Poetry for Wellbeing

 Adapted from e-mail sent last night to Hereford Times newspaper:

Dear Letters Editor

Nigel Heath writes: “At the beginning of the lockdown back in March, I decided to write a poem a day as a stay-at-home-challenge….

“There is so much one can say in a poem, perhaps to express joy about some aspect of being out in nature or about something you have found funny or about actually any subject you can think of.” (Letter, Oct. 29, 2020)

Financial and career-ladder immobility lockdown for disadvantaged people has existed long before Covid-19. An ‘Employment Rehabilitation Centre’ (ERC) Social Worker told my parents in 1978, “Yes, Alan [then aged 24] has an academic brain, but he’s too slow to ever gain from further government-funded education and training. It just wouldn’t be worth it. He’ll just have to learn to lower his sights.”

While the system never helped me get sustainable waged work and I was never properly signposted to disability benefit entitlement until 2009 — despite six weeks ‘vocational assessment period’ at ERC three decades earlier! — I got more skilful through self-expression and self-directed learning despite an unfair system, especially as “too many gaps in your employment history” proved a barrier. Yet as I wrote a troubled 21 year old poetic soul on Universal Credit recently, writing for self-expression helps us ‘get a handle on things’ and while it might not make us stars it helps makes us better survivors as we find our own meaning in what we are going through.

In some of my poems, I expressed a deep rage rather than turning that rage inwards against myself with disastrous mental health consequences. I realised in terms of the bigger picture that I was not being punished for “a birth defect”(1) but maltreated.(2)

Now, 

“NHS Digital’s 2019-20 Mental Health Act statistics report ... states that there were 147.9 Mental Health Act detentions per 100,000 people in the most deprived tenth of areas, while the least deprived areas tenth recorded a rate of 42.8 detentions per 100,000. Data for other areas showed a clear link between deprivation and detention risk.”(3)

I applied skills and understanding to what I was facing. What do Hereford’s Tory MPs apply as elected public servants?

Alan Wheatley

Note

1. ERC Occupational Psychologist to me: “…. birth defect [sic]. There’s nothing more we can do to help you here. You [sic] will be terminated at the end of next week.”
 
2. Example poem:

They’re Robbing Themselves

Some laws are made behind our backs —
Such as subjecting dole money to income tax.
Do cushioned bureaucrats in Whitehall
Have any love for me at all?

Here am I: long unemployed
‘Twixt them and me an awful void:
On their work they seem to thrive
While the poor are struggling to survive.

What must it take for them to see
That they’re robbing themselves
Of their humanity?

Yet while they make it ever harder
I must pray for them with greater ardour.

Alan the Poet Therapeutic
(c) 1982 by Alan Raymond Wheatley

3. https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2020/10/29/mental-health-act-detentions-three-times-higher-least-deprived-areas-race-gap-widens/

Mental Health Act detentions three times higher in most than least deprived areas, as race gap widens

Social work leader calls for action to tackle root causes of mental health crisis as annual statistics show clear link between deprivation and risk of detention

By Charlotte Carter on October 29, 2020 in Adults

Adults Archives - Community Care News, practice information and opinion on older people, disability and adult social care

School exclusions and taxpayers' value for money

I note that one of the lead stories at Camden New Journal website is currently:

Nearly 700 children excluded from Camden schools in a year, data reveals

New pledge to work with the families of pupils at risk of removal

12 September, 2019 — By Helen Chapman



NEARLY 700 children were excluded from Camden’s schools in a year, council data has revealed as the Town Hall pledged to focus on why so many were being removed from classes.

Councillors reviewing the new research gathered as the result of concerns about the extent schools were using exclusions – and the knock-on effects for those involved – said they were worried pupils from black backgrounds were being hardest hit.

Experts warned earlier this year that there could be a link between the level of exclusions and a rise in violent youth crime.

The data presented to the cross-party children’s scrutiny committee on Monday evening showed that 679 pupils were excluded, either on a permanent or fixed-term basis – a figure which amounts to 3 percent of the school population....



More at http://camdennewjournal.com/article/nearly-700-children-excluded-from-camden-schools-in-a-year-data-reveals

I note, however, that schools opting out of local authority control and operating as 'charities' has been a feature of post-2010 Tory Government in the UK, and central government funding of local authorities has declined to the point where central government funding of local authorities to carry out the responsibilities of local authorities will soon be non-existent.

As 'charities' independent schools secure tax relief even while they help perpetuate privilege. (I obtained this Internet link
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/16/private-schools-charitable-status-strip-benefits
via keyword search
independent schools charities tax relief

At that related search link, the

Independent Schools and Tax

Charitable status significantly predates the modern taxation system, but all charities pay tax and independent schools are no exception. Charities benefit from tax exemptions and reliefs, but estimates of charity tax reliefs are inherently unreliable.

Schools' Partnerships and Charities - ISC - Independent ...

https://www.isc.co.uk › about-isc › schools-partnerships-and-charities

find is provided by the Independent Schools Council, an 'umbrella organisation' promoting the interests of 'independent schools'.)


Meanwhile, one of the major ways that independent schools manage to maintain high quality results in their school throughput is by their pupil selection. What pledges do they make — if any — toward supporting the families of the pupils they exclude altogether and who cannot afford to pay their fees on top of income tax, Council Tax, etc and have much less 'disposable income'?