or any defamatory content about any celebrity psychologist on my forum. That isn’t to say members of the forum haven’t criticised such individuals, or that I don’t share similar concerns. Quite the opposite, I’ve been raising concerns about the limited scope of regulation for psychologists and therapy professionals for more than a decade and see this as another example of where the legislation fails to protect the public. However, I have never expressed this as a personal attack on an individual, or said anything unprofessional or defamatory.

At this juncture it might be helpful for me to note what defamation is, what a complainant can do about online defamation, and what the legal rights are both of the individual who believes they have been defamed, and the established defences against claims of defamation, as they will set this complaint in context.

Defamation is the action of damaging the good reputation of a person through the oral or written communication of a false statement about them that unjustly harms their reputation. The important part of that definition is that the statement must be false, and it must cause them harm (which must be demonstrable within 12 months of publication). Being rude about someone or insulting towards them would not normally be defamatory, though it might be unprofessional. As a website owner I am technically the publisher of the content shown on the site, and whilst I cannot be held legally accountable for other users being rude or insulting (though we have worked hard to create a professional culture and to have policies that prevent personal attacks or unprofessional behaviour), I would be accountable if something defamatory was published – if I was aware of it and failed to act to remove it when requested to do so by the individual it affected.

The problem here was that the HCPC did not share any details of the complaint with me, and the complaint communicated was entirely vague and did not refer to particular comments or even allege defamation. It was also made by a third party, rather than the individual that the complainant said had been maligned – making it rather extraordinary that the HCPC would give it even a cursory investigation.

But even with the assumption that someone had said something on the forum that an individual had felt was defamatory – which was far from the case – the law requires that individual (not a third party) to inform the publisher and ask them to remove the content, within 12 months from publication. And in this case most of the comments about celebrity psychologists had stood for 7 years, and no complaint had ever been raised with the forum – despite every post having a button to report it to moderators for review, and a prominent defamation policy that was linked by me in the very thread concerned, in a post giving the forum email address to make such a report.

There are also two main complete defences to defamation allegations; truth and honest opinion. If a statement is true it cannot be defamatory. For example, to say that a celebrity psychologist is not a registered practitioner psychologist or does not have a doctorate is not defamatory if these statements are factually correct. The other defence is that someone is expressing an honest opinion or making “fair comment”. This allows discussion of matters of public or professional interest, and means it is not defamatory to express a view that an honest person could have held on the basis of any facts or anything asserted to be a fact by reasonable sources available to them at the time. That is, if I said “Boris Johnson is a liar” this could not be defamatory because numerous sources have asserted this to be the case. Honest opinion can also be a reaction to something else that has been published, and can even defend someone posting something that is incorrect, if it was an honest belief based on the information available at the time (for example, writing “X isn’t registered with the HCPC” wouldn’t be defamatory if a person had their HCPC registration in a different name, or it didn’t show on the website yet, or the name checked was spelt incorrectly because that was the spelling used in the article under discussion).

As far as I could see, all comments that were on the forum about celebrity psychologists, or made or retweeted by me on social media, involved telling the truth or making fair comment about known or published facts.

On the other hand, my investigations showed me that the complainant was someone who frequently threatens properly registered mental health professionals who criticise his favoured celebrity psychologists with referral to the HCPC. I also found that the individual concerned had used anonymous IDs to respond aggressively to critics of his favoured celebrity psychologists, and to place more flattering quotes and reviews about them into the public domain. I also heard from other colleagues who had been harassed for raising similar concerns. One noted:

“This is one of the perversities about the register and use of the title psychologist; as [celebrity psychologists] are not registered they are able to freely mislead the public about their status and not be held accountable and yet they can put in complaints to the HCPC about those of us that are properly qualified.  The complaint is vindictively motivated [and yet effective as a deterrent/punishment for critics]“

So on 2nd April I sent the HCPC a robust reply:

I have had a better look into this and I am now in a position to reply more fully.

For reference, the forum has run for 13 years and contains 152,000 posts on over 15,000 topics. We have never had a formal complaint about our content, and we have a team of moderators who are all HCPC registered clinical psychologists who help to ensure we maintain a professional tone in all content. Every user has to agree a statement about the rules of the site to sign up (which can be read here: https://www.clinpsy.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16012) and we have written guidance for users that spells out our rules (which can be read here:https://www.clinpsy.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10). The guidance is sent to each user in a welcome message as they sign in for the first time and cautions against personal abuse or defamation. Rules 9 and 11 specifically talk about being respectful of others even when disagreeing, avoiding defamation and ensuring posts do not risk bringing the profession into disrepute. It also explains how any post can be reported to moderators by clicking the small triangle button and stating your concerns. We have a pinned post giving specific guidance about defamation (see here: https://www.clinpsy.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9&p=10) that is linked prominently from that guidance, and note it includes the means to contact us to report any content that is potentially defamatory at the bottom of the page: “If you believe a post has been defamatory about you, or an organisation you represent, please email us at clinpsyforum@gmail.com and we will respond as quickly as possible”. 

We have a proper process for responding to a complaint, and a team of qualified CPs who act as moderators that I consult with. However, our complaints process has only been activated once (when an approach to purchase the website turned into correspondence disputing our negative review of a travel agency offering work experience placements to psychology students, but they did not register a formal complaint and we did not find any content that was not factually supported when we investigated) and I can confirm that we have never had any complaint from any of the individuals mentioned in your email. We respond frequently to reports on individual posts, which mainly notify us of spam but can also highlight inappropriate content such as potential breaches of confidentiality. These are dealt with within 3 working days. We have never had a report in relation to defamation or to any content relevant to this complaint.

We do have one thread where [celebrity psychologists] are mentioned – you can read it here: https://www.clinpsy.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=13708. It was started in 2012 where forum members raised concerns about “celebrity psychologists” who do not have HCPC registration but appear to be giving the public the impression they are regulated professionals. The thread stood for 8 years and the majority of content was posted two or more years before I contributed to it at all. I did review the entire thread at that point and found nothing defamatory. Nonetheless my response includes the following: 

“The issue of psychological therapists who practise outside the scope of professional regulation is one that is important to many of our members who work hard to gain practitioner status with the HCPC, because we believe in the principle being important to protect the public (regardless of the individuals involved).

As with any other thread on the forum, if any of the content of this thread is considered defamatory the the individual involved is welcome to email the site (clinpsyforum@gmail.com) and point this out and we will remove it.” 

