E45: Nurturing Young Neurodiverse Minds In Alternative Education With Danny Giblin

When Danny Giblin swapped his security badge for a mission to educate and uplift young people with special needs, he didn't just step into a new career; he launched a lifeline for those left adrift by the conventional school system. In today's episode, Danny joins us to recount the birth of TAO Activities, an innovative blend of outdoor education and mental health support that's redefining success for students battling behavioral challenges, trauma, and more. Brace yourself for a journey that navigates the complexities of personalized learning and celebrates the victories of marginalized youth who are carving their own paths to success.

The tapestry of neurodiversity is intricate and diverse, and so too should be our educational practices. Today, we peel back the layers on the challenges and stigmas facing students with autism and ADHD, discussing how terms like "remedial" are being replaced with ones that breathe compassion and understanding. We offer a glimpse into our exprience with ADHD, transforming what many see as a hindrance into a superpower. Together with Danny, we confront the unspoken struggles of neurodiverse students and call for a revolution in teacher education, equipping educators with the tools to nurture these extraordinary minds.

Step outside the classroom and into the realm of nature, where learning and well-being intertwine beneath the open sky. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's an expedition into the heart of outdoor learning and its staggering effects on young minds. We share anecdotes of drama lessons under the canopy of trees, revealing nature's role in sculpting resilient, resourceful citizens. Join us as we advocate for green spaces as a cornerstone of holistic education and share stories of redemption that demonstrate the profound impact of vocational training and outdoor education on youth yearning for a brighter future.

TAO Activities

TAO Instagram

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So welcome to the White Fox Talking podcast. Mr Danny Ghiblin, how are you?

Speaker 2: 0:04

I'm Grant, thank you, and thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:06

No, you're welcome Seb's over in Germany. Hello Seb, how are you? Hi, I'm far away. Yeah, I'm glad he didn't say distant. Yeah, dan, we've been talking about getting you on the podcast for a while. For transparency, I do work for TAO activities. Do you call it TAO or TAO?

Speaker 2: 0:22

Either or it's fine.

Speaker 1: 0:23

Yeah, so what you do on, because obviously I've got an interest in it and it's quite a clever chap and it's a good one to get in with talking about young people and so if you could give the listeners a bit of an introduction about yourself and what we, what you do, what you want, what works to do at TAO.

Speaker 2: 0:40

So a little bit about myself is I started off on the doors on security and moved away from that because I was going to work in Kevlar and I was like, what am I doing? I've got a degree, it's easy money, it's good money, but I need to move away from this. It's not good for me. I started off as a teaching assistant and then I built myself up and I was part of the first ever secondary nurture group in the whole of the UK and that was written about in a white paper and I really enjoyed it and went away and got my teacher training, did stuff with various people or farewell units. I sort of really took to special educational needs and helping the youngsters out who had difficulties, because I had difficulties at school and I didn't get found out as neurodiverse or ADHD or dyslexic, because those are my things labels. So I saw this in a lot of young youngsters and I helped them out. So that's a bit about me and where I'm coming from.

Speaker 2: 1:35

And then I went away travelling to New Zealand for my own challenges and came back and I saw that I came back and I was on the supply job of supply teaching and I saw that these young people who were struggling. There was a waiting list for the referral service and when they were on the waiting list they only got an hours of education a week. I was like what is this about? This isn't good. This is not good enough, especially with the young people who are easily distracted, vulnerable to gangs, all these sort of things. This isn't good enough. And if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. That's the way I look at it. So I was like right, I'm going to have to do something. So I went away and I thought about what I was going to do. I incorporated TAO activities and it was to sort of fill that void of trying to help these young people get on board with education.

Speaker 2: 2:22

And one thing through all my teaching career that I noticed was outdoor education. I saw the impact it had in little snippets, because no one does it, as far as I'm aware, like we do it. We do it full time. They do little snippet here, little snippet there. Sometimes it's a ticker box. In year six We've been on the residential grade, sometimes it's.

Speaker 2: 2:44

There's a variety of different reasons, but I noticed the impact it had and I was like so I was keen on having outdoor ed as the core of what we do, and I was keen on having the nurture group principles there about attachment, and I was keen on having mental health issues being addressed, and that sort of blend was important to me. It was important to me when I started building the company that my staff that I brought on board were on board with that as well. You know, we built up from, we were incorporating 2018 and we built up to now and it's just, there's a vast need for it, a vast need for it. As you know, the young people we work with it's not for everyone, but the ones it works for, it works for and it works well.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Yeah, I mean there's so much. There's so much to it is that we call that education intervention, which, when you're trying to explain that to people like, well, how come these young people get to do outdoor activities Whereas mainstream young people in the education system don't? And I think I have definitely mentioned it on the podcast before about my own being at school and playing up a little bit and getting thrown into the gardening club.

Speaker 1: 3:50

You know some lessons and then going out tree planting and you know it was absolutely amazing, and you just why. So why do? Why do these young people that you deal with or you take on a towel, why do they get? What sort of issues are they coming with? What's happened for them to be referred to you or us?

Speaker 2: 4:06

Yeah, or us. There's a lot of different things why they get referred to not accessing mainstream education. They can't, for whatever reason. That could be a need, it could be something, a label, such as ADHD or autism. It could be something to do with trauma. It could be to do with attachment and, for those who don't know, attachment is a complex subject. When you're newborn, you form various attachments with the parents and that helps you have the foundations and if you don't have them, secure attachments, certain building blocks in that put in place and you have attachment trauma issues. That's a very crude way of putting it, but it stops you accessing education. So the come towards the get referred to us. Sometimes it's.

Speaker 2: 4:52

You know, some of our young people have been excluded permanently from more than one school. Some haven't accessed education in two or three years. Some haven't even stepped. You know, I've had one case of one young person who hadn't even come out of his bedroom in three months because of his mental health problems, you know. So there's lots of reasons why, but we should really be dealing with the top 5% really of severity of young people. We don't. We deal with a lot more than that and there's lots of reasons behind that. But yeah, that, yeah, the need is there. There's lots of variety of young people, as you know, charlie, we have a full spectrum of need.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Well, yes, we do.

