Juicemaster Detox Trial. Let's go, Jason Vale!

I decided a while ago, to invest in a week of detox. Mostly because I felt the old 'jeggings' line starting to dig into my flesh come the end of the day. Not awesome. Not a great way to end the day either, feeling sluggish and bloated. This is no new way of life to myself (nor should it be for any follower of Christ practising spiritual disciplines). Annually I get involved in a 21 day Daniel fast in January / February which provides a fantastic start to the year both spiritually and health-wise. I often embark on 3, 7 or 10 day mini-Daniel fasts about one or twice a year following the 21 day Daniel fast and can definitely shout from the rooftops the benefits of this lifestyle. My go-to book on all these occasions is Fast your way to health by Lee Bueno. It is a fantastic read, but more than that, the concepts just make sense! Would really recommend it to anyone embarking on any fasting or detox programme, especially if you are interested in the spiritual elements which accompany this.

Looking through the iTunes store one day, I came across this book '7lbs in 7 days'. Really? I thought and proceeded to download the sample. Any 'get results quick scheme' catches the eye of many a person, I guarantee it. It's a side effect of this instant gratification society that we live in. The sample book proceeded to confirm everything I already knew and experienced in my personal life of fasting. So thought buying the full book would be a waste of time for me, even though it is recommended for full effect and to keep motivation up during the detox. I can say that definitely having some reading material which encourages you to carry on to see results is important, hence my 'fasting bible' mentioned above, which has got me through some difficult fasts!

I checked out various testimonies of people who had done the detox and had incredible results, especially when followed by the 14 day turbo charge your life. Seemed the real deal, but I didn't need much convincing to be honest.

We gave our juicer away a while ago, which was a pity, but luckily a friend of ours was moving house and giving stuff away, so we got a brand new juicer, blender and citrus press. Perfect for the start of the juicemaster detox! On Sunday, I went to our local farm stall to stock up on all the fruit and veg I would need. Juicemaster provides a really handy shopping list. It cost me £49 to buy all the fruit and veg I needed for days 1-3. However, it seems like because I have not made all the juices required on the plan, I will have some left over from days 1-3 for days 4-7.

I googled the juicemaster plan and recipes for the plan and have them on tap on my iPhone / iPad safari pages. I know you can also download the juicemaster app which is supposed to be really good, but I didn't want to pay £3 for an app I am only going to be using once a year or so. Switching between the two pages on my phone or iPad, I can easily get the information I need about what recipe I will be making at what time of the day.

Apparently Jason Vale recommends you exercise three times a day for 20-40 mins each time - or something to that effect. Not sure who in this day and age has the time to do that type of exercise, unless you're on a retreat somewhere. But anyway. I am pretty active usually, most days in the week I do a spinning class, which is 45 mins of intense workout but then I'm done for the day. On the odd occasions I do aerobics, zumba, play squash or go for a cycle. So my exercise regime for this programme continues to be what I do on a day-to-day basis.

So. I have now completed the first three days of the juicemaster detox. Let's start with Day 1:

I started the day off by doing my usual Monday morning spinning class which is quite intense. I drank about a litre of water at and after Spinning. I had my first 'Super Juice' at about 12pm and only added the spirulina and probiotic. I don't have wheatgrass and am not really keen to add it into any of the juices, so have left that out of all the recipes where it's supposed to be included.

At about 12:40, I started wishing I could have something warm and comforting for lunch, or even just a cup of tea. This was even though I was full up with juice. So I knew it was my appetite talking to me rather than a desperate hunger.

At about 1:30pm the usual detox headache started. I've had these before with fasting but I must say that this one was not as painful as others I have had in the past. This is probably down to the fact that I have not been drinking as much coffee / tea over the last few months as I would usually do. I would advise anybody doing any kind of fast or detox to refrain from drinking tea / coffee or any caffeinated drinks about a week before the fast / detox actually starts, or at least peter it out beforehand. The detox headache can be extremely debilitating, but it is good to know that your body is getting rid of the hefty toxins that have been built up over time in this process. Read Fast your way to health, it explains the process incredibly well.

I had the 'Super Chute' Juice at about 3pm which I thought was going to taste awful with all of those greens in it. But I was pleasantly surprised that it was almost (and I say almost) very tasty! It is probably the apple that tones everything down and sweetenes it up. Although there were many 'greens' in the drink, include spinach, kale, watercress, broccolli, courgette and the staple for every juice - the cucumber, it came out purple/red because of the beetroot in it (see left for the pic which makes it look like something died in my juicer!). It is not fun cleaning the darn thing after making this juice. You have to be so careful that the beetroot doesn't splash and spill onto anything nearby, especially your clothes!

For dinner I had another 'Super Juice' as per the instructions. I found it a challenge everyday to incorporate the mid-morning and 'tea time' juices into my consumption, just because I was left so full by drinking the morning and lunchtime juices that I didn't feel the need to drink any further. It might also be that my portions of juice are larger than what is expected (these recipes make ALOT of juice) but thats what it says in the recipe planner, so that's what I do.

The detox headache peaked at about 9:30pm and I could feel the blood pulsating into my head, but it kind of subsided after I had the 'lemon / ginger zinger' (pictured in the making - right) . I've read somewhere the ginger has anti-inflammatory properties so potentially this could have something to do with it. I finished off the night with a mint tea (well, it you can call hot water thrown over mint leaves a mint tea). And then went to bed with a slightly aching head. I must have had about 1.5 litres to drink during the day, which I know can be increased, especially while the body is in the initial stages of eliminating the toxins.

Day 2:

I woke up feeling energised and peaceful, headache totally disppeared. However, I did feel like I do when I know a cold is coming on. My throat was slightly sore and my chest a bit tight. However, this feeling left after about an hour. Again I headed off to spinning class which was not as intense as the Monday class.

Had a 'Super juice' when I returned from spinning, but didn't have the mid-morning juice as I was too full for that. The 'Super juice' kept me going until lunchtime (about 2pm). At about 12ish I felt a bit peckish for something bready or cakey, and struggled to concentrate on work at this point, but I managed to push through.