The thread was then dormant for nearly six years, before being raised to discuss the way some “celebrity psychologists” were using BPS membership to give the impression of professional qualifications, whilst apparently breaching BPS guidance. I had raised these concerns with the BPS and mentioned doing so on the forum and on twitter. However, as with the content in the thread, the concerns were about the misrepresentation of professional titles and skills, and the role the BPS take in giving credibility to psychologists who are not HCPC registered practitioner psychologists, and their lack of will to intervene or regulatory teeth when concerns are raised about these individuals. Whilst one or two of my posts are critical of specific things that [individual celebrity psychologists have] written or said I cannot see any defamatory content. I have made no direct criticism of [the individuals named in the complaint], and there has never been any mention of [the complainant] on that thread or elsewhere on the forum.

Nobody has raised a complaint about that thread. I have reviewed it today, and whilst there is legitimate concern about misrepresentation of qualifications and the public perception of psychologists, based on things written or said by various unregulated “psychologists” in the media, I cannot see anything defamatory in the content. [Far from being unprofessional, I believe we have gone above and beyond requirements to prevent defamatory or unprofessional content. I posted in that very thread] how to report any concerns about defamation, and have been mindful to allow only appropriate professional concerns about misrepresentation to be raised on the forum, rather than personal attacks or potentially defamatory content.

I do not believe that it can possibly impair my fitness to practice as a clinical psychologist to have hosted or participated in discussion about potential misrepresentation of professional qualifications by “celebrity psychologists”. This has not been defamatory, and I believe it to be legitimate for members of a clinical psychology forum to raise professional regulatory concerns about public figures – especially when these are factually based, shared by many practitioner psychologists and early career stage psychologists, and have been raised appropriately with professional bodies including the BACP and BPS. The posts on the forum that were critical of these individuals were based on the content of their newspaper columns and television appearances, how they are introduced in TV programs, and their stated qualifications and experience on their websites. For example, it is a true fact that Emma Kenny is not a clinical psychologist, despite being introduced in a BBC television series as being one, and this being a breach of the regulations that brought us under the auspices of the HCPC.

I would note that it is entirely lawful for individuals to publish honest opinions on a matter of public interest and based on facts which are true – this is known as “fair comment” or “honest opinion”, and has been tested through the courts by cases such as British Chiropractic Association vs Simon Singh, which led to the Defamation Act, 2013. This introduced a number of protections against allegations of defamation, including truth, honest opinion, public interest, and a defence for website operators hosting user-generated content, provided they comply with a procedure to enable the complainant to resolve disputes directly with the author of the material concerned or otherwise remove it. This ensures that individuals who own or run websites that allow comment are not liable for the content of other user’s comments on it. It requires that the complainant must contact the site owner or administrator to raise a complaint in which they specify the complainant’s name, the statement concerned, where on the website it was posted and explain why it is defamatory, before taking any other action in relation to alleged defamation. These complaints can only be made by the person who has allegedly been defamed or their legal representative.

We have never received any complaint or notification of potential defamation, or any communication from [celebrity psychologists] or their legal representatives, and as previously stated we have never mentioned, heard of or communicated with [the complainant]. Thus a non-specific complaint to the HCPC made by an individual who has never been mentioned on the site seems quite inappropriate as a means to address concerns. I would therefore hope that the complaint can be quickly dismissed.

Yet the case still wasn’t dismissed, despite the fact I had demonstrated that a) I had not made any defamatory comments about the individuals concerned and b) there was no legal basis to hold me accountable for posts made by others on a forum that I own (even had any been defamatory, when none of them had been).

I was then asked on 6th April to provide proof that no complaints had been made to the website. Aside from the fact that it is not my burden to prove a negative, and almost an impossible task, I spent the next 3 hours responding to this request, searching the email correspondence, administrator and moderator report logs for each name or the word complaint, and submitted screen shots of every search. These were acknowledged on the following day.

Yet the case still wasn’t dismissed.

I then heard nothing for 4 months. So I wrote on 12th August to ask whether the complaint had been dismissed. This email was acknowledged, and I was told I would receive a reply within 5 working days, but received no reply. I therefore emailed again on 20th August, which again had no reply. So on 26th August I raised a complaint.


My complaint was that this “fitness to practise concern” was obviously spurious from the start, and should never have reached the point of even a cursory investigation (given the complaint was from a person I had never interacted with, about comments made by people other than me about people other than him). But even if it did, in error, reach a cursory investigation, surely the information I provided within 3 days was enough to say “sorry, it is now clear this isn’t a legitimate complaint” and not keep me under the stress of a formal fitness to practise investigation? How this can still be hanging over my head five months later is very troubling. Surely there must be a process for checking the prima facie validity of complaints, that should have dismissed this? What if I had been employed, and this had led to me being suspended or fired? How you could do this to a person struggling to sustain their business through a pandemic lockdown over such a trivial and spurious complaint is beyond me.

On 4th September the investigation was officially closed. The HCPC informed me:

I am writing to let you let you know that we have now completed our initial investigation into the concerns we received about your fitness to practise.

During our investigation, we obtained information from the Complainant and yourself. We have now assessed the concern, and all the information we received, against our threshold criteria for fitness to practise investigations.

In doing so, we have considered whether this matter may be a breach of the following HCPC Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics:
2. Communicate appropriately and effectively
6. Manage risk

The outcome of our assessment is that the threshold criteria for fitness to practise investigations has not been met in this instance. This means that we do not consider that the concern, or the information we have obtained about it, amounts to an allegation that your fitness to practise may be impaired.

The reasons for our decision are explained in more detail below:

Issue 1 – comments of an offensive, bullying or inappropriate nature on social media

Registrants are not prohibited from expressing their opinions on social media, provided the content or language used is not inappropriate or offensive.

HCPC Guidance on Social Media advises Registrants: ‘ When using social media you should apply the same standards as you would when communicating in other ways. Be polite and respectful, and avoid using language that others might reasonably consider to be inappropriate or offensive. Use your professional judgement in deciding whether to post or share something.’

From the links and screenshots provided, the content of the forum appears to be confined to a discussion of professional concerns and information already in the public domain. Regarding the opinions and concerns expressed in the forum, the HCPC would be out of place to prohibit its Registrants from having a free discussion about their concerns or limit their ability to express their opinions. Of the information provided and the search conducted, I am unable to find any statements which amount to ‘trolling’  or bullying.

As our process is evidence based, we cannot proceed with our investigation without evidence to support the concerns. The Complainant was given multiple opportunities to provide evidence that you contributed to and offensive or inappropriate content, but has failed to provide information which supports the concerns.

Issue 2 – hosting comments by others of an offensive, bullying or inappropriate nature on your site

You have provided evidence that you have put multiple protections in place to ensure the tone, language and content of the forum is not defamatory and does not stray into inappropriate content or language. Where members breach these terms, you have a team of moderators who will respond.