Speaker 3: 5:35

Just when you say youngsters, what is the age group we're talking about?

Speaker 2: 5:41

So for ourselves we deal with, I think the youngest we have is seven year old and we go up to 18 year old in terms of education and policy and etc. And if you spoke to someone for the local authority, they would say from five year old to potentially 25 year old is classed as a young person, depending upon need. You know, just thinking of someone who's neurotypical. There, I mean, there's a wide range of attributes, traits that you're going to come across, and then you've got these extra layers of diversity as well, and possibly trauma, you know, etc.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Once somebody is referred to you by the authority or school, what's the process to it? You know, as they've had assessments etc, etc. And then they come to tell and what's the process then?

Speaker 2: 6:33

So when they get referred to us, it depends on which authority they're coming from. There's variations on the same theme, really. We have some form of admissions meeting, so with that there would be meetings with the local authorities, the schools, the parents. In terms of policy, we are then good to go, but I don't get going straight away. I feel we need an extra layer to that. So I would send some of my lead staff around, people that I trust the most, who know the company inside out, and they would have a meeting with the parent, the young person, on an informal level, just to have a conversation. See, you know what the likes are, what they don't like, you know, set the stall out. This is our expectations. This is what you should expect from us. Start building that rapport, because that rapport is really important, really, really important to us, and I think that's sort of personally just my opinion of what's lost within schools and it's not the school's fault, it's just the pressures there and that they haven't got the resources, time, money etc. To spend that time with that one young person or them several young people.

Speaker 2: 7:48

I was fortunate to go to a school that was private and because of that it meant small class sizes, which meant the teachers knew me and knew how to get the best from me. They didn't understand special needs. They didn't recognise my special needs. They even called the English class they put me into the cabbage class dyslexic, so. But I was fortunate to have that small class size and I think things have like that within schools as a whole have got lost and it's not their fault. I don't blame them at all. It's to just haven't got the resources anymore.

Speaker 2: 8:28

The pressures that they're under is phenomenal and sort of to link that into our board is the point in school for me is to get someone from point A to being a responsible citizen. That's the whole point. School you can put as many bells and whistles on it and qualification you want, but the point is to get you to stand up on your own two feet or, a better word, independent. Again for Al Goret, what does it teach us? Two main things again. You can have as many bells and whistles on it as you want, independence and resilience that you know you speak about self-esteem, confidence, etc. All that feeds into being independent and being resilient. That's missing, I think. In a lot of ways it's touched on, but I don't think people go in at that deeper level, which is what we do, which is and to further link that to the mental health resilience, that's what we do. We build up their resilience so they've got more coping strategies. It's one of the many things we do.

Speaker 1: 9:32

From personal experience. It was a bit of a shock to me when I came and started working with you, as in collecting these young people from the homes and realising or finding out some of them not made school for two, three years just because of their particular issue or what they've been labelled with. But then when they're coming out and going through the process and being in the outdoors and engaging and then you find that little nugget that you can work on and then watching them grow is so rewarding. I've spoken about this on the podcast before with I think it was a yolo when it explained about we're in the Peat District and he pulled a tree out, pulled a small sapling out and had it in his jacket.

Speaker 1: 10:13

I like what you're doing with that and he was a really quiet lad, severe autism, but his superpower was plants, flowers, pollination etc. But the schools can't. Obviously, I think anyone dealing with autism, obviously people that have got their autistic. It's setting the ways out of what we're seeing in the Yorkshire term, whereas they used to be just labelled into the remedial classes that's what we were called.

Speaker 1: 10:43

Well, not, we were called, but that's what the classes were called.

Speaker 2: 10:45

Thank God we moved on from labels like remedial class, cabbage class, etc. Even when I started teaching there was a thing called SEBD social-emotional behaviour disorder. It's now known as social-emotional mental health, to say someone's got a behaviour disorder but it might be trauma-induced. It's just these labels. They're no good either. Thankfully, education has come a long way, an education of the society, not education as a school thing.

Speaker 2: 11:15

Young people with autism tend to have a special interest. For those who don't know, my son has autism and his special interest is trains. It could be sometimes it's dinosaurs, but I just bought the young person. There's trees and even my son five. He's teaching me about trains.

Speaker 2: 11:33

It's just in some ways the superpower and I can't speak about autism because I'm not autistic about from a person that's being so, how it feels for them. But with ADHD I have it and I can say it's a superpower. People speak about it. It carries a bag of stigma and I can train. I can train for two hours a night. I can take in. When I was on the doors I could take in everything in the room, everything new where things were. And there's a book called ADHD a hunter in a farmer's world which discusses about how it is an evolutionary thing and the ADHD folk of this world were actually an evolutionary advantage because they could scan the plane or something together. They could spot the dangers, they could see the food, they could act impulsively, which would help. They didn't have to think about all this tiger or whatever's attacking me, they just did it. So it is a superpower and, given the right focus, these folk with neurodiversity can do phenomenal things. There's stories all over the place, there's TV shows about it.

Speaker 2: 12:44

The flip side to that as well, especially with autism, it can cause a lot of anxiety, a lot of anxiety. You spoke about being having a rigiditive thinking, even though the high functioning autistics still struggle with or still could I shouldn't say it's a good spectrum. They could speak to you on one day and you could follow the same route and the same path, and then you might be, for whatever reason. You might not have slept. You see, you're in a different mood and they can't get their head around it, and that's causing me anxiety.

Speaker 2: 13:20

There's so many invisible barriers that these folk are coming across even before they've left the house. The wind is blowing in a different direction today. The smell, if you think, of all your senses before you've even left the confines of the safety of your house. Things are different on a day to day basis. So their balloon is three quarters full already and then you're expecting them to, in a school situation, go into class of 30 with social anxiety. You can imagine what this is doing to them. It's a difficult, complex problem. I could speak to you for days on end about it, you know.

Speaker 3: 14:01

But, like yourself, when I was young, I got diagnosed with what you would call idiocy and I was super-irrigative. No one could cope with me, and I don't even know if Charlie knows this. I've been moved from school to school to school about six times because my teachers were not educated on how to deal with me and they just didn't know what to do. So the easiest solution was to go home and say he isn't suited for our school, he needs to move somewhere else, and I became someone else's problem. Do you think that teachers are just not educated enough on how to cope with people with these superpowers?