I had a 'Turbo express' juice (pictured left) which is similar to the 'Super juice' with the pineapple base. I noticed that the corners of my mouth were feeling slightly sore and I wondered whether that has to do with the acidity of all these juices, especially those incorporating pineapple? My husband also commented on how these juices were going to damage my teeth because of all the acid, so he suggested I invest in some straws. I saw a dentist on one of the other forums I looked at suggested this to. She also said NOT to brush your teeth after drinking the juice as this will cause further damage to your pearly white.

I finished off the day with a proper mint tea (bag 'n all). I know there is the option to go for the 'Hot 'n spicy' but it seems like adding three more apples worth of juice to my system at 11pm at night is not going to be the best for my blood sugar levels. But who knows, maybe I'll try it tomorrow.

Day 3:

Woke up with a sore throat and a burning chest. Again, I wondered if this has to do with the acidity in the juices that slightly burnt my gullet. No spinning this morning because there are no morning class offered, but am attending one tonight. I started the day off with my lemon water (as I said before, hot water thrown over a half squeezed lemon). This is to get the digestion and eliminating of toxins working. Lemon is good for that. This was followed by a Lemon/ Ginger Zinger. I've tried to cut down on the pineapple in the juices because of the acidity, so went for the carrot and apple base instead.

For lunch I had a new type of juice not tried before. It's the 'Passion 4 Juice Master'. This is the first time any of the recipes have encompassed another food group apart from fruit and veg. I was quite hesitant to add the yoghurt to the mix, but the recipe says it, so I did it. Others have waxed lyrical about this juice. I didn't find it to be any spectacular. I must say I prefer the pure fruit / veg juices to this one which incorporates the dairy. I liked the colour though - a beautiful mint green!

I've just had a 'Turbo Express' again for dinner and definitely think the acidity has caused my sore throat because as I started drinking it - my throat had that burning sensation again. Have to further cut down on the pineapple! 

A great tip (which might go without saying) is to clean your juicer and blender between every meal. That way the fruit juice can easily be filtered through to the funnel and to the glass every time. I know it's a schlep, but definitely worthwhile if you want to get the maximum out of all the fruit you are juicing. I do feel bad scraping the leftovers out, thinking how much of the fruit is actually waster. But thank goodness for our compost bin - into which all the leftovers go. Makes for a beautiful garden!

Now I have to get my hubbie's dinner on the go (he's off playing evening cricket). Making a roast chicken dinner. Will probably sneak a 'stuk' while no one's looking!

Keep a look out for days 4-7 coming soon. And then we will have the big weigh-in and measurement (because it's not all about the scale - keep some for the tape measure!)

Subtle sexual cues can influence more than we care to admit

Linked to my previous post about how sexually explicit materials can affects behaviour in young people, I have been reading up this topic more recently as part of the youth work I am involved in. 
I've read some interesting articles on the BPS and Science Daily websites, which I thought I would share with you here:

Men who are usually sexually conservative can be swayed by subtle sexual clues, new research has found. Published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, the study revealed that when they view sexual images, these males become more willing to engage in casual sex. The research was carried out by investigators from Dartmouth College and Medical School and involved two experiments – the first including 75 male undergraduates spoken to face-to-face and the second featuring 112 18 to 57-year-old males recruited online.

In the first experiment the men were questioned in person and in the second the men were recruited online.  All participants were asked if, over the next six months, they intended to have casual sex with someone they didn’t know very well or had just met. Those who responded ‘definitely not’ were seen as having no intention whereas any other response was seen as having at least some intention. The men were also asked about particular scenarios where the chance of a sexual encounter could happen, such as a friend’s party, to ascertain their willingness to engage in casual sex.

Later on, half of the men were exposed to pictures of attractive, scantily clad women. In the first experiment these pictures were flashed on a computer screen so quickly that the men were not aware of them; in the second the men rated pictures in the belief that they were evaluating an advertising campaign. For both experiments, the other men (the control group) were exposed to pleasant but non-sexual images.  After viewing the images, they completed questionnaires that repeated the questions about intentions and willingness for casual sex.

Dr Megan Roberts – who conducted the research along with her former PhD supervisor Dr Rick Gibbons and colleagues – said: “Compared to men who intend to have casual sex, those who didn’t showed an increase in willingness to do so if they had viewed sexual images. This was even true for the older men who were in committed relationships. Overall, this suggests that sexually conservative men can be more swayed by subtle sexual cues.

A colleague of mine made a comment about whether this is as a result of the known effect that increased Testosterone levels lowers restraints and decision making capability? 

“Think of this as similar to young teenagers drinking. Most don’t go out explicitly intending to get drunk but are willing if they are offered alcohol at a party. Likewise, many adults do not intend to have casual sex, but would be willing to do so if presented with the opportunity. This finding has sexual health implications, because individuals who are not intending, but are somewhat willing, may not have contraception and thereby leave themselves open to unplanned pregnancies and STDs.”

8 May 2013: Sexually Explicit Material Affects Behaviour in Young People

Viewing sexually explicit material through media such as the Internet, videos, and magazines may be directly linked with the sexual behaviour of adolescents and young adults, reports Science Daily. That is the conclusion of a new study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. The findings suggest that the practice is just one of many factors that may influence the sexual behaviours of young people.

Concerns have been raised that viewing sexually explicit material may negatively affect sexual behaviours, particularly in young people. Because previous studies on the topic have been narrowly focused or limited in other ways, Gert Martin Hald, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and his colleagues conducted an online survey of 4,600 young people aged 15 to 25 years who lived in The Netherlands.

The survey revealed that 88 percent of males and 45 percent of females had watched sexually explicit material (through the Internet, magazines, videos, television, and/or other media) in the past 12 months. There was a direct association between watching sexually explicit media and a variety of sexual behaviours — in particular adventurous sex and sex that involves the exchange of money — even when a number of other factors were taken into account. 

