Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Official Report 881KB pdf

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our first item of business is time for reflection, for which our leader is Angela Morgan, former chief executive of Includem.

Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, it is an honour to address you today.

Two weeks after I had stopped being chief executive of Includem, I attended my first British Council committee meeting. As the round of introductions swept towards me, I realised with mounting anxiety that the best that I could do was to introduce myself as the former occupant of a role that I had previously held, which felt, at the very least, peculiar. So tied up in knots was I that, when it came to my turn, I blurted out, “I have no idea how to describe myself,” which made an impression, but not the one that I might have hoped for.

The experience made me reflect on how a title tops an iceberg of implicit assumptions regarding personal and professional qualities and skills. Obviously, the reality confirms or confounds those assumptions, but even a past title of chief executive opens doors to possibilities.

By stark contrast, the young people who are referred to Includem as offenders, or ex-offenders, have a tip-of-an-iceberg title that has a very different effect on their possibilities. The implicit assumptions—often held by the young people themselves, as well as by others—are of failure, risk and difference.

Through developing relationships with those young people, Includem helps them to begin to shape a different narrative. They come to understand what underpins the behaviours that are destructive to themselves and others, and develop hope and the confidence to see themselves differently, which prevents wasted lives and reduces harm to our communities. I think of young people who discovered their talents and can now title themselves rapper, footballer or knitter. However, by contrast to the positive legacy that the title ex-chief executive confers, the title of ex-offender still closes doors and often reinforces the experiences and behaviours that led to the offending in the first place.

As we approach the final month of Scotland’s year of young people, we need to ensure that its legacy is fully inclusive of those young people, and I commend to you two of the driving principles of my former organisation in achieving that: Includem likes young people, and Includem never gives up on young people.

Ex-chief executive and ex-young offender—what unites us? As people behind the titles, we both want a role to play, a place to stay and someone to love.