Speaker 2: 14:41

I would agree in a way. When I did my teacher training and each course is different at every university for the teacher I did an hours training in a whole year on special needs, which isn't good enough. It isn't good enough. You know, we work close with the ADHD Foundation, do a lot of training with them, as Charlie knows, and they reckon one in five people are neurodiverse one in five. And you're getting an hours training on that.

Speaker 2: 15:09

But I don't hold the universities and the teacher training people responsible, because as teachers you should be reflective. As leaders of kayaking, canoeing, climbing, anyone in a position of coaching, leading teaching, in my opinion, should be reflective. That session you know what I mean by that is why didn't that session go quite right? What could I have done differently? And that should be enough to lead teachers to go. What went on there? That Seb was bouncing all over the room, what could I have done differently? And it should lead them to do more of that self-reflection, that self-study.

Speaker 2: 15:45

But then, as I alluded to before, there are the phenomenal pressures phenomenal to get young people through awards. You're not just a teacher anymore, you're a social worker, you're in charge of attendance, you're in charge of family intervention. There's so much you're in charge of because of that pressure. I mean, you can only do so much as a person, can't you? And you know, with things like austerity and cuts left around the centre, so I was just getting piled onto the teachers do this, do that? Youth offending is getting cut, youth services are getting cut. It's now up to the teachers to do that, and that's not fair and that's not fair in them.

Speaker 2: 16:22

But back to your original question, seb. He's like no, I don't think they're educated. It's not their fault. They should do a little bit more. I did, I took it on myself to learn more. But then again, if you give me somebody who was high-achieving, gifted, talented, however you want to phrase it, I wouldn't really know how to push them further. I wouldn't know how to get the best from them. But then I would go away and teach that to myself.

Speaker 1: 16:48

You mentioned earlier about sort of one in five people, maybe neurodivergent and evolution basically, and I agree totally with what we're saying. People are different for different reasons and serving purposes, but now we're sticking people in classrooms or sticking young people in classrooms where they possibly just don't fit. But it's a one-size-fits-all system and then if they don't fit, they'll sort of label as either disruptive or some neurodivergence.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Absolutely. I listened to one of your podcasts today, actually on the nature therapy. You obviously delve deep into it and I'll put what he says very crudely humans aren't designed to be indoors. It's as simple as that. We're not. There's so much in that. Artificial environments are just not designed to be. All the research I've done, all the experience I've had people come to me a lot from schools, teachers, zenco's how do you do what you do? There's no great secret. We build rapport and we're not indoors. Again, people say, well, how do we can't do that, we can't take them out? You know we can.

Speaker 2: 18:00

I used to teach mainstream and I'm not saying every session, of course, but I had mainstream maths that I taught, believe it or not, maths and drama. I've never done drama in my life, but I was still a drama. I was teaching a class of 30, and I, for the first few sessions, I took them outdoors. We set up a tarp, it was a nice day and we had the same lesson outdoors. People were like what about behaviour management? What about this? It's simple, it's like anything you set the expectation, you set the boundaries, you keep your enforcement boundaries and you deliver the session outdoors and you know, I got that mutual respect back off the young people and it was done in like a bit of a wooded area because obviously we had tarps. It was just phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 18:44

And what I started doing then is I started when I went over to the pupil referral unit. I was teaching. When you're in a referral unit you have your main subject but you also teach other ones, because there's not the breadth of teachers that you get in a secondary school. You've got to be dropping in a lot of things. And I started doing things because I got into WENLP and I started dropping in relaxation techniques and I started anchoring in smells to them with lavender, and then when we went back into the classroom the room was smelling of lavender. And guess what?

Speaker 2: 19:17

they're all five minutes of breathing exercises before the lesson, smelling of lavender, and the renal palm of my hands switched on for learning. Off we go, and so it can be done. It just takes a bit of work. The school situation is very different from when I taught in schools six, seven years ago. The pressures are just built. It was a lot then, but it's even more now. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:40

I haven't got a solution to it. But yeah, the outdoors we just not. To go back to the original point of like, we're just not designed to be indoors, we're just not. There's a heap of research saying that if we disconnect from nature, it does lead to anxiety and depression. That that's scientific fact.

Speaker 2: 20:00

But not only that, it's the pressure is like a snowball. It's the pressure comes from government to off-stead, to academy trusts, to head teachers, to year leaders and eventually this snowball is building to the young people. So they feel there's pressure. You know, when you were in school you could tell when that teacher was oh my god, they're ready to blow already. You know people are people and they're not. These youngsters are fools. They know how to read people, they're intuitive. Because of that pressure they're so fatigued with.

Speaker 2: 20:35

I've got to attain this, I've got to do this, I've got to do that, I've got to focus. And this is. I'm speaking about neurotypical, mainstream peoples who are able to cope, who have got coping strategies there. The pressures on them to focus in that classroom would be artificial. Light with all the technology, with all this going on is phenomenal and they're getting fatigued. So even with these mainstream peoples, these neurotypical peoples, we're seeing an increase in mental health issues 100% we are statistically. That's now since COVID as well. But the reckon, the research shows that you can reset your brain just by looking, not a picture but looking at real life of you. Just a viewer is soft fascination. You got hard fascination which is like a destruction technique. You know you watch a film. That's hard fascination. It takes you away, escapes you for an hour or so, but it doesn't reset your soft fascination out in the outdoors resets you, resets your brain, resets you like charges you up. Charges you up stops his fatigue happening. It's something that should be considered in schools, you know.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Just saying this is the part of the stuff that I'm sort of looking at now with the nature therapy and the nature therapy course that I'm doing, and the studies there where they've actually office staff sat by a window where they can see trees and the outdoors are more productive than office staff that are sat in the middle and even, like Japan and Korea, are sort of leading, leading studies for this, all of lead studies for this. But they're very much that sort of that side, that side of the world, into forest bathing and you know, just two hours immersed in nature can benefit you for a month and this has been proved by taking blood counts, blood counts and blood markers. But we seem not to do that. And then what we seem to do is sell playing fields off and sell, you know, sell the green spaces off so people, young people, aren't getting exercise and it's all about academia and results and churning them out to go to university and then end up in a loaded debt.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Yeah, and on that point, university isn't for everyone and I was forced down the U-Route and I'm glad I did go in the long run. But I was basically destined for the army. I passed to Sanders and all this sort of stuff and they put me said well, if you go, maybe it's going to be a good idea for you to get a degree. So I sort of went down that route and I'm glad I did, because I'm not where I'm at now but it's not for everyone. I've seen young people get forced into that uni route in debt doing a course. They didn't really know what they were going to do. They just pick something off, you go, and you're right, they're in lots of debt.