 ”Our data suggest that other factors such as personal dispositions — specifically sexual sensation seeking — and consumption of sexually explicit material may play a more important role in a range of sexual behaviours of adolescents and young adults, and that the effects of sexually explicit media on sexual behaviours in reality need to be considered in conjunction with such factors,” Dr. Hald said.
 ”It has been 65 years since Kinsey first published on sexual behaviours, yet researchers continue to avoid this area of science. It is important to have factual information in order to make educated decisions,” explained Dr. Irwin Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The study’s findings may be particularly informative for policy makers and educators concerning the effects of sexually explicit media consumption on young people’s sexual behaviours.

13 June 2012: 'Shared Parenting' rears its head once again

And so the discussion are shared parenting crops up yet again...

The Government has published its consultation document on reform of the law for private law children proceedings.

The prelude to the consultation starts with the following: "The majority of parents who separate reach their own agreements about the care arrangements for their children. However, when disputes about these arrangements arise there is a risk that children's needs are overlooked. In too many cases one parent is left in a position where it is very hard to retain a strong and influential relationship with his or her child. The Government firmly believes that parents who are able and willing to play a positive role in their child's care should have the opportunity to do so".

Well, that's all fine. We are in agreement there.

"The aim of the proposed legislative amendment is to ensure that this happens in court cases and to reinforce the expectation generally that both parents are jointly responsible for their children's upbringing. The Government also believes that a tougher approach is needed in cases where court orders are breached, and it intends to explore the scope for additional enforcement sanctions for the courts. This consultation includes options and questions on how court orders in private family cases regarding the care of children can be more effectively enforced".

So, we have just had a very large consultation on the current Family Justice System and how it might be improved. Although the lobby for "shared parenting = an equal amount of time for both parents with the children" was very strong from some sectors of government, the Family Justice Review (FJR) panel decided that they would strongly recommend against changing the law to introduce any concept of shared parenting. Unfortunately, government being government, has the choice whether to accept or reject the recommendations set out for private law proceedings in the FJR. Enter another consultation...

Pannone solicitors (@Divorce_experts on twitter) has said that the need for new legislation has also been rejected by children’s charities such as the NSPCC who asserted that the importance of a relationship between children and both parents is a principle which is already recognised by the family law system.

They said that "Amending family law to explicitly recognise an existing principle may cause greater confusion between separating parents, leading to an increase in disputes and the number of cases that end up in court. We will however have to wait to see what impact the proposed changes may have in practice".

I really like the way suesspiciousminds (@suesspiciousmin on twitter) sums it up:
"So, this is another crack at a consultation.  (Only this time, the consultation is – in traditional government style – “We’re going to do this, which of these four ways do you want it precisely done?’  Oh, and we’ll make none of the options particularly desirable, but one on offer is less awful than the others, so that when that one triumphs in the consultation, we can imagine to ourselves that it was the overwhelmingly popular way to make this change)."

Having read the consultations and the options that are on the table, it seems that government has not considered the most important aspect of parenting post separation - that the child has the right to a meaningful relationship with both parents. Sometimes this does not equate to the amount of time the child spends with each parent. A court (and maybe I give judges far too much credit) has the responsibility to ensure that if the time is significantly disproportionate, that there is a good explanation for this - and that everybody involved in the case has a clear understanding of why the decision has been made and how it will be played out.

It does not seem like any of the options provided in the consultation document incorporate this principle fully, which is disappointing to say the least. So in starting to draft our response to the consultation...in the words of Lucy Reed (@familoo on twitter), "I vote none of the above".

5 April 2012: Venturing to the ‘Dark Side’

Just been reading a report by Christopher Carpenter, the 30-year old assistant professor of communication at Western Illinois University. Carpenter is getting worldwide news coverage for his study of the ‘dark side’. He is not researching the benefits of watching Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, why the force was strong with Luke nor is he researching why Darth Vader turned. Instead, he is researching the timely subject of Facebook.

Carpenter’s study, “Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and Anti-social Behaviour,” is published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Narcissism is defined in this study as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance,” Carpenter said.

For the average narcissist, Facebook “offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication.” More importantly, for this study, social networking in general allows the user a great deal of control over how he or she is presented to and perceived by peers and other users, he added. Interesting. 

The narcissistic personality inventory (NPI) survey sample included 292 individuals, which measured self-promoting Facebook behaviours, such as posting status updates, photos of oneself and updating profile information; and several anti-social behaviours, including seeking social support more than providing it, getting angry when others do not comment on status updates and retaliating against negative comments. 

Carpenter’s research methods class emailed people they knew and asked them to complete the survey. Approximately 75 percent of respondents were college students, he said.

He hypothesized the grandiose exhibitionism would predict the self-promoting behaviours. This includes vanity, superiority, self-absorption and exhibitionistic tendencies. The entitlement/exploitativeness was hypothesized to predict the anti-social behaviours.  This includes a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others, Carpenter explains.

Results showed grandiose exhibitionism correlated with self-promotion. Entitlement/exploitativeness correlated with anti-social behaviours on Facebook. Self-esteem was unrelated to self-promotion behaviours and it was negatively associated with some anti-social behaviours (i.e. self-esteem was related to less of these anti-social behaviours).

It is very interesting to see how people use facebook to portray a particular image – as Carpenter says, self-promotion. I know of a couple who are going through a very difficult patch in their marriage, to a point where she doesn’t know whether she can continue. He feels bullied into making decisions. Their concern is the small child they have together. With another on the way. But on facebook, all looks as bright, glorious and happy as ever. Is Facebook becoming like Second Life – a chance to promote yourself in a way that you desire to be portrayed? Is it that shot at showing to the world, the type of life you ‘have’ that was always out of your reach? It is promoting that individualistic, humanistic worldview where me, myself and I are number one. This is no doubt one of the root causes of the entitlement that Carpenter speaks about, which results, often in anti-social behaviour.

If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking.
 
“Students who use technology for self-promotion tend to be more narcissistic than those who simply use technology to connect to others”. That’s according to a research paper by Flagler College psychology professor Meghan M. Saculla and Western Kentucky University psychology professor W. Pitt Derryberry, who set out to discover whether there was a correlation between moral judgment development, narcissism, and technology use.
 