In providing individuals the ability to report specific posts and comments, you have acted in accordance with your professional duty to support and encourage others to report concerns(SCPE 7.2). You have evidenced that you have not received complaints on this thread, and therefore have not been in a position to respond to such concerns.

In the absence of any evidence to suggest you have not complied with the relevant obligations, there is no information to suggest that your fitness to practise may be impaired.

We will therefore not be taking any further action in relation to this matter and have closed our file on this case. However, please continue to be aware of our communication guidance when reviewing your forum/website.

We appreciate that this has been a very stressful time for you and would like to thank you for your co-operation and patience during our investigation.

So, to my relief, they got there in the end and the complaint has been dismissed. However, my question is why the complaint got through the starting gates, and why it took 5 months, 2 emails and a formal complaint to resolve.

But more than this, why do the BPS continue to endorse these “celebrity psychologists” and do nothing to protect or support genuine practitioner psychologists against this kind of attack? Despite numerous complaints about “celebrity psychologist” Jo Hemmings in the context of her article about Meghan Markle being manipulative, the BPS sat her down for a chat and took her at her word that she would be more careful in future. And they’ve not replied to any of my emails in the six months since I suspended my membership, saying I would not continue membership until they responded to the concerns I raised about their endorsements not protecting the public.

And more than this, why does the legislation not distinguish genuinely qualified and accountable professional psychologists within the scope of regulation from anyone who calls themselves a psychologist? In Australia it is an offence with enormous financial penalties to misrepresent someone as a psychologist or claim to be a psychologist if not within the scope of statutory regulation. So the public cannot be misled by the media citing quacks or charlatans who claim qualifications, but actually have to check their registration before using them as experts. Here we haven’t even got that protection for who can be called as an expert witness to inform critical decisions in the courts. The scope of current regulation fails to protect the public, yet nobody – not professional bodies or politicians – seems to care.

Runway: A blog about whether being self-employed or starting a business is a viable option financially

If an aircraft runs out of runway before becoming airborne then it will have to stop or it will potentially crash horribly. For this reason, runway is used as a metaphor for the relationship between the money available in a business and its running costs. If the business does not generate enough income to keep the cashflow up to cover costs, then it will either come to a stop or come to a horrible end. But unlike an airport, where sufficient runway already exists for the purposes of launching planes, with a new business you have to find or create the money that will hopefully let the business become self-sustaining. And unlike an airport, at which planes get up into the air uneventfully every few minutes every day for many years, most businesses fail within the first three years, often because of not being able to generate enough income to sustain the business in the longer term.

I think a lot of people in employment have fantasies about being self-employed or starting their own business. For clinicians, the fantasy is often about offering therapy in private practise to insured or well-heeled clients with milder problems. Whilst the hourly rates for private practise might seem attractive compared to a salary divided down into an hourly rate, the figures represent something really different. Salary is paid on leave days, bank holidays and when you are sick. It covers maternity/paternity leave and redundancy if you are no longer needed. You get supervision, CPD, equipment to use and premises to work in. You also have a team of other professionals supporting you in the background from admin to HR, finance, operational management, procurement and maintenance. You don’t have to think beyond providing the clinical and associated psychological services. Salary packages, particularly from the NHS, also contribute to very favourable life insurance and pension schemes. When you are self-employed you need to think about premises, insurance, supervision, CPD costs, DBS checks, accountancy, advertising, tax and how you will generate income if you don’t or can’t work. You may also need equipment from computers and stationary to psychometric tests (which are enormously expensive both to purchase and for record forms).

Remember that the bills need to be paid immediately, but clients may not pay you as promptly – and some may not pay at all. This is particularly true for me when doing expert witness work where the timelines from accepting the work to receiving payment for it are amazingly extended. If I accepted an instruction in principle on 1st January, I would typically receive instructions for it 1-3 weeks later. My appointments would take place 4-8 weeks after that, and my report would be submitted a fortnight later, perhaps in late March. There might then be further instructions or clarifying questions, before the case is heard at the end of May. Any invoices will only be processed when the case closes in June, and then sent to the Legal Aid Authority for scrutiny in July. If there are no queries the LAA then send payment to the solicitors, who eventually send it on to the expert in the August or September, though some will drag their heels for several more months. So I have to wait six to twelve more months to receive payment. And about 8% of the work is never paid, because the solicitors closes after the Legal Aid claim is made, or because the LAA determined that some of the work wasn’t “reasonable” or because there was a problem somewhere in the line of communication and one of the parties doesn’t claim a share of your invoice. Meanwhile the work is taxable in the financial year in which it is completed, and the VAT is payable at the point the invoice is issued. I also have to pay any staff who contributed at the end of the month in which we did the work.

Even as a sole trader working from home in a service industry with relatively low set-up costs, most of us need to earn some money to cover our living expenses, and can’t go for months or years unpaid. That means that unless you have a massive inheritance or lottery win to draw on, it might not be possible to give up salaried work to take the gamble of trying something independent. My rule of thumb is to have a minimum of three months living expenses saved before you consider leaving salaried employment. You might get this from a redundancy or mutually agreed resignation scheme, or by putting money aside whilst you are planning. You should also compare your current and projected earnings. My way of calculating this to calculate your annual salary plus 25% (the approximate value of the pension and protections) divided by 210 (the actual number of days an average NHS employee turns up to work). You can then compare this to what you think you could earn in a day if you had private clients, a contract with a large company to deliver training or services, a calendar full of supervision or consultancy, or whatever you imagine doing. You really need a multiple of three between the first number and the second to make being self-employed pay equivalently after costs, though if you really hate your job or are prepared to take a reduction in income (at least in the short-term) you might consider a multiple of two. I don’t believe it is viable to go below this because in my experience people never properly account for the amount of expenses involved, or the for the amount of non-income generating time required. As well as the fact that not all of your available slots will be filled until you are well established, it is worth bearing in mind that most full-time clinicians spend about 15-18 hours per week on direct clinical work, and the rest on work tasks that would be non-income generating in the private sector, such as screening referrals, setting up appointments, phone calls, email, supervision, meetings/indirect work, writing letters/reports, other admin and CPD.

That said, money isn’t everything. I know some amazing selfless people who have earned less than minimum wage for many years, but followed their heart because they cared passionately about what they were doing, and the impact it could make in the world. I’m not quite that altruistic, perhaps because I am the main earner for our family unit and feel an obligation to sustain our quality of life, but I’ve had to learn to live on a much less regular income. I pay myself minimum wage then supplement this with lump sums when the business is profitable. To make this even more unpredictable, I have often had to loan money into the business in order to pay salaries when others have been slow to pay us for work we’ve done. Overall I’d say my income is lower than when I worked in the NHS and did some court expert witness work on top, but nowadays on balance it probably matches my consultant grade salary. The amount I earn feels sufficient for our needs – and probably stretches a little further as some expenses have been absorbed (eg my mobile phone bill is paid by the company, as is the cost of any CPD I want, the costs of my accountant, and some little things like a sandwich and soft drink when I’m away from the office on business).