Speaker 2: 23:11

You know, there'd have been better off getting a trade. We're dealing with people and individuals and you're right you said before, there's one system and if you don't fit in that system, you're done. And that's getting even more pressure because schools funding, academies, trust funding is all based on your performance. So what do you do if someone's not performing? If an individual isn't performing? Again, my opinion, because this isn't fact based- I can't.

Speaker 1: 23:41

I can say what I think. I can say what I think, and remember doing the ADHD course with yourself, where the guy came in and on the spectrum. If a young person has had an energy drink before they've gone to school which a lot of them do they get up on a morning at a time that they probably should be sleeping anyway because of the hormones in them and circadian etc. And they have an energy drink and then they're all about agitated because of this energy drink and they show up on a. They can register on a ADHD spectrum. But if they're in the sort of bottom percentages and this is just a fair read down if any of the bottom percentage of a academy, then the academy probably don't want them to be there. Because if it's all performance driven and performance financed, then you know, if we can get rid of it, get rid of a few that are going to let the side down, then it could possibly be like that, or could you not comment on that?

Speaker 2: 24:36

I don't know what I'm allowed to comment on that or not, but in my experience that has definitely been the case. From observations from authorities I haven't worked with with TAL when I've been a teacher. That's what I've seen. If that's the case these days, I don't know because I've obviously run my own business so I'm not involved with that anymore. But what I can say is that that approach is probably likely to end, Because if you get rid of, say, every school, every secondary school in an authority, you've got a rid of 10 pupils, or even five, let's say five.

Speaker 2: 25:12

If you've got, say, 10 schools, secondary schools in that authority, which is, you know, you've obviously got more. And there's 50 young people there. Every federal unit is set up for about 30 on average, so you've got 20. With what do I do with this? And the pest strings are getting smaller and smaller and smaller, more and more and more. Again, double-edged sword is getting asked of schools. So now, before they're excluding etc. There are obviously exceptions to this rule because you know, if there's something that happens that's drastic, they've got to exclude and that's fair. But this sort of they're not performing may or may not be coming to an end. I don't know, but that's, that's my take on it.

Speaker 1: 25:53

Some of the young people that I speak to, either on the day-to-day or the residential stuff, some of the stuff that they've done back in my day, which was all a bit, which was all a bit caspy, you know cas cas, you know the school, the school in the cascading where they're playing football. That's what I was like. I was swinging on the goalpost and throwing tables out of the windows. You started it would just, yeah, it just some of the stuff these young people are doing would be counted as a little bit of high spirits and they're being, they're being excluded and thrown out of school for it.

Speaker 2: 26:27

And they just can't get me around it.

Speaker 1: 26:28

you know, again, it's like everyone's individual and some people do make mistakes, but I think I was very fortunate to remain in school. I wouldn't have been in school these days for some of the stuff, some of the stunts we did.

Speaker 2: 26:40

In my opinion, it comes to that pressure thing, the more and more pressures, and you know, back in the day probably, you know when you're at school and stuff, and the teachers are probably down at the pub at lunchtime I know that used to happen chilling out. So are we, you know. So, which I obviously do not say that that should be happening, but it just highlights the point of there were under a lot less pressure and a lot less strain. If you look at what I try and do for you guys who work for me, I try and take away everything I can do, as much as I can do, so you guys can focus on the young people, just have their best interests out, and that's part of just part of the secret of our success, I think, because you don't have the pressure. I have the pressure, I, you know I deal with it. That's what I'm doing on a day to day basis to take it away so you can just focus on that young person and their needs.

Speaker 1: 27:36

How many young people could you estimate are in in this sort of these sort of positions, where they should be coming to a business like your own or providers like your own yourself, around the country?

Speaker 2: 27:47

It's a good question. It's okay to answer, because what I believe is there should be a lot less young people in the situation. School should be more, doing more to accommodate their needs. So less young people get sent to us, which I know is a bit counterproductive for business. But it's the truth of the matter that we should really be dealing with Our businesses. Like me, at mind the alternative provisions, I should really want to be dealing with the top one or two percent of young people of the country who have tried a couple of mainstreams, have tried a special school, and they just can't. There's young people that fit between the gaps and that's where AP should be sweeping them up and going. Yeah, we'll, you know we'll be doing that. How many of that are? Quite, it's too nationally.

Speaker 1: 28:35

I couldn't tell you. A young person comes to TAO with whatever issues they are, and they've been offered outdoor. So did we say education or recreation? But, like you said earlier, it's sort of empowering them, isn't it? What sort of results come? So let's talk some positives after we've hammered the skulls. Really, what sort of results do we do you get and what changes do you see in these young people? Where can they go with this?

Speaker 2: 29:00

So anecdotally here and a bit quantitatively, like our stats show since incorporation, that our attendance is 91%, you know, and for the young people we deal with, that's phenomenal. Some of these young people having stepped foot outside their house in two years and we've got them back into a school or setting doesn't have to be a school, can be setting. I think you know nationally, if you equate that to nationally, the attendance in all schools is a lot less than that. So that's a positive that we do. Our anxiety in the young people goes through the floor, like we do sometimes use generalised anxiety disorder scores and on average they drop about two points on that on that scale, which is phenomenal. I think off the top of my head I should have got the stats for this. 80% of our young people leave with five or more qualifications, which is to be transparent about that. That's not a GCSE, that's it could be a vocational award, so first aid, for example, but all the calls. So when I set the company up I thought these young people are needing something to be a positive member of society. They're not going to achieve 10 GCSEs and I just accepted that. How am I best going to get them to a point where they can be independent, can live and stand on their own two feet, and I thought about a lot of different things and I thought the best thing I can do is get them these vocational calls. They're more likely to get them and they're more likely to engage with them and they actually could get a job with them at the end, rather than having nothing. Because if they went to school the likelihood is they'd get nothing. They might get one or two GCSEs but the likers. So I went down the route like let's get on the first day, let's get manual ambulance, you know, etc. Etc. Because they're gonna get some former job from that. The more likely to get some former job. And that's what the initial thoughts in how I set this up business up years ago was. You weren't around.