According to this study, males reported that they are more likely than females to use Facebook as “a vehicle for popularity, to use cell phones as a means of creating a medial identity, to isolate themselves with these technological devices, and to use Facebook and cell phones for exhibitionistic display”. Though females tend to use Electronic Media and Communication Devices (EMCDs) more often than males, ‘the attitudes of males regarding their EMCD usage appear to be more detrimental for social functioning’.

“In general, the ‘dark side’ of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook’s socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter,” added Carpenter. Agreed that there is alot more research to be done in this field, particularly as our world becomes smaller, and the use of technology becomes wider and more intense.

I’m going to watch Star Wars now. It’s better for me than spending time being sucked into the dark side of Facebook, where I admit, I do venture on occasion.

7 February 2012: LASPO, FJR, LSC, PAP and all things family mediation…

And this is where I start my vent. It is not mapped, it is not structured. It will be written as it pops into my head.

I attended the Westminster Legal Policy Forum meeting this week at which the Legal Aid, Sentencing, Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill was discussed. I just had to google ‘LASPO’ to get the full title correct. And I don’t feel bad about it. Even Jonathan Djanogly himself didn’t get it right when he addressed the audience.

Our legal friends in the room (who made up the majority of the audience, in fact) ensured they continued to jump up and down about the impeding withdrawal of legal aid for private law. Mediation may have been mentioned once or twice, but in the light that government has put more (but not new) money aside for mediation.

Which brings me to my first point – this is not new money. This government has been very hesitant to explain how this money will be used.  It is slow to add that this £10m and the £15m which came before it will only contribute to public funding (legal aid) for mediation.  This additional money ‘put aside’ for family mediation will not fund the infrastructure, support, framework, building of the trainee and mediator base, professional practice and supervision or regulation of the profession. It will only fund mediation providers to conduct an increased number of mediations for those eligible for public funding. The only way providers are able to access this money is through their Legal Service Commission (LSC) contracts.

The issue, which seems ironic, is that mediation providers are under increased scrutiny from the LSC about who they deem as eligible for public funding. The criteria for eligibility has been narrowed considerably, especially that mediation providers now have to ensure that there is adequate evidence on file to support this. This sounds reasonable enough, however, mediator discretion is ruled out completely, as is the fact that the majority of clients do not have easy access to these kinds of records and if they do, it takes them an age to present them to a mediator for assessment – at which point it might be too late to even attempt mediation.

The LSC itself at one the recent mediators conferences could not answer (and did not attempt to in some respects) about 25% of the questions put to them by mediators on eligibility, evidence and the recent LSC audit procedures. It was confirmed that practices of LSC auditors differed depending on which part of the country the mediation provider was located. How on earth are mediators supposed to work towards LSC standards for delivery when the LSC doesn’t even know what these standards are!

The only way therefore mediation providers will feel the effects of the ‘increased’ financial support from government is if they can access a greater number of clients who a) attend the initial information meeting and meet the eligibility criteria b) are willing to mediate c) receive a successful outcome. But wait, there’s more. Which brings me swiftly to my second point.

Once legal aid for private law is withdrawn, solicitors will not be obligated to refer any client to a mediation information meeting (called a funding code referral). This compelling route will cease to exist, unless of course, there is goodwill between local mediation providers and solicitors who continue to cross-refer clients. However, mediation providers currently receive S29 referrals on which they conduct willingness tests to which quite a significant amount of income from the LSC is attributed, especially if they are doing larger volumes of this work. Once this falls from scope, mediation providers will no longer be receiving these types of referrals from solicitors and therefore the willingness test income will cease to exist. Of course this is going to mean that a stable income source for mediation providers will disappear, obviously to their detriment. This, in turn will mean a loss of resources, including mediators, and less and less ability to function. We could potentially see a handful of mediation providers closing their doors to the public.

This brings me back to the LSC and my third point.  On a more personal note, Never before have I experienced such poor contract management in all of my project management life. I have yet to hear a positive comment about the manner in which this contract is managed. Even the structure just boggles my mind! With this as a backdrop, I know of mediation providers that are in deficit to the LSC by as much as £25k and goodness knows how long the LSC has gone without adjusting the level of payment to allow it to get this out of hand!

Off the back of this, a majority of mediation providers have been caught out so badly by the mis-managed audit process, that they have been required to pay back between £3k and £40k to the LSC. This is a clawback mostly on failure to meet the eligibility procedure i.e. lack of evidence on file. However, in the LSC contract it was made very clear early on that mediator discretion will be taken into account i.e. if a mediator sees the evidence and is happy that it meets the criteria, it would not be necessary to ensure it is on file.

Now imagine a local mediation provider, a charity in its own right for instance and one that does not have its costs absorbed by a larger firm. The provider is in deficit to the LSC. £25k down. The provider has an audit. The LSC states that it is going to clawback another £25k from the provider due to lack of evidence on eligibility. On top of this the local authority has cut its budget in half to ensure it is only delivering the most integral services required by the community, and the budget to subsidise the mediation provider’s clientele is cut by 70%.  A further loss of funding to the local mediation provider. The provider has a number of contingencies besides closing. One of these is that in order to survive it has to now put all those costs associated with income loss onto the privately paying client. This means a hike in fees, impacting the very people they are trying to help – the client and his / her family. However, this is not even enough to cover the deficit to start with.

The withdrawal of legal aid is going to help the mediator as much as it is going to help the solicitor. And that is not much. Although legal aid for mediation is set to increase (only by increasing individual providers local contract payments), there is still no mention of supporting family mediation infrastructure – particularly for the voluntary and community sector (VCS) delivering mediation, who rely on grant funding to survive. National Family Mediation is the largest and most prominent provider of family mediation. It has lobbied government on every given occasion, encouraging it to further explore supporting and underpinning this ‘cost effective and less adversarial approach’. The government should stop swooning and put its money where its mouth is! We want tangible and financial directives.  However, not a cent has been forthcoming to support the development of mediation or how we may make the service more accessible to clients who have suffered through the recession and find themselves just above the threshold for legal aid.