There are also some things that money can’t buy. I’ve loved the freedom and flexibility of being self-employed, even though there have been times that have been quite tough financially. Whilst it initially increased my workaholic tendencies to quite alarming proportions (peaking at working 9.30am to 6.30pm in the office and then 10pm until 2am at home most weekdays, and fitting in 5-10 hours of work per weekend), more recently I’ve been able to achieve more of a work-life balance. I’ve stopped doing as much consultancy and training that involved staying away over night, and reduced the court work that created so many high-pressure deadlines. I’ve started to cluster meetings in London once a month, arranging other meetings over videoconferencing where possible. I’ve withdrawn from the committee and policy work that was taking up a big chunk of my time. I’ve also recognised the wise advice of a past supervisor that said I needed to fill up life outside work with commitments that would compete with work, rather than expecting to ever be the kind of person who can ring-fence free time. So I’ve started putting social appointments in my calendar, made a commitment to swimming regularly, I’m doing more adventurous things with the children, and I’ve even been able to sneak out for the afternoon with my husband from time to time. Running my own business has also given me a chance to relocate to an area that I love, where my qualify of life and working environment is much nicer.

When weighing up the options, bear in mind that working as a sole trader can be quite isolating. In the NHS or other organisations we usually work within teams, often with the benefit of colleagues to bounce ideas off, or who can contribute to formulations from other perspectives. Working with others also allows you to collaborate or to delegate work to people with complementary skills or interests. It shares the risk of complex cases, and means you don’t feel solely responsible for the waiting list or the stuck cases. It can allow you to prioritise work and manage your workload. When you are the only one doing the work this becomes much more difficult, and the pressures and sense of responsibility for clients can increase substantially. Even though the waiting list might be shorter, you might feel more guilty if there is a delay in starting work with a new referral, or more responsible for ensuring a good outcome for everyone. When your income literally depends on how much work you do it can be hard not to end up over-working to the detriment of everything else in your life. However, on the flip side you can feel pride in positive outcomes, and a waiting list becomes a marker of success (that people are willing to wait for you) rather than a mark of failure like it is construed in the NHS (where there is pressure to meet targets, and services don’t have enough resources to keep pace with need, and are the only available option for most people).

You also need to realistically appraise your business plan. Most people go into business in the belief that they have found a niche in which they can earn a profit, and hope that demand for their services or product will arrive as soon as potential customers know it is available. However, that can lead people to be overly optimistic about how fast they can gain traction in the market, or the level of profit they can make. Unless the plan is to seek external investment, most small business owners need for the business to become profitable fairly quickly, and few would be willing to pour their life savings into a new business in the hope of a return further down the line. When trying to start up a company or expand a sole trader enterprise into a business that employs others it can often feel like a Catch 22 situation, that you can’t afford the things you need to generate the income that will fund the things you need. But unlike on Dragon’s Den or in Silicon Valley, few people have access to capital investment and most professionals (in the health and social care field at least) are wary about taking on loans before the business has the means to repay them, even if they can access lending.

My point is that even if you have a great business idea and an established reputation getting enough money to start and sustain a business is tough. Cashflow is a make or break issue. Generating sufficient working capital is one of several elements that challenge new start-ups. In fact, of small businesses that fail (based on figures from the USA), 82% attribute this to cashflow issues and 29% say that they ran out of cash, whilst 42% said that the issue was a lack of market need for their products or services, 23% don’t have the right team to deliver the business, and 19% can’t match a competitor.

I guess that makes me a survivor. I launched my small business seven years ago this month, and it is gratifying that we’ve managed to weather the politics of adversity to still be trading. However, making money is still something I find quite challenging. I’ve come out of a career in the NHS in which the financial transactions involved were far removed from my daily life, and the idea of making a profit was quite aversive. But I’ve had to learn to make my business financially viable. Whilst there have been times that have tested me almost to my limits, the business is still functioning and financially we are still on the runway. I view that as a success. However, I feel like we have never quite reached the position of being airborne, where the business is self-sustaining without me personally doing income generating work as a substantial proportion of my time – and that would be an enormous issue if I ever needed time off sick.

My penultimate piece of advice is to speak to people who understand business and finance before you embark upon your journey, and regularly as you go along. I’ve had the benefit of great guidance as I’ve travelled outside of the NHS and into the world of business. As well as my fantastic ongoing mentoring from Impact Hub, which has included some work on the financial elements of the business plan, I recently won a place on a scheme sponsored by Barclays bank to help social purpose businesses to scale up. I’ve been attending Judge Business School at Cambridge University with several other small businesses, where we have had a series of days to explore our options and make a growth plan for the business. Having identified gaps, I’ve then taken actions to rectify them. For example, we’ve built a website for BERRI so that prospective subscribers can see what our tools have to offer, and that has brought in a flurry of new subscribers. I’ve also explored the options to help me scale up more rapidly and increase the impact of what we can deliver. Thankfully we have a strong business case, and I’ve been increasingly able to articulate that as a result of the work I’ve been doing. Over the last month I have spoken to two potential sources of investment. That would give me more runway to play with, but I need to work out whether we are fully aligned in terms of the destination and route to get there before I can be sure that is the right move to make compared to continued slow organic growth.

My final advice is to recognise your own limitations, and to find ways to delegate the tasks you are not good at or not enthused about, and spend time with people who share your passions or the skills you want to grow. For me that means having an administrator who makes up and chases up my invoices, accountants who can deal with payroll, tax, NI, pensions etc and advisors who guide me to apply for the right grants, tax rebates and training schemes. I also meet up regularly with other social entrepreneurs to share our progress and plan collaborative projects. I just appointed an experienced Business Development Lead for the company, who I hope will help me to weigh up the options for investment, and help us to grow quickly but in a way that feels right and prioritises making an positive impact on the lives of vulnerable children over maximising profit. I’m hoping we’ll reach sustainability by the end of the year, but there are still hurdles to overcome, and even when we get into the air I can’t imagine it will be a journey without occasional turbulence.