Speaker 2: 31:03

Then we had a young person with us who was addicted to heroin him and his mother addicted to heroin and by the time he left us he was clean. But we took him and we built up his CV. We took him for interviews, we got him and he got a job based on the vocational qualms up he got. We got him. So for me that that you can't get better than that. You know that's a young person who was going drastically down the wrong path and we didn't just knock him slightly back on the. We turned his life around, we got. We got my job, we got my. We helped him get a supported living sort of accommodation. So he was away from the environment that was in where he was getting heroin etc. And that was down to the intervention, purely because he only had us. That was it purely in our intervention and purely on getting the vocational qualms he got that job.

Speaker 3: 31:52

So people like yourself, danny and Charlie, and probably the whole team that work with you and for you, danny, the youngsters that come and join your sessions Do they ever speak to you? How much of a breath of fresh air the change of environment is that they used to. I don't want to sound like you guys deserve a thank you from them yeah, because they've been in a very tricky situation, but is there some sort of can you tell a difference of how? How? How they change and how they act? And you know how they appreciate that what you guys do, that they can live their life in a different way?

Speaker 2: 32:30

I know how I want to answer this, but I'm gonna let Charlie, if that's our answer. But he's seen and yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:38

Yeah, do you know it's, it's one of them, jobs or whatever rolls Sorry, it's a roll in it, yeah, where you beat or you purse at first time and the might be, it's the might just never look up off the phone. Because there are a lot of kids who just spoke on the phones. Now they might be getting Be coming out with us and they're absolutely shattered because they've been playing call of duty or fortnight Over all night and we spoke about this with Dave Gallagher to me. When they're going out and you're taking and say somewhere you know peak district, something like that, talk taking them climbing, taking a window climbing and someone's got issues with you know ADHD and things. But once they become engaged and they can see and they're out of that environment that they were in and they start engaging, you just you almost see them grow. You always see them to the chest. Well, I mean, even today, earlier today, I was out, I was to climbing, teaching, climbing indoors with a young man, young lad, and when I remember the first time I took him climbing and he got about a bit 10 foot off the ground and he was, I mean, for one of another way. He was shitting himself because he'd never done that and he didn't have that confidence. And today's it all some walls and is to the top, of the top of the route, you know, I mean, and what he's doing is he's pushing them barriers every time and building his personality, building his confidence, and he has got ADHD.

Speaker 1: 33:55

Now, for myself, I wouldn't, I'd incorporate, I'd have something like climbing and we were that track, put you out of work, down. You know, I'd have these sort of the things that we do at tau and have them Incorporated in the education, in formal education, mainstream education, at a young age, because you give the teacher, the teaching themselves to be present, the teaching that you know, because when the climbing or when they're Kiking or trying to stand up on a Standard paddleboard, there'd be present. They're not thinking about all the other crap that's in an environment that they've just left, they're out there and they're living in that moment. They've not got the distractions and and the growing and it's, you know, it's very fulfilling doing the work. Sometimes it's quite frustrated, as Dan knows, I get you know, but it's it's, you know it's it's ups and downs, but you do see, again, I go back to, I go back to Michael. He were amazing once.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Once we tapped into what he enjoyed or what he what, what his autistic superpower was, then that was it. We could work on that, but you know he's not getting that in them. He won't get that in a mainstream school. I don't want to rant too much about their video games, but he said it's a big issue in it. This is it. This is it. You know, I, if the money was there, if the funding was there, I believe what we offer, or what Dan offers, it should be a package with the family as well, not so much taking the family out, but just teaching a few, instilling a few simple things. You know, I mean so you people.

Speaker 1: 35:20

You know a lot of, a lot of problems are with young people's nutrition, what their perception of you know we've got this thing about healthy food. Well, I would label all the other food unhealthy food and just call food, food and energy, drinks and Phones, etc. Once you get them into these outdoor things because it's a natural environment and it's it's good for them you can't see it. You can't see these chemist, these Chemicals at trees release that you're breathing in, that are good for you.

Speaker 1: 35:46

So, yeah, but we've had, we've had generation after generation that they've been moving away from the outdoors. Yeah, I would sit, jim and I, because I'm trying to sort me back, sort strengthen me back in. There's people in there doing Outrunning machines. Well, we don't. Really we shouldn't have to do that because we shouldn't have enough activity, rather than I mean, our exercise Shouldn't wear. This is the thing and it's all. It's all tied in together. You know what I'm like said bit hippie-dippy with this, but yeah, the young people, once you get them engaged, yeah, it's, it's definitely positive and it's going back to basics. Really, this is the thing.

Speaker 2: 36:18

Yeah, I mean there's heaps and what you've just said that I could. It's sort of how I was gonna answer, but it's slightly different when there's your original promise that you see them grow and you know stuff like yeah we absolutely see them growing.

Speaker 2: 36:30

The way I put it is is you have a comfort zone and that's different for everybody. My comfort zone is I'm quite comfortable lead climbing vs comfortable, quite comfortable, going down the grade three rapid for some people. Let's take neurodiverse and do a typical out of it for a moment. Some people would be absolutely petrified of that. But that comfort zones to. Basically my point is that comfort zones, different for everybody.