Aside from legal aid, the government putting in place the pre-application protocol to pre-empt the outcome of the Family Justice Review may have its perks, but it certainly has not worked according to their master plan. My fourth point brings to light the fact that although this has driven traffic to mediation providers which has increased referrals as well as the initial information meetings, many of these cases do not proceed to mediation due to a number of factors:

• Clients are of the mindset that ‘their solicitor sent them to get an FM1 form so that they could continue to court’. There is little chance of convincing the client to attempt mediation as they have their sights set on the courtroom.
• Client 1 comes along to the introductory information meeting and is quite willing to continue with mediation. However, client 2 will not be engaged and refuses to attend an initial meeting. Mediation cannot progress without the voluntary agreement of both parties. Therefore client 1 is free to receive an FM1 form which allows him/her to continue along the court route
• The nature of the clientele for mediation is changing. Many mediators have stated that their cases are becoming much more complex, often involving outside agencies like social services or the police. There is an increase of clients involved in domestic violence. Frankly, some of them are not appropriate at all for mediation whether that is to do with the type of client, the timing or the complexity of the case. If these cases cannot be mediated, they proceed to court in any event.

So how successful is the pre-application protocol? Despite the increase in referrals and mediation information meetings, mediation starts remain fairly static. Obviously due to the large volumes, there has been some increase in mediation starts and case closures, but these are not significant enough to warrant a ‘gold star’ to the Ministry of Justice’s initiative.

Fifth point is that many people still see family mediation sitting cosily within the Ministry of Justice. However, the family agenda sits across government departments. We are yet to see issues affecting families which are inextricably linked, find some kind of cohesion across government policy.

Family mediators, particularly those at National Family Mediation deliver the Separated Parents Information Programme (PIP), which is commissioned by Cafcass (who sit within the DfE). The PIP is a 4-hour court-ordered course designed to help separating parents keep the focus on their children. Family Mediators work very closely with Cafcass officers, as both work with children involved in family breakdown. The only government department who has the funding to assist the VCS sector is the DfE – but all of their grant funding went to organisations who promote the relationship support agenda, without a thought into how to support families in the midst of or having been affected by breakdown.

 The Department of Work and Pensions is no better. Child maintenance is governed by this department. But when a family is splitting up, a mother does not consider her finances to be separate from her children – quite the contrary – all of these issues will be bundled into one mess to be sorted out. If that’s how families view it, why can’t government see it from the same perspective?  And what about all the presiding health issues that come with family breakdown. How many people see their GP to be treated for depression, but when it comes down it, the catalyst is more often than not relationship issues. Is the Department of Health aware of this fact?

Family mediation is here to help clients address all the issues relating their divorce and separation – their finances, their health, their children, their arrangements for the future. Government departments need to stop agreeing to ‘talk to each other’ and actually produce some sort of cohesive understanding and appreciation for how the family operates.

In conclusion, we wait to see how the government’s response to the Family Justice Review will pan out. My guess is that the government will pay lip service to the recommendations but struggle to find the funds to actually support the changes that are so desperately required.  On the one hand, it continues to support and offers tremendous tribute to the idea of family mediation, but on the other hand, gets ready to pull the rug from underneath mediation providers, legal experts and advisors through use of the LASPO bill. Cost cutting has become the essential driver, never mind the thousands of families who suffer at the hand of ‘progressive thinking’ and ‘positive change’.

12 January 2012: Exposed to porn – the plight of our young

It isn’t a case of if a young person will be exposed to pornography but when, according to The Sexualisation of Children, a government report published in February 2010. The average teen spends one hundred minutes a week surfing for porn, according to research by cyberSentinel.co.uk

The Home Office report adds that online porn is increasingly dominated by themes of aggression, power and control. The 2008 Eurobarometer survey found that 65% of parents of 6-17 year olds are worried about this. Most young people in the UK now have access to the Internet. It’s estimated that 87% of 6-10 year olds and 95% of those aged 15-17 are regularly online, and a report on Parent Channel TV says more than over half (57%) of young people aged 9-19 have already seen internet pornographic images.

As a youth worker, we bump into this topic on a weekly basis, we talk about it often – knowing that young people are often caught up in the trap of secrecy surrounding pornography. It often becomes more insatiable and more violent in nature and presses itself into their daily lives with or without want. Family Lives state that ”research carried out worldwide shows that people who grow up on a diet of porn have more difficulty forming relationships. It doesn’t teach you about emotions and love, and it desensitises young people to violence and rape. Men and women are just seen as sex objects and body parts.” It traps people in an unrealistic mindset – a vicious and downward spiral of addiction.

How do you talk to young people about this sort of thing? It is a challenge, especially when it involves your own children. The best thing is to address it, don’t let it go unchecked for fear of embarassment or shame. When you take the initial leap to talk about it in a calm and understanding manner, discussing openly and honestly how porn affects minds and futures, it generally means that the young person will be more transparent about it in the future and open to conversing about his sensitive topic. You never know, they may approach you about it the next time round.

I read a brilliant article by Family Lives which deals with some case studies of parents talking to their children about porn (or lack of that, in some cases). Definitely worth a read. http://familylives.org.uk/advice/has-your-child-watched-online-porn/

21 November 2011: The Human Challenge

“There is a yearning in the human heart for the Divine–but also a yearning for sin. ...Yeshua told Nicodemus [that] a new birth, a conversion so radical [is required] that we do indeed become new people. And to be perfectly blunt, most people don’t want that. They don’t want the sacrifice of ego that it takes to admit that one is depraved to the core and is in desperate need of redemption. They don’t want to give up the pleasures of a well-kept slave and take on the responsibilities and sacrifice that are duties of true freedmen. They want an instant gratification that makes them feel spiritual without making them give up their favourite vices”.  Michael Bugg

16 August 2011: Skin Hungry

Young people are becoming ‘skin hungry’ because networking online leaves them feeling as lonely as the elderly, a study has found (report from the Daily Mail and UK Marriage News). Despite having an average of 243 Facebook friends, teenagers are spending so much time on the internet that they have little time to go out with friends. Sixty per cent said they found it difficult to make friends ‘in real life’ compared with online and a similar number (69 per cent) said they believe that Britain is an unfriendly place to live.
Instead of breaking down society’s barriers, technology has made us more isolated and it is affecting young people, relationship expert Julie Peasgood believes. She said: ‘You can’t hug a Facebook friend. Touch calms us, heals us and allows us to connect with other people. It is the only basic sense considered to be essential for human life and “skin hunger” is now recognised as being the adult version of the “failure to thrive” syndrome seen in Second World War babies in orphanages.’