Pushing upwards

When I was an undergraduate psychology student, I found parts of the course curriculum kind of boring. I was interested in human behaviour and experiences, because I wanted to understand how to alleviate distress and increase wellbeing. Unfortunately I was not so interested in the neurochemistry or neuroanatomy that is the underlying mechanics for those emotions and behaviours. I was interested in behavioural ecology, like the evolutionary/survival value of altruism to vampire bats, and its parallels in human behaviour (eg why we have developed a system of rules and punishments to enforce the social contract). But I wasn’t so interested in animal perception and cognition. I found some of the early psychological experiments on both animals and humans to be really cruel and distressing, though I was aware that they helped to progress our understanding of brain and behaviour, and helped us to recognise the need for the ethical considerations we apply to experiments now.

Because I didn’t love the whole course, during the second year of the course I began to wonder whether I had selected the subject on autopilot, because my Mum is also a clinical psychologist (now retired).  A few other life events compounded this lost feeling by lowering my mood generally* and I developed an increasing existential doubt about whether I was making the right choices in my life.  I also wanted to test out my values and the options available to me, so my focus drifted to my social relationships and activities outside of psychology. I became less motivated and didn’t attend all of my lectures, and (despite having previously been quite successful in educational assessments) I got a 2:2 for one module that I hadn’t enjoyed. It was a mark that fairly reflected my effort/interest level, and in any other context it wouldn’t have been a big deal. However, I was gutted because I felt like the whole course would be pointless if I didn’t excel academically, as I was aware of how competitive the path into clinical psychology was. I considered changing course or dropping out, but I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do.

One of the images that helped pull me through that time, was from the I Ching – an ancient Chinese book of wisdom, also known as the book of changes. The basic gist is that you throw coins to point you to one of 64 readings, which can be generated with various variations and additional comments, and (like a horoscope or cold reading or fortune cookie, but perhaps with a bit more zen wisdom) the resulting text is ambiguous and non-specific enough for you to draw relevance to your life situation. The page that I was sent to was called “pushing upwards” and the hexagram was of wood below the earth. The image it described was of a seed below the surface, using all of its stores of energy to push a shoot upwards in the hope that it would reach the light and conditions in which it could grow and thrive. The text explained that to do this is an effortful process, in which you are gambling that this investment of energy will be worthwhile in reaching a goal that might still be out of sight. It describes the heaping up of small efforts to create the conditions in which future success is possible. The seed takes time to unfold into the tree: Although the results are not immediately visible and gratifying, “that which pushes upwards does not come back”. The reading tells you to put in a sustained effort if you want to achieve great things. It reassures you that if you are driven by a deeper sense of purpose (rather than wealth or glory) and willing to learn from wise people around you, you should not fear the path ahead. It implies that in time favourable conditions will help you along. In this way, it says, a person can rise from obscurity and lowliness to power and influence, provided that you make your efforts in a humble, flexible and authentic way.

This was a good metaphor for needing to put in more effort to achieve my goals, and it also reminded me of my core values and my drive to in some way make the world a better place, by improving the experience of other humans who had been dealt a tougher hand in life. Thankfully, as I entered my third year I got together with my husband (who has continued to be a supportive and stabilising influence for more than two decades since) and entered a much happier phase in my life. I also found the modules in the final year of undergraduate much more relevant to my interests, because they were much more closely tied in to the theory and practice of clinical psychology. As a result I started to put in more effort and get higher marks. I also started to gather work experience, and to seek out advice from qualified CPs. Gradually, those efforts paid dividends – I secured an AP post on a research project straight after graduating** and then worked incredibly hard to do that job, write up papers for publication and complete a masters degree by research at the same time, before gaining wider experience in a more clinical role with a different client group and then securing my place on clinical training.

From the moment I entered that third year with that mindset, I enjoyed the rest of my journey into clinical psychology. No matter what the client group or type of work, I felt like I was doing something worthwhile and I was also constantly learning and being challenged. I had some inspiring supervisors, both as an AP and as a trainee. I didn’t love every placement (they were all good learning experiences, but my enjoyment varied depending on my interest in the client group, the style and context of the work, and the amount of travel involved to get there). Likewise I didn’t click with every supervisor equally, but I did learn a lot from each of them. In my first AP role my supervisor was a role model of the true scientist practitioner, who secured grant funding to push forward the evidence base of the clinical work, and constantly published papers and disseminated findings. She pushed me to participate in that world, and with her support I co-wrote six peer reviewed journal articles during those two years! She is still my role model of embodying the link between research and practice in psychology, and I would love to emulate Esme’s energy and influence in my own field of work. I then worked in a project that trained student social workers, and assisted with expert reports on parenting – something I continue to have an interest in to this day. It gave me a much more practical grounding, and an awareness of social care systems that I have subsequently built on.

As a trainee I gained a basic grounding in brief CBT-based interventions in an adult service, and learnt more about the structure of mental health services and working as part of a multidisciplinary team. I also worked in services for people with intellectual disability, where I learnt about the value of indirect work, and gave more explicit consideration to issues of capacity and consent. I loved my core child and family placement, and the warmth, pragmatism and commitment of my supervisor, Patricia, set the tone for the kind of psychologist I wanted to become. I returned to her for a specialist placement to pick up the cases that were more complex, transgenerational or involved child protection issues that I had avoided the first time around. I was lucky enough during that second specialist placement to also have the opportunity to work one session a week into an NCH Action for Children project for child and young adult survivors of sexual abuse. There I was reminded of the value of human connections over any academic knowledge, as well as having the opportunity to use Cognitive Analytic Therapy for the first time. I also did a specialist placement in a child development service, with some work into a sexual abuse team – including working with children who had survived abuse and co-facilitating a group for mothers whose partners had sexually abused their children. I learnt more about complexity and systems, and some healthy cynicism about organisational change. I still remember the chart for the new tiered model of services pinned up on my supervisor’s wall, with ovals that widened at lower tiers, entitled “the shape of future services” to which he had added a handwritten subtitle “is pear-shaped”.

When I qualified I was torn between a post with the favourite supervisor I had spent two placements with and one that several people warned me was “burnout waiting to happen” working in child protection. After a long discussion with a good friend I concluded I wanted to continue to challenge myself, and also to put myself where I was most needed. I therefore took the latter post, and worked in a split post across CAMHS and child protection. I learnt from a fantastic supervisor how to work in complex systems and services. David also taught me how to be an expert witness for the family court. The balance between being down-to-earth, approachable and yet grounded in knowledge and theory, as well as the clear communication under pressure gave me another role model of the type of psychologist I wanted to become. He taught me to ask the uncomfortable questions, and to balance holding empathy for parents with speaking up for the best interests of the child. Then in my longest standing post, I learnt from another fantastic head of service to think about process in supervision, how to bring fun and creativity into my work, and also to pick my battles! I also did a lot more collaborative work, and got involved in service development and audit, as well as gradually stepping up to greater supervisory and management responsibility. In that post I had the benefit of working with an inspiring social work team manager who had been doing really innovative work to increase access to permanent placements for older and more complex children. I also went out to America for a couple of weeks to train with Dan Hughes, where I learnt about the power of being present in the intersubjective space, and became more willing to show my own vulnerability and emotional reactions.