Speaker 2: 36:54

Now, with these young people, what we do is we stretch them, so we give them bits and bats to to make that comfort zone bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger, without Tipping them over the edge, and then our aim is to then go well, now you can deal with all this. Back to my original point resilience and independence you can now achieve in a different setting, you know, and we help transition them in that way. That's how we see the growth of them, that's how we see the difference in them. You know, we see them from the sort of probably not writing saying from the shell of a person. We see them grow into citizens and that's the social and emotional learning. And to put a bit of, I guess, scientific backing behind that is you spoke about Climbing and you see, you see this young chap that you took out today, charlie grow, and you've seen him grow. Well, that's because in a neurodiverse Nervous system it works differently than a neurotypical one. So neurodiverse people need they work on an activity, a point of learning that needs either urgency, competition, interest or novelty. Well, how much have you got there with climbing Right? You know, to him it's novel, to him there is urgency and I drop off the wall here. You know not that it's unsafe. You know top rope is completely safe, isn't it so so, yeah, you've got that competitive element there. So they will grow because that their nervous system is attuned to that. So they're attuned to this. Yeah, this is what I need, right, and that's why they engage with it so well, whereas a neuro typical person Would work on outcomes and rewards and consequences. It's just two different systems. Neither is right, it's just different. And that's what he's saying. It's like what we do works because it works on this.

Speaker 2: 38:51

And then to link a little bit to your sort of mental health bit, again With scientific backing, is if we pick ADHD as a neurodiverse subject, well, there's a dysfunction there with dopamine transmission in mine and Sebs and yours. Your dopamine doesn't transmit, as mine doesn't in the right, in the same way as somebody who hasn't got ADHD. So what is dopamine? The most dopamine? You basically get a chemical release from rewards. Makes you feel better, engages your motivation. You get a better mood from rewards and for you and me, that Reward needs to be more. It needs to be sooner rather than later. So what do you get from climbing? I got to the top, yay, oh, I did that particular Bulldring problem better, yay, there's my reward. Then you get your serotonin from that. You know and all these things you know. You're your neuro transmitters. You know endorphins from exercise. You're exercising on the wall. All these things are in abundance with the outdoors.

Speaker 2: 39:53

They're in abundance with going to the gym sometimes you know, today I benched in 10 kilograms brilliant, that's two kilograms more than what I did the day before. There's your reward based system and that improves mood for Special neuro diverse people. It gives them sort of a shield against anxieties and depressions. I know you know about serotonin. I know you know about endorphin releases. I know you know about dopamine support in the outdoors. It really does. It really does help the people because it's almost exaggerated with neuro diverse.

Speaker 2: 40:26

In your ADHDs You've got dysfunctional dopamine transmission there, so you need more. You dopamine don't work in the same way, so you need to get more rewards, a quicker base to get them better feelings. I'll put a sort of question to you, said like you know, you're somebody who Is I presume isn't a teacher. You know as sort of invested in or as well researched in this sort of things and forgive me I'm wrong, but you as a person, as an individual, do you relate to that? Do you relate to if I do better at my own Goals, set myself a goal and I feel better about it?

Speaker 3: 41:00

Yeah, totally. I guess my goals and Charlie will agree and he knows me quite well I do loads a bit of work and getting the bit of stress level from work and then achieving something, and I take a lot on and try to battle through it because that gives me the the reward and sometimes I take too much on.

Speaker 3: 41:18

And I fight my way through it and I fight my way through it. But then when I get through it, I mean it's a long time reward, but it's all the little steps. You know I've achieved this. I've achieved that boom, boom, boom, boom and that stress kind of keeps it going. Adhd kind of really pushes me and drives me to achieve this. And that's where my energy goes, my kind of habit under control, if that kind of makes sense, because I've learned to live with it For a long time.

Speaker 2: 41:44

Yeah. So as you get older you learn different strategies to deal with. You know, obviously we deal with the spectrum here. You know there's really severe and you wouldn't guess, and sort of ends the spectrum and and as you get older you do learn strategies. You know, I, like you've just described like I know, if I do this, this and this, it helps. For me it was exoscience, that's what I did, paying the price. Right now I'm in bits, my body's in absolute bits, and that's the. That's the point. That's what we're trying to get with our young people to help them grow. It's like look, you can, you can develop strategy and we try and guide them towards them strategies.

Speaker 2: 42:21

You haven't got a disorder, You've got a superpower. You know you, and this is how you use that superpower. This could lead to this opportunity in your life. You know, we had a young person he won't mind me saying our Graham took on board and this young person was morbidly obese. When he came to his hand and steps foot outside his room he was in a bad way, and mentally as well, really mentally. But his superpower was autism and we tapped into his artistic, creative nature with that and now he's in a place where he's selling paintings and sculptures and he's making a proper living from that, not just to sort of hobby, he's like making a full-time living out of that. And because he did some good stuff, it's because he's got that superpower and he's got that special interest and that focus and that energy to go there.

Speaker 2: 43:10

So, yeah, all these things are great to see in the young people and you know you spoke previously about whether teachers are educated enough in it and this is what I don't say. They should be educated enough, but this is what they need to have an empathy, to understand there's differences, there's differences in everyone and you need to tap into that. Play to people's strengths and not weaknesses, obviously. Work on weaknesses, put the strengths there and celebrate that strength and celebrate that success. You know, I'm sure child tell you the amount of young people who take on board, whose families have had a bad, bad time with education in the system, that they've been in the young people and they've just been put down and put down, and put down and their self-esteem and their confidence is not at least below rock bottom. They've never had a success yet that's been celebrated and it's quite simple.

Speaker 2: 44:03

I truly believe you could get the most this regulated young person going and have an epic of a day, you know. But you can still pick something positive that they've done. Even if they've turned out to speak to you, even if they've turned out to tell you to go away, they've still communicated that you can find something, if you want to, to celebrate it, and that's what it's about. And then you could link that into your dopamine reward system. Yeah, I've done great, but it's just. It's more like it's about being human and I don't think there's enough of that that. You know, if you want to, you can find positive in every young person we work with and build on them successes.

Speaker 1: 44:39

Whether success you are having and with this, outdoor education is now. Schools can't really be provided because they're wanting to get the results of the academia, but results and science tells us that young people need to be in the outdoor environments and they need to be active for development. There's a big movement for like forest schools and even outdoor nurseries isn't there, where the toddlers just never go inside and they're out learning. Do you see outdoor education becoming getting back into the curriculums?