The study, commissioned by Yours magazine, involved people aged from 18 to 80 and found it found that more than a third of people spend more time chatting online than going out with friends. It’s not all grim reading, however, as half say they want to combat the problem and would do so by joining or starting a local friendship club.
At the other end of the age spectrum, 92 per cent of the over-50s said they believed that Britain used to be more friendly. Sixty per cent said the main reason they find it hard to make friends is that using technology to communicate is much easier but a similar proportion said they simply want someone with whom they can have a coffee and chat. Overall, two-thirds said they ‘feel lonely’ and need more face-to-face friends to mix with to make life really worth living.

The average 50-year-old now spends half the week on their own – 84 hours – rising to four days 60 year-olds, four and a half days for 70 year-old and five days for the over 80s.  Three out of four over-50s questioned also lament the loss of children playing safely outside which meant families and locals mixed more.

Two in three think people used to have more respect for others and seemed more honest and trustworthy which meant people were less suspicious of each other. Six in ten think because fewer women worked, they had more time for each other. Furthermore than half of the over 50s think Britain used to be friendlier because there was less crime, fewer marriage break-ups and extended family lived close by.

Actress Lynda Bellingham, 63, admits she’s been desperately lonely for long periods of her life and says: ‘True friendship builds when you have mutual activities. It is shared experiences that make long term friends – you’re not going to have shared experiences plugged into a computer. As human beings we need to mix.’

Yours editor Valery McConnell said she believed it was an indictment of British society: ‘Eighteen year-olds are as lonely as 80 year-olds and they want a friendship service because they can no longer make friends in the traditional ways.’ She added: ‘Without realising it, our society no longer provides one of the basic functions that keeps it working. The everyday contact, courtesies and kindnesses which turn into friendship and knit us together have been allowed to disappear in favour of efficiency. ‘Modern society doesn’t encourage us to speak to each other face to face and as a result, loneliness levels are soaring to crisis point and set to get even worse. Personal service in banks and shops is practically a thing of the past… even the listening ear of the supermarket checkout person is being replaced by a do-it-yourself machine. Technology is forcing people to live in their own little isolated bubbles. The young, hunched over the virtual world of their computers are often as lonely as the older generation sat in front of their TVs, if not more so.  Never before have people had so little human contact. The “Friends” generation depicted by the TV series is a fallacy.’

Evenings and weekends can be particularly bleak. Three-quarters of over-50s say their main source of company in the evening is the TV – 86 per cent of those who live alone – followed by the phone (28 per cent). Even half of young people say their main source of company in the evenings is their TV rather than going out and having fun with friends.
Interesting…

15 August 2011: Our dear Horn of Africa

Our hearts continue to break for the crisis going on in Ethiopia and the surrounding countries. I am keeping a very close eye on what’s going on and praying fervently. Eastern Africa is being hit with the worst drought in 60 years and millions upon millions of people are in a very dangerous situation.

“Severe drought, poor infrastructure and insecurity have had a debilitating impact on the welfare of millions of people in this region, especially in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. This crisis has resulted in severe malnutrition, acute hunger, and rising levels of starvation. It has generated extraordinary refugee flows across thousands of miles in East Africa.

The current crisis in the Horn has long-term and short-term implications. It threatens the lives of those at risk, especially young children and women. And it also endangers the hard-won development gains and the future prospects of millions of people throughout East Africa and the Horn. Today, over 11 million people are in need of emergency assistance in the Horn of Africa. In Kenya, an estimated 3.6 million people have been affected. This includes refugees, rural pastoralists, and urban poor who are unable to buy adequate food because of escalating prices.

In Ethiopia, at least 4.5 million people are in need of assistance. Almost 3 million people need assistance in Somalia. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees already in Kenya and in Ethiopia, new arrivals are coming in at staggering daily rates.”

- Johnnie Carson
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affair

Please stand with me in prayer and fasting over the next 3 days for the following:

• Rain
• Increase in provisions including food, water, medical supplies etc.
• Increase in aid workers
• Comfort for those who mourn and feel forsaken
• That those on the brink of survival will be reached by aid
• Strength and capability of aid workers as they work around the clock to ease the immense suffering
• A spirit of urgency and unity within the international community so that enough money will be committed and delivered
• Wisdom and a servant approach amongst political leaders of the countries affected
• For investment and continued work in agriculture in East Africa which is needed to reduce long terms vulnerability
• Hope for those who are powerless and helpless

26 July 2011: Too Fast, Too Soon

The majority of parents (87%) feel children are growing up too quickly and three quarters (74%) think the issues their children face today are more serious than the issues they faced at the same age, according to new research* published by parenting charity Family Lives and alcohol education charity Drinkaware. 

The survey of 800 parents and 600 children reveals that three quarters (73%) of 10-17 year olds would choose to speak to their parents first about issues they are encountering.  While most (86%) parents feel increased technological exposure is influencing their children growing up too quickly, Family Lives and Drinkaware are encouraging them to counteract this by talking about ‘grown up’ issues with their children in their pre–teens, before they are exposed to online influences.

The charities also highlight the prevalence of ‘new’ issues children are facing.  While parents are justifiably worried about ‘traditional’ issues such as sex, drugs and smoking, children as young as 10 are also experiencing underage drinking and sexting – sending and receiving sexually explicit text messages.  Almost a third (31%) of 13-15 year olds have drunk alcohol and more than a quarter (28%) have received sexually explicit text messages, compared to 15% who have smoked and 4% who have taken drugs.