I have also learnt from less positive experiences – the times where I got it completely wrong, or unintentionally triggered negative responses in others. For example, I remember an AP I supervised feeding back disliking that I had introduced her to colleagues as “my AP”, intending that to be as supportive as I had perceived it being when I had been an AP myself, rather than as indicative of any claim of ownership. I remember crying when criticised in a multi-agency meeting about the autism pathway, and realising too late that it had been a bad decision to come into work that day whilst my house was flooded and I didn’t have enough emotional resources for work. I still cringe looking back on one time I tried to be supportive to a junior colleague who had to give evidence in court, but ended up making myself look stupid and inhibiting her ability to impart her observations in a useful way. I recall the challenges of having to raise concerns about how a colleague’s homophobia might have a negative impact on service users, and how they justified this being part of their cultural and religious identity. I remember the camaraderie, but also the pressure of working within a big system, feeling responsible for protecting more junior colleagues from organisational changes, worrying about waiting lists, and defensively managing referrals.

Most of all, when I think about negative experiences, I remember how gutted I was when my wonderful employing organisation lost the competitive tender for our service, and how horrible the initial meeting with the new service directors and managers at our new employing trust was. It started with a gloating talk from the new clinical director, and him taking digs at our senior staff about how some people in the room might think they know how to run CAMH services, but clearly he new better as they had won the tender. The jokes about how nobody need worry about their job security, except the consultant grade psychologists, as “you are quite expensive and we haven’t figured out what to do with you yet”. And the patronising response of the service director to my questions about whether the plan for my service section in their tender specification was fixed: “If you think you can do better, cheaper, love, knock yourself out”. I remember the pressure to rewrite the service specification and job plans for my team whilst my kids were in neonatal intensive care, and to take on various tasks to compensate for the fact they hadn’t appointed a locum to cover my absence. I remember my team being left out of the accommodation plan entirely whilst I was on maternity leave, and after protesting, returning to an undecorated, unfurnished office without internet or telephone points (or mobile reception) that could only be accessed by swiping out the fire exit across two flights of stairs, then swiping into another wing of the building and going down to the furthest end of the corridor. I remember being told to income generate or face temporary staff on my team being made redundant, and then being told that I was allowed to neither quote nor invoice as I wasn’t a budget holder. I remember being promised time off in lieu for all that I did during my maternity leave, but then being denied this on my return as “we can’t pay you full-time pay for part time work, no matter what you did in the previous financial year”.

I remember the day I walked out of a meeting with an operational manager, out of the building, out of the car park and down the road, and felt like I could keep walking forever and never go back. In the end I walked across town to my previous base and talked to the directorate manager there, who made it feel less personal. Over the following weeks I sought out some personal therapy through Occupational Health, and picked apart what was me and what was the toxic system around me. Then I decided to take a career break and spoke to HR to confirm that I would be able to continue my self-employed activities during a career break without this being considered “taking up alternative employment” and blocking my right to return. I also wanted confirmation that I would return on the same grade to the same client group. I always joke that the HR lady I spoke to should never play poker, because as I told her my reasons for leaving her face gave away too much. I watched her non-verbally say something along the lines of “oh shit, we’re in trouble here, pretend we’re not, pretend we’re not” before casually raising the option of redundancy and a gagging contract***.

So I had to uproot and push upwards into new an unfamiliar soil. Initially I applied for other NHS jobs, but ended up withdrawing before interview for one and declining a job offer for another, because I wasn’t prepared to work in another toxic culture. In the end I used my expert witness work as my parachute, and figured I would work it out as I went along. I changed from being a sole trader to a limited company so that I could employ an AP. I felt like I had been gradually dehydrated by the conditions I had worked in until I was just a husk of myself, and as I started doing my own thing I found some rain I started to find my own shape again. At first I used my own business to try to achieve what I had hoped to in my NHS career independently. As I have said in previous blogs, I helped set up a parenting charity, but felt the political agenda of the founder wasn’t consistent with the clinical goals. I secured funding for, designed, managed and evaluated a service to support people with diabetes, but ultimately it wasn’t commissioned. I set up a psychology service within a social care provider, and trained staff all across the country, but whilst I enjoyed the work I didn’t enjoy spending so much time away from my home and kids.

The challenges have continued, as I have had to foster my entrepreneurial side and learn the skills to run a business, hold a budget and manage staff. I’ve found new ways to disseminate knowledge – through being on committees, doing policy work, and writing for different audiences in my book, practice journals and on social media and this blog. I’ve developed ways to use technology to improve services, and I’ve returned to doing research. I’ve had to be flexible enough to try new things until I’ve been able to find a way to work that feels authentic. This blog documents much of that journey.

Through it all I have never been bored or complacent about my work. I’ve always enjoyed finding new challenges, and new ways to apply psychological knowledge. I have always found that my work provides moments of flow – that sense of deep and satisfying immersion in the present moment to the exclusion of everything else, that you get when you have sufficient agency and skills to meet a challenge, and feel a sense of reward from doing something well or contributing to something worthwhile. By comparison with so many people who do repetitive, boring or physically challenging work, I feel a great deal of gratitude that I earn my living doing something that is so varied, with so much autonomy and opportunity for enjoyment. Thankfully I have always been able to find sufficient challenge and novelty in how I work, along with sufficient freedom to satisfy me. And there have always been new human puzzles that intrigue me, and the varied settings and ways of working that I have experienced each involve looking at what I have to offer afresh and customising what I do for the new context.

 

So here I am, running my small business and trying to establish the use of structured needs assessments and outcome measurements in children’s social care. Once again, those themes of pushing upwards are back, as I have been putting in a big investment of time and effort to nurture this project over many years in the hope that it grows into something productive. Now that I am more established and have a mortgage to pay, plus rent on my office and employee salaries it feels like a bigger gamble than early on in my career where I had little to lose. But I have that same feeling of clarity about where I want to make my impact in the world that I did when I decided clinical psychology was for me after wavering as an undergraduate. I also have the same faith that my cumulative efforts will eventually be repaid with positive outcomes and a move into easier progress. If I go back to the image of the seed growing underground, I’d like to think that the journey through the earth has been completed and the new shoots are now reaching up into the sunlight where they can be replenished by energy from the external elements. I know as a gardener that with good planning and regular nurture the slow growth of seeds sown over winter can quickly turn into the rapid growth of spring and summer. I can only hope that I’ve done enough to establish my new plants and all this effort comes to fruition soon!