Speaker 2: 45:10

I hope with all my heart that we do In one of our authorities that we work with. Before TAO came in, outdoor education was not formally but sort of informally banned. None of it took place apart from things like orienteering, team building, all within the school grounds, things that outclasses, lower house or sort of baseline activities. We came on board and we've obviously changed that around. The authorities that we have long term contracts with have seen a dramatic impact of outdoor education dramatic and how well it's worked for young people. So I would hope that that's taken on board and I think it would take someone who's got a bit of confidence as a leader whether that be authority or whether that be as a head teacher or you know someone in that sort of position to go every day for one lesson a day. We're going to have some nature time and how that looks is different. You know it's going to be meditation in the playing fields or it could be a mobile climbing wall in the gym. Well, it has to be different really. It has to be different to maintain interest, but that's what it needs and it's going to take someone with a bit of balls to do that, to go against what the system we have. But also in my experience, there's a lot of myths around outdoor ed and risk adversity from leaders. Oh, you can't do that, it's dangerous. No, it's not. Health and safety will come down and it's like a ton of bricks. No, they won't Not. If you do things proper, you know, if you set things up properly, you know. Oh, we can't possibly release, you know, that member of staff to do that for the day it's. I tell you this the system isn't working. It isn't working now and it needs a trust to go overall. So why not? Well, it's really novel. You know, and I do say that with confidence, it's not an opinion. You know, the attendance rates are non attendance rates are through the roof.

Speaker 2: 47:04

Nationally, young people are voting with the feet. The pressure is too much. The pressure is too much. The curriculum being offered isn't varied enough. It's to the base in the stats and what they want up on different societies, china being the main one. Well, it's a different society than ours. We need to get the reds around that first.

Speaker 2: 47:24

You know, you can look at the Scandinavian countries and stuff, like you know, the other countries. Sometimes they don't start school till they're eight year old, and why, you know, because they take them out into the wilderness and what they do there is they don't just do out by ready from teaching, surviving stuff. They let them figure out socially where they're at. So they're on that social level and that's all figured out. They come into school and the flight because they figured it all out, all that social and emotional stuff. Obviously, that's the exceptions, that rule. But they could look at that as a model because their league tables internationally are better than ours. So it's interesting which ones they look at and why. But that's a rabbit hole that I probably shouldn't go down.

Speaker 1: 48:07

Just finished listening to the Miracle Pill, which again is about activity. But the studies in that were about comparing, like Finland and Denmark, to ourselves or to this country, and a lot of it was physical exercise. But development in young people and like you say, I mean you know Finland they're out playing in the early minus 13th winter, whereas risk averse, here the schools have closed and opinion young people missing out on development for me because they're sat at the pigeon hole and going down this basically conveyor belt.

Speaker 2: 48:39

Is a good point. And to add back to resilience, what is this? In my opinion? What is one of the main traits this country is missing? Resilience. If you look at a lot of the problems that are going on as a whole, as a whole country, is. It's always passing the book, it's always somebody else's fault, it's always they should be doing this and they should be doing that. For me, it's a stronger being to have, I know, but if you had resilience you'd go. I'm going to accept some responsibility for this. I'm going to take this on the chin and I'm going to work and reflect and do better next time as a culture as a whole.

Speaker 2: 49:13

Like you, look at post war straight after post war, people didn't throw stuff away because they didn't have the money to throw stuff away, and they've learned about doing stuff and that had a resilience about it. They didn't throw opportunities away. They didn't throw physical things away. They worked and worked and worked, and I think we've probably swung too far the other way. Again, just an opinion where everybody should be doing everything. For me, there's not a lot of resilience and independence there. Again, you could probably fall down the rabbit hole of how we purposely been bitching all that way that we have to rely on people. I don't know Certainly with what you speak about. Finland, yeah, you look at that, it's all to do with resilience building. You can take that knock and go. Yeah, I've not done it this time, but I'll get back up, dust myself off and try it again.

Speaker 1: 49:59

Let's say what do you see TAO in five years? What's the future for education intervention? After this After the authorities have heard you ranting.

Speaker 2: 50:13

Yeah, I'll be looking for a new job, I'm hoping. When I started off to you, I was frontline. I was working every day with the young people and as it grew right, I was trying to Match both elements and I realized I couldn't manage and I couldn't Be frontline. It's just I was doing 18 hour days. You know, adhd helped.

Speaker 2: 50:37

But so like Seb, so it does it does help, but it catches up with your mate. So, yeah, I thought the best way of me helping the young people now is to teach you guys, my staff. So I that's why I put my efforts into it and I think the way that needs to be we need to maybe diversify a little bit or Add extra things to what we offer is me and our staff really Going into schools and our schools coming to us and teaching them how to take Small group sessions? You know, if you get a couple of teaching assistants who can do, I don't know, an eight-week program of bushcraft, orienteering and team building or you know it's those are just things off top of me and things that are like low key. You know, give them all the tools that they need, you know, metaphorically and physically, then that's gonna help them.

Speaker 2: 51:30

Younger people, you know, access the outdoors more. Catch some of this at an earlier stage, before it gets to us. That's where I'd like to see it go down. I can't see it when I know, cuz I can't, nobody can release stuff for that long. It's comes down to pressure and resources. Again, what's likely to happen is there's just gonna be more teams set up in more authorities.

Speaker 2: 51:54

I would like to do more residentials, therapeutic, outdoor based Residentials. I would like to do a thing where we take them for a month, we build up the skills and then eventually, at the end of that month, they lead their own expat. And I don't just mean a jolly in, you know the 10 mile walk on an overnight Camper, I mean a proper expat. But you know, see, kiking across to Dura from Auburn, going across the Caledonia canal, where Really you're in it and that that's it. You know there's, there isn't an option. You've got a chip in as a team, you've got integrate, you've got to be resilient because there's no, there's no plan B. I think that'd be interesting. To do nothing would be really interesting to do and to see what happens to them, young people.

Speaker 1: 52:39

Yeah, from experience, and even experience just with amount of leader stuff, you know you see people grow through that scheme. So if we could get something, something founded maybe not as committing as that, but yeah, definitely do you think what the work you guys are doing?