With three quarters (75%) of 10-12 year olds owning a mobile phone, half (50%) having unsupervised access to a computer in their bedroom and over half (53%) being signed up to Facebook despite being underage,** these ‘new’ issues are also reflected in the online content children are exposed to.  The survey shows:

• More than a quarter (28%) of 10-12 year olds see and read alcohol-related posts on social networking sites
• Over a third (37%) of 13-15 year olds see photos of their friends drunk on social networking sites
• 12% of 10-12 year olds and 25% of 13-15 year olds say they have seen sexually explicit images on the internet.

Whilst families have always worried about their children’s use of existing and emerging technologies, social networking is a relatively new phenomenon that did not exist for most parents when they were at school.  Parents should be having conversations with their children, as the consequences of inappropriate social networking and messaging amongst children and young people can be extremely damaging. Young people are more likely to seek help and advice from parents who listen and are supportive, rather than those who lecture or fly off the handle.  The more help and information that parents and carers have to understand these issues and talk to their kids about risky behaviours, the safer their kids will be.

Being a parent is a tough job.  While the growth of social networking sites and mobile technology offers society huge opportunities, it also makes it even more challenging for parents to protect children from age-inappropriate content. 

With children as young as 10 being exposed to online conversations about alcohol, it’s essential parents feel equipped to talk to them about the risks of underage drinking. Although parents might sometimes feel their children don’t listen to a word they say, this survey shows they are in the best position to make sure their children are armed with the facts so they can make informed decisions about drinking when the time comes.

21 July 2011: The Bailey Review - The debate on commercialisation and sexualisation of children

Debate about the 'adultification' of children now has a prominent position in the mainstream and with the publication of the Bailey review in June 2011, there is a significant political momentum behind this issue.

Parental attitudes have demonstrated consistently high levels of concern about the commercialisation (when children are targeted as consumers) and the sexualisation (when materials or content of a sexual nature are inappropriately imposed on children) of childhood. Recent Department for Education (DfE) research found that 88% of parents surveyed felt that children are under pressure to grow up too quickly.

The debat extends beyond Westminster with a range of campaigns led by the third sector, highlighting the depth of feeling. In response to concerns raised by parents, health professionals, educators and a host of commentators, several reviews have been commissioned to examine the evidence.

Research does not tell a straightforward story of the impact on children of highly commercialised or sexualised influences and there are a number of gaps in the evidence base. While associations have been identified, definitive proof of 'cause and effect' is likely to continue to remain elusive. A host of factors are likely to exacerbate or mitigate the impact on children - and every child will response differently. Given this, it has ben suggested by several reviewers that a precuationary principle in relation to children might be justified.

The Bailey Review, they say, has made a significant contribution to the debat on commericalisation and sexualisation. It represents a realistic and grounded action plan for Government, businesses and regulators. It is great to see that there is an emphasis in the review on the voices of families and I feel the following views should be strongly endorsed:

• ensuring content of pre-watershed TV programming meets parents' expectations
• Ensuring regulation of advertising reflects more closely parents' and childrens' views
• Making it easier for parents to block age-restricted material from the internet
• Making it easier for parents to express their views about goods and services
• Developing a retail code of good practice on retailing to children
• Prohibiting the employment of children as brand ambassadors
• Ensuring greater transparency in the regulatory framework by creating a single website for regulators
• Raising parental awareness of marketing and advertising techniques
• Quality assurance for media and commercial literacy resources and education for children

Ultimately, the most significant protective factor for children is provided by parents and families being able to model responsible media consumptionand consumer behaviour. Just as parental engagement plays a significant part of a child's ability to read and write in their early years, so it should be seen as a key determinant of other forms of digital and consumer literacy.

20 July 2011: Getting a divorce is easier than obtaining a driving licence

Obtaining a divorce is now easier than getting a driving licence, a senior judge said. Sir Paul Coleridge said a cultural revolution has made it possible to end a marriage quickly with a basic form-filling exercise. He added that the stigma attached to divorce in the past had also disappeared.

The judge – who presided over the bitterly fought divorce of Sir Paul and Heather McCartney – blamed 50 years of relationship free-for-all for the spread of divorce on demand. He said the result was that 3.8million children were now left at the mercy of the courts because of the break-up of their parents.

The judge, who sits in the High Court Family Division as Mr Justice Coleridge, has called repeatedly for legal reforms to clear up the mess left by the decline of marriage. He has blamed youth crime, child abuse, drug addiction, binge drinking, truanting and bad behaviour in schools on the 'meltdown' of the family.  And he has called for the Government to set up an independent commission to reform marriage, divorce and family laws.

Yesterday he described the problem of family breakdown as 'huge' and condemned the ease of divorce in an interview on BBC Radio Five Live. 'Divorce is easy in the sense that obtaining a divorce is easier than getting a driving licence,' he said. 'It's a form-filling exercise and you'll get your divorce in six weeks if everyone agrees.'  He added that the stigma attached to divorce in the past has also disappeared. 'In about 1950 you weren't allowed in the royal enclosure at Ascot if you were divorced,' Sir Paul said. That now would exclude half the Royal Family.'

The judge said there was no sign that the misery of large numbers of children hit by family break-up was diminishing. 'In fact, every indication is it's going up,' Sir Paul said. 'The whole of society is affected by this,' he told interviewer Victoria Derbyshire. 'Everyone in the land, from the Royal Family downwards, is now affected by family breakdown.  'It affects the lives of children themselves, it affects the lives of their parents. The wider family gets caught up in it. 'It then ripples out to the local community, the schools and then into the wider community.'

On the day official figures showed that nearly half of all babies are now born to unmarried mothers, Sir Paul blamed family break-up on social changes including the shift in attitudes towards cohabitation and increasing numbers of children born outside marriage. He said that 50 years ago 'on the whole cohabitation was regarded as something you didn't do, to have a child outside marriage, so that created a framework that stopped very much breakdown. 'We've had a cultural revolution in sexual morality and sexual behaviour,' the judge said. 'We need to have a reasonable debate about it and decide what needs to be done – and I don't mean Government,' he said. 'They didn't cause the problem.'