*My landlady decided to sell the house I was renting (despite having agreed I could stay on there in my third year), so I had to find an alternative place to live. My Dad was tested for prostate cancer. And I experienced the second incident in this past blog about rape culture in which I felt at risk of rape.
** Before you say “it must have been easier back then” I would note that I got that post against 110 other applicants. So even in 1995 things were pretty competitive, and probably more effortful as we had to find job adverts in the BPS appointments memorandum booklet that was posted out with the Psychologist magazine, phone up for an application pack, and then post in a hand written application, as NHS jobs didn’t exist and internet based application systems had not been invented yet. Which makes me feel very old.
*** A legal “compromise agreement” that included terms saying I would not tell people why I was leaving or speak negatively about the trust from which I departed, and could not take legal action against them – terms I understand are pretty common in that situation, but the government has subsequently outlawed after bad publicity, as they can be seen as an attempt to silence whistle-blowers.

Hiding in plain sight: On Louis Theroux and Jimmy Savile

I watched the Louis Theroux documentary on Jimmy Savile tonight, and I wondered why it wasn’t obvious to Louis how slimy and two-faced Jimmy was. It stood out for me from the original documentary, let alone from the rushes shown in the update, how clear it was that he was inappropriate about personal space and made a number of particular types of comments – normalising sexual content, implying connections to power and influence, and schmoozing/bestowing favour – that I associate with people who sexually abuse children that I have met through work. He also behaved differently when he wasn’t on show, and was with someone he didn’t perceive as having influence, in the unguarded footage shot by the producer late at night. I’ve learnt to take note of that too, from bitter experience.

It reminded me that my initial gut reaction to the original documentary was “ugh, my sense of him being creepy as a kid was right – it appears he has a sexual interest in children, and from the way he talks about enjoying his time with her body it seems likely he had sex with his mother’s corpse”. Yet that response at the time was unspeakable, except to my husband. After all, you can’t just say someone is a criminal, a necrophiliac, an abuser and a risk to children without proof and based purely on second hand information. That would be inappropriate, and potentially defamatory, particularly for a professional.

But Louis was there with Savile and heard his entirely unsatisfactory responses to questions, his jokes and inappropriate behaviour, saw his invasion of people’s personal space, heard him made threats to sue and name drop his connections to both establishment and underworld power. Yet, despite being an intelligent guy with suspicions about Savile, Theroux’s reaction wasn’t one of repulsion and scepticism. He was won over by Savile’s charm, and carried along by the fiction Savile had created that he was some odd relic of the 70s with his own rules not quite being in sync with the present overly PC world, and being inappropriate was harmless and par for the course. He probably felt flattered by the attention, and tantalisingly close to being the confidant that would get the big scoop when Jimmy was ready to tell his story. But he stopped being a critical observer and started to consider him a friend, and was present when he continued to behave in inappropriate ways and failed to remark on it. And that shows how easily it is done.

Because if it is your mate, and they just go one step further than you are comfortable about as if that is perfectly normal, then perhaps that is just the way that they are, and you can start thinking that maybe they are too old and odd to have to conform to social norms. And once you start to think that, your own boundaries shift and you become complicit. Something you would instantly baulk at from a stranger, is somehow normalised. You turn a blind eye without realising you have done so. Louis said that he didn’t feel he had been groomed, but I think he was wrong. Sure, he hadn’t been targeted as a potential victim of Savile’s sexual advances, but he had been drip-fed the self-crafted story of the harmless oddball doing so many wonderful things for charity. And he had been slowly habituated to be complicit in accepting the small infringements into the unacceptable, the misogyny, the recurrent sexualised content of his interactions, the invasions of personal space. And he tolerated the evasion, the flattery, the name-dropping, the sinister undertones as part of the special relationship they had developed. And that, to me, is grooming.

I’m not implying Louis is to blame for that. He has shown his intelligence, empathy and insight in other documentaries, so my expectations are high. But it is easy to be groomed. By definition, recurrent sexual abusers who have not been caught are devious and effective in fooling those around them. Plus Savile had a lifetime of practise and an enormous reputation and network to carry him. Nonetheless, I can see why Louis has been looking back and wondering what he should have noticed. I’ve been there and done that.

The first child sex abuser that fooled me (that I know of) was more than 15 years ago now*. He shook my hand, spoke politely, seemed to have a benevolent interest in the wellbeing of the children in the family and always agreed with what the professionals said. He was well educated, middle class, and married with adult children. He was the one who reported concerns about the grandchild who was referred, and was critical of the parents. The child was developmentally delayed, but also underweight and unkempt, with no sense of personal space. In retrospect, I can see that this idealised grandfather was remarkably unsympathetic to his daughter, whose lifestyle of alcoholism and domestic violence punctuated with inpatient stays after self-harm didn’t match up with the facade of happy families he portrayed. But at the time he seemed very concerned about the wellbeing of the child. The receptionist took me aside to mention that he spoke to his wife “like a dog” in the waiting room, but turned on the charm in the presence of clinicians. I didn’t even make a note in the file. I only remembered the comment 6 months later when the social worker said to a case conference that just prior to proceedings to move the child to the residence of these grandparents, the mother had disclosed childhood sexual abuse from her father, along with sadistic punishments like having her hands held against the hot oven door if she didn’t do as she was told quickly enough. This had then been corroborated by another family member, and her records showed the school had reported the burns to her hands. The child was placed in foster care instead.

I remember how stupid I felt. The clues were right there in front of me. The child was vulnerable to abuse, and the developmental delay and unusual behaviour with no sign of organic cause showed that something was going wrong in their life. But it was too easy to attribute it all to the ‘bad’ parents and not the ‘good’ grandparents, falling into the polarised thinking of the family, despite normally having more nuanced formulations. The mother’s story didn’t match the grandparents, and her lifestyle didn’t fit with their descriptions of her upbringing, but she had been branded an unreliable reporter. So why did someone from such a happy middle class home get into such a mess? The answer was given to me on a plate – she had fallen into a bad crowd as a teenager, and ended up drinking and in a destructive relationship – so I didn’t look at other contributory factors. It wasn’t my job to pry, I was just doing a developmental assessment of the child. Yet I know that severely troubled adults have rarely had idyllic childhoods, and have often experienced multiple adverse childhood events, and that attachment styles are often carried through the generations. Likewise I know that trying to charm professionals can be a warning sign, but nonetheless numerous small compliments on your insight, empathy and skill as a clinician can flatter your ego without being so excessive as to raise a red flag. And the receptionist’s comments were given outside of the clinic room, and whilst I didn’t have the file open to take notes. Plus she wasn’t a clinician and may not have heard the full context of the comment, so the team didn’t give it much credence.