Speaker 3: 52:54

when you look at the news these days, you see all youngsters. You see the knife crime rising. You you see the youth developing a really wrong kind of way and it's increasing. Do you think you're actually helping society by taking these youngsters and taking them and changing their the perspective on life and that also helps with the night?

Speaker 2: 53:19

Yeah, absolutely Is the short answer. Absolutely, we're helping. You know it might. It might only be one out of every three, but that one's worth it into. You know he might be one out of every ten, but that one is worth it. So, 100%, we're helping. But there's a lot to this answer as well. That's the show answer. The long answer is developmentally, you have various stages, obviously, and Up until seven you, your personality is forming. Seven or eight year old and that becomes you and after that, that's you and your personality.

Speaker 2: 53:46

You can change it, but not to the, to the levels that you can. Before it's not plus Plasticity, the plus it. It changes in your brain and then after that you saw relying your parents for a bit, and then you reach a stage and I think it's about 12 year old, maybe 30 year old to med, where your friends are more important than you found, like developmentally on it as an average. And that's because, in an evolutionary way, you had to then associate me a tribe. You had to. That's how things happen. And, yeah, interbreeding didn't happen as well, because, yeah, that's why it's 12, 30 year old. So your friends become more and more. And then it's like well, which friends are you choosing? Well, that's based on your person and that's where this gang culture is, it's fitting in. And then also you've got things of.

Speaker 2: 54:33

You could argue that knife crime is anxiety based. Well, I'm gonna carry now because I know that I can't fight, for example. So I'm gonna carry now because I know I'm safe with the knife. You can sort down roughly, crew. That's that principle that I don't feel safe. So I'm gonna carry a knife so I can be safe. I'm gonna carry now so I can achieve a higher issue on in the gang go, whatever that needs addressing. Okay, I've been approached a few times on knife crime and things like that and doing seminars and stuff and I said it's a, it's not, I'll do it, but I'm not gonna have too much impact because it's a social economic problem.

Speaker 2: 55:07

Really, it takes up every Service within an authority to be on board with knife crime and it takes you've almost got a right off the next three years and put the event intervention in really early with the families, not just the young people, to change that perception, to reduce their anxieties, to give them more opportunities so that they're better equipped and to not carry knives, basically. But uh, you know it's about the original point. Are we making a change to society? Absolutely, 100%. We're making the young people responsible citizens, whether that be they're able to earn their own money, they're able to come off drugs. The rate they pick a bit of litter up off the floor in the short term and put it in the bin. The planting some of us that go out and do moaling restoration to plant trees, plants, fragment, boss, and it's explained about the big picture with that as well. So, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 56:02

Yeah, 100% agree. Agree with you that it just you giving people opportunity. Well, we're giving young people. These young people come to us opportunities that they've probably won't have had. No, I've seen people, I've seen young people like they can't get the head around that you know. They're walking around in an environment where there are sheep in the same, in the same area, because they've never seen sheep live. And do you know what? There's an awful lot of that, and that's not just young people in the education adventure, that's just young people in it that don't generally venture out of the cities far now. It's expanding expanding people's horizons and moving their Personal skills on that little bit further than it, I like to say, allowing them to grow, go into themselves and be a bit more aware and a bit more responsible.

Speaker 1: 56:43

Yeah you know, if we're teaching people, if we're doing things with like water sports or outdoor stuff, climbing, etc. They start realizing that there's a consequence to their actions.

Speaker 2: 56:53

I had in a meeting just the other day's like and this explains some perceptions about school, of what we do and stuff and I just and the line was said to me just goes away and has fun with you guys. There's no, with no consequences. You know there's a consequence. If I do something that breaks a behavior post in school, the consequences may be a detention, an exclusion, a fixed term, excluding whatever. If the consequence with us Is you can end up in a bad way physically, if you know you fall off a cliff. Everything we do is 100% safe with Smoked, very small groups, with very experienced instructors, but there is consequences there. It's not like there's no consequence. And because that consequences immediate feeds into that ADHD nervous system. This consequence immediate, I'm gonna listen to this and then it's transferring that to school really. And you know, and as far as just having fun, well, on faith value, can see how you can think that. But there's a lot more to our education than just having fun.

Speaker 2: 57:51

Of course it's an important part is having fun. I hate saying having fun, because what does that actually mean? What's that defined as is? You know they're engaged with us. Yes, they're engaged in the motivated for all the reasons I spoke about before. It's hard with the views of these leaders of how, how the red is viewed in both. It's just a bit of fun. There's no substance behind it, there's too much risk involved, there's too much cost involved and it's sort of, in my opinion, a very uneducated viewpoint. Because no, it said like a million of your podcast say there's a, there's so much research out there for outdoor ed or outdoor activities and how positive they are it you just need to pick up a book and read about it if there are more outdoor ed in the Curriculum then we'd have less obesity in and then less.

Speaker 1: 58:44

Less training on the health service, less litter, because people would respect the Outdoors. So big advocate out of town, you know.

Speaker 2: 58:53

Yeah, yeah, as we are, yeah, I couldn't agree more. But the the sort caveat I'll add to that is Not just more outdoor ed, but more outdoor ed. That's meaningful, because what I've tend to have seen is things like forestry school seems like a year six. Residential is it's to tick a box. Right, we've done that. We've done that because he says we've got to do that as part of it. So well, no, he also says you've got to do this thing. He says you've got to do math in your curriculum, for example, or numeracy, but you put a lot more energy into that, you know, a lot more energy to make sure it's done thoroughly. But you could use outdoor ed, as we do, as a tool to deliver that numeracy. You think about your map reading, your pacing, you measuring. You know, on a primary level, that's, that's hitting the higher end stuff.

Speaker 1: 59:41

Thanks a lot for joining us big up to everybody at town, because you have got a great set of instructors. Yeah even dynamite Darren. Yeah, even dynamite Darren. Yeah, right, what a staff. So yeah, thanks for that, dan.

Speaker 2: 59:56

Thanks Dan, Thanks Thanks.

Speaker 3: 59:57

Well, all of you do.

Speaker 2: 59:59

No, no thanks.

Speaker 3: 1:00:00

Cheers, cheers, bye.