He added that the change in social attitudes over the past five decades had given people 'complete freedom of choice'. This was 'great' when they behaved responsibly, he added, but some seemed to think it was a 'free-for-all'. Sir Paul said the rate of family breakdown among unmarried couples was far higher than among married ones.  It was statistically proven parents were far more likely to stay together until their children's 16th birthday if they were married, he said.  Official figures suggest that an average marriage lasts around 11 years, but a cohabitation is likely to break up in three if the partners do not marry.

Divorce levels are currently falling, and in 2009 the 113,949  divorces were the lowest total for 35 years.  However divorce boomed following the liberal 1969 divorce reforms which ushered in the current era of 'quickie' divorces that can be arranged cheaply in less than six months.  The number of divorces shot up in the early 1970s and peaked at over 180,000 in 1993. Since then the decline in divorce is widely thought to be connected to the decline in numbers of marriages – and the likelihood that couples who choose to get married now are more committed to each other than some counterparts in the past.

8 July 2011: Tweens and the Sexualisation of Children

Baseline - a youth group I volunteer at on Friday evenings which sees about 75 tweens make their way through the gates.

Tweens - which Most research defines as a person between the ages of 9 and 12 years old. Often described in popular media as a pre-adolescent  (usually female) who is at the "in-between" stage in their development when they are considered "too old for toys, too young for boys". The "tween" stage is believed to end with the onset of puberty. 

Sexualisation of children in the media: Young people need to be shielded from an ever-growing number of media messages that are imposing adult sexuality on children. Articles, images, headlines, photos and adverts make up a barrage of sexuality that encourage girls to look and dress in a ‘hot’ and ‘cute’ style that will please boys and men. The report warns of a danger of blurring “the lines between pornography and mainstream media”. 
Returning from Baseline this evening where we connect with so many of these kids on a social level, I thought about the discussions I had had with some of the other volunteers and with some of the girls and boys in attendance. My heart sank and I realised how quickly kids were growing up these days. There is no place anymore for retaining youth, being a child...being allowed to be a child.

The girls arrive in their designer gear: Reebok trainers, Paul's boutique jackets, polo shirts and God have mercy on your if you are in their presence and you mention buying your new shoes from Primark. Their discussions centre on fashion, designer brands, price of their clothing, latest celebrity gossip and of course, boys. To ask them about their school week, their family, their homelife means being greeted by a glazed over look. Not of interest, I suspect.

I understand that when children reach their tween years (9–12 years old) they begin to develop unique social needs and desires, and reveal distinctive hopes, dreams, and expectations for the future. Wiki states that "Most notably in this age group, physical changes brought on by the onset of puberty are accompanied by emotional changes. Tweens begin to develop their own sense of self and seek out information from parents and peers that will help them further define themselves. They are beginning to identify their own interests and express themselves through their activities". At the same time, tween self-esteem is in development and fragile, at best. As such, tweens are highly affected by peers and face pressures and worries that are often focused on how they will fit in and interact with others in society.

If you look at teenage magazines, it's all about sex.  We are a visually absorbed society - our views of people are dominated by how they look. The use of women as sex objects in the media and advertising is a difficult issue to deal with.

It saddens me to see this. When I was 11, I was still playing with cars, dolls and rollerskates in my back garden. I had no idea what fashion was or which celebrity did what to who. I didn't even know what Prada, Gucci or Chanel was...life was bliss, without worry and anxiety.

To watch these girls acting like they are adults, dressing like twenty-somethings...I think it's reached the stage where some children become distressed and may even have mental health problems because they think they don’t look good. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between where childhood ends and adulthood begins. Girls who haven’t even developed secondary sex characteristics are posed to look overtly sexy, while adult women are posed to look submissive and child-like.  

Sexualisation of this manner can lead to a lack of confidence with their bodies as well as depression and eating disorders. Such images also have a negative effect on healthy sexual development in girls.

In Hamley's not so long ago I was horrified to see the role-playing toys section: the boys' shelf has a doctor's kit and a builder's kit while the girls' shelf had what I can best describe as a Paris Hilton kit, with a tiara, mobile phone and stilettos. If we set our children up with such shallow expectations, can we really be surprised when they follow them?

So where do we go from here? No doubt that trying to speak to young people about this will fall on deaf ears. All they care about is maing sure they fit in by wearing the 'right' clothes, saying the 'right' things, acting in a certain way, especially in front of the boys. Is there anything advertisers, the media, designers and the clothing stores can do, will do, to assist in curbing this bizarrely inappropriate trend? Me thinks it should be down to the parents...call me old fashioned if you will.

27 June 2011: Relationships are not built in a day...

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet CXVI, William Shakespeare

Inspired by Paul writing to Timothy

There is a story told of a man who was lost in a blizzard.

And as he was just blindly walking through the snow, blinded by the blizzard, he was becoming tired and weary until he just stumbled and fell and he just felt, I'll lie here for a little while. I just don't have the strength to go on. 

But as he was lying there, he came to the realization that what caused him to stumble was a body that was lying there being buried in the snow. And so realizing that there was another person there, he picked him up, felt that the pulse was still there, picked him up and started trudging through the snow, carrying now this other person with a superhuman effort and within fifteen feet, he came to the door of a cabin where he was saved. 

But he came to a very interesting discovery. And that is, in saving this other person, he in reality saved himself.

Finally, a blog I can customise without a struggle!

I have been blogging for a while now. Only now I've found an easy to use blogging site. The other one I used before (no names mentioned) was a real struggle to customise.

Putting my thoughts onto a paper is important, or in this case, a screen. It somehow manages to order them in some way. In this day and age, it’s must faster than writing in a diary. I’m not a diary girl for one, and secondly, who gets the time to keep a diary – unless it relates to a spiritual journey.  Then I’m all for it.

So hopefully this will not come back to bite me in the backside at some point in my future. Like young kids involved in political riots who become politicians and one day they find a picture of themselves throwing burning tyres into the shattered windows of the US embassy spread across a broadsheet. 

Well…hello world.