Thankfully, the disclosure came in time to protect the child from being placed with someone with a history of abusing children, but it wasn’t thanks to my skill as a clinician. Sure, I was quite early in my career and still quite naive, but I suspect most clinicians think we have uniquely sensitive radar to pick up on abuse and abusers. Sadly, we don’t. Whilst we might not rely on the stereotypes that the public are fed, of dirty old men in trench coats exposing themselves at the park, or strangers trying to tempt children into their car with sweets or puppies, I do think we have some internal stereotypes. The abusers that are easily caught are often socially gauche, lower in intellectual ability and/or socioeconomic status, and we tend to think of men who are unsuccessful in adult relationships and are prolific and opportunistic in their offending, but abusers are a highly heterogeneous group. Few have overt mental health problems, some may appear to be morally upstanding citizens, some are female, they come from all walks of life, cultures and religions, they may have functional adult relationships, and most are known to the child. about a quarter of perpetrators are under the age of 18. The majority of abusers have a single victim or a small number within their immediate network. A tiny minority with a primary inclination towards children are prolific abusers like Savile, but the damage is so wide ranging and the cases more newsworthy and memorable, which is why people are more aware of them. So there is no clear alarm bell, apart from the inappropriate interest in or behaviour towards children itself, the presence of child pornography, or sexualised behaviour or disclosures from the child.

In hindsight, it is easy to recognise signs you may have missed, and if you know there is a history of sexual offences against children certain behaviours show in a different light. And I have learnt to be both more observant and more wary. Those flirtatious comments to the receptionist, or the attempts to find common ground with or flatter the assessing clinician stand out, just like the cringe-inducing examples of Savile’s behaviour we saw in the edited highlights from the rushes that Theroux had of his time with Savile. We can only hope that we learn from experience and aren’t so easily fooled next time.

*all case details have been suitably anonymised

Reflecting back

I’ve been archiving the files for a lot of my past court work this week. I moved office base and I don’t want to be cluttering up my new space with lots of old case information I don’t need any more, when it can be securely stored and eventually shredded. So far I’ve boxed up the files for 115 family court cases for which I completed an assessment and wrote a report, leaving only records that have been updated since the start of 2013 in my filing cabinet. As I check that each of the newer cases has been completed and invoiced, I will put those into storage too, and use my filing space for other things. It is another step in letting go of my role as an expert witness, and the huge weight of responsibility and emotional demand that entails.

As I put each case away, I added the family names to an index in order that I could locate them if it is ever required. I am supposed to keep files for seven years, or until the child is 21, so they stay with me a long time. As I record the names I realise I can remember the stories of many of the families, and I wondered how they were doing now. There were lots of traumas in those stories, that I heard and described in my reports, and felt in my bones. Many parents whose own childhoods meant that they couldn’t parent in a safe and nurturing way. Many of them dealt a hand full of adversity, who had no resources to cope with the stresses of their chaotic lives. Over and over again I saw children who were harmed by the care they were given, both in the children I had to assess, and in the histories of their parents and grandparents. Themes repeating across two or more generations.

It has always felt terribly sad that in order to give their children a chance at a better life, the courts have to intervene in ways that further wound the parents. But an expert’s job is to advise on what is best for the child, and sadly that is often contradictory with what is in the best interest of their parent. And I hope that I have always kept what would be best for the child paramount in my thinking, but whilst holding some compassion for the other family members. I think about the cases where I didn’t do the story justice, and the courts made decisions that I didn’t agree with. I worry about the cases where greater experience or new knowledge from the literature would have given me a slightly different perspective. I think about times I was threatened, or parents refused to talk to me, or I was cross-examined for five hours straight. Then I remember a time when a parent I assessed approaching me after I gave evidence, and feeling wary she was going to be angry that I recommended her child was removed. Instead she said thank you to me. “You were the only person I’ve met in all this that was always honest with me, and understood how I got here. I can see why you said what you did about me, and I think you are right that he will do better being adopted”. I’m still blown away by that. What an amazing gift to give me at a time that was so painful for her. I hope that she got the therapy she needed to put that reflection, empathy and kindness into practise in her life, and get out of the run of destructive relationships that had dominated her life.

I put the files into the box and lock them away. I am glad to let them go. It isn’t just physical space they take up, but mental space. Being an expert witness for the family court is a tough job. The hourly rates might seem high, but there are other ways to earn the same without the emotional burden. There have been pros and cons for me. I’m a different person now than I was when I began doing that work. I’m more observant and analytical, better able to ask the right questions, to deal with uncertainties, and to spot inconsistencies and triangulate sources. There have been rewarding moments too. I have had a lot of positive feedback about the quality of my assessments and evidence, and thanks for the impact of my work. But I’m also more cynical and I’ve seen a very dark side to the world. I’m more aware of the risks, and of how prevalent maltreatment and poor care are, even in our supposedly developed nation. I think I’m less trusting of people as a result of doing this type of work, and my norms for what levels of problems require professional help have shifted towards the more severe end of the spectrum, making me less sympathetic to people who feel very disadvantaged by more minor difficulties. I’ve also acquired the bad habits of work that has a strong pattern of boom-and-bust in demand – working through the night to make deadlines, putting in 80 hour weeks to meet demand, and generally taking on too much to leave enough of myself for other tasks and life outside work. It has also shown me that I can be a total control freak about the standards of work contributed by other members of my team, because my own standards are meticulous and I take this type of work – that can change the course of people’s lives – particularly seriously.

Letting go of court work is difficult, because it glitters. There is always demand, and it is nice to feel needed and held in high regard by other professionals. It feels as if you have genuine influence in the legal process (and I generally hold the UK justice system and public law professionals in high regard). The pay, although much reduced since legal aid cuts, still seems somehow more attractive as an hourly rate than the reality should be (given you can’t charge for much of the time these cases actually take, nor for administrative support such as typing or arranging appointments, nor for venues or materials it actually works out to be less than I make from other activities like therapy, training or consulting). It also has the kind of attraction of rubber-necking at a car-crash, as the cases each have their own grim story, are more complex than most clinical cases seen in secondary and tertiary tiers of service provision, and are often both acute and chronic in nature. I find it hard to say no when my skills are needed. But I must learn to delegate this work to others, or to decline, because I want to have my time and emotional energy back for other things.

And so it is good to archive my files, and to catch up with my invoicing, and to clear the decks of old ways of working to allow myself space for the new. It feels like putting down rocks I have been carrying for a long time….