Survival of the Kindest

The themes of belonging, community and urban regeneration, well known to the listeners of Survival of the Kindest Podcast, are central to the work of this week's guest, Dr Sophie Yarker, recommended by Dr Simon Lennane. Sophie is a Research Fellow based in the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing, working on the Ageing in Place in Cities project. She has a PhD in Human Geography which looked at the nature and extent of local belonging and attachment to place in the context of urban regeneration. Her research interests are around how we can build more inclusive urban neighbourhoods particularly in the context of urban regeneration and population change. These interest are focused around three main themes; - Collaborative and inclusive forms of urban development - Social innovation within the community and voluntary sector - Conceptualising local neighbourhoods and feelings of belonging and attachment to local communities

Carey Sipp To be fully present, to make best use of the incredible potential we all possess, to make the most of what it is to be human, we need a deep sense of belonging and connection. This is something that arises out of our family, our friends and our community. Too often, the development of these deep trusting relationships is marred by traumatic experiences of childhood. But these experiences do not define the people who have them. None of us want to be judged by anything other than the best parts of ourselves. People with adverse childhood experiences are not defined by them. Carey Sipp found the truth of this through her own story. She recognised her positive childhood experiences as well as her adverse ones. She went on to become the strategic director of Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences Connect (PACES Connect) and describes herself as " a disrupter of multi-generational cycles of trauma and addiction. Just one generation of trauma-free humans can end poverty."

Neil Mantell is a very old friend, not just that he is ancient like me, but we have known each other for nearly 40 years. We met on bleary eyed walks in the early morning around the hills of the village where we lived, having both been woken up by young babies far to early, taking the opportunity to give our respective partners a break at the same time as walking the dogs.  Neil was a school teacher, and an extraordinary one at that. I know he was a great teacher because my 3 children all passed through his classroom. Inspired by the remarkable educator Ken Robinson, his path to being a teacher was varied, and he put the children first, sparking their imagination and looking after their welfare as the most important thing to do. Schools should be nourishing places of belonging, because each child will become an adult, and if we want our communities to flourish, learning how to do this has to start early in life!  

For this episode of Survival of the Kindest, we welcome Christian Ntizimira, who has been doing remarkable work in Rwanda, developing palliative care through making use of the most precious of resources, the community. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the African Centre for Research on End of Life Care. A Fulbright Alumni who graduated from Harvard Medical School his career includes time at Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, City Cancer Challenge Foundation, and the Rwanda Palliative Care and Hospice Organization (RPCHO).  He has recently published a fantastic book on communication with families in the context of end of life, called The Safari Concept.

Charlie Herzog Young is a climate activist and  author of Spinning Out, his new book, which explores his journey  navigating climate change and mental health issues which affected him from his early years onward. Charlie makes the explicit what many of us experience, that of nihilistic feelings about the inevitable progression of climate breakdown. And not just this. The nihilism is worsened by those in power who place self interest above the welfare of everyone else, including plants and animals. This sense of depression about the world ended up precipitating a mental health crisis, resulting in a serious suicide attempt, which in itelsf resulted in a double amputation of his legs. Charlie has found an answer in climate activism in multiple forms, including his excellent new book.

104 - This week's Survival of the Kindest podcast features Camila Ronderos. Camila learnt about the importance of community from  her father, who was a doctor visiting people in rural Colombia. He would visit people in the fields and in their homes, making sure that he took care of them in the widest sense. She started her studies in architecture but changed to anthropology as she felt architecture often missed the point, not designing buildings for people to live in taking their perspective to heart. This led her to a masters degree and studying for a PhD in New York. Along the way, she got side tracked into a dream job working for a non profit organisation back in Colombia. This led her to her current work in the healthcare setting for the Keralty Foundation. Camila has the most incredible understanding of participatory processes, which began with her studies of participatory urban development.

Shawn Wilson is an Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia. His book, Research is Ceremony, Indigenous Research Methods, is one of my favourites. As we have discussed previously on Survival of the Kindest, indigenous ways of knowing and being offer a lot, stressing the importance of interdependence, relationsional accountability and kinship not just with the people around us but with everything. It is a harmonious and very integrated way of living. Our actions have consequences everywhere and this is increasingly obvious as we watch the impact of environmental destruction. Research has a really important role to play in understanding how this all fits together. Limited rationalistic scientific research methods are not suitable to be able to describe this complexity and Shawnin his book, demonstrates how indigenous research methods are more appropriate in providing a much broader, more expansive view.

Dr. Kelli Stajduhar, RN, PhD, FCAHS is a professor in the School of Nursing and a research fellow at the Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria and research affiliate with Island Health.   Kelli has been a champion of equity in palliative care. Her interest in this developed in her time working as a community nurse with HIV positive patients. She understood directly through her experience that simply providing a service is not enough. People and the social and physical environments in which they live are the contexts in which help and support can be given. Failure to do this in the contact of marginalised communities further excludes them, making worse their sense of marginalisation.   She has worked in oncology, palliative care, and gerontology for almost 30 years as a practicing nurse, educator, and researcher.   Kelli has over 285 academic publications and presentations. She is lead investigator on multiple research projects including international research collaboratives on family caregiving; projects evaluating the integration of a palliative approach in acute and residential care settings, and national studies on access to end-of-life care for structurally vulnerable populations and care experiences of caregivers providing palliative care in the home.  

101: Tammy McGrath - It takes a community approach for end-of-life journey "A Wongatha, Ngadju, Mirning  Yamitji, Woman from the Goldfields, proud Mum, Nanna, Daughter, Sister Aunty, Cousin, Friend, Colleague, Connector. I've been living on Noongar Boodjar (Country) more than I've lived on my own. I've been blessed and guided by my Noongar Elders, Ancestors to walk their Country live, work respect and to tread softly on this spiritual journey. To encourage ALL people, Aboriginal, clinicians alike, to talk about palliative care. If we demystify the barriers of palliative care early, we can improve access to the appropriate services. By working together to inspire mob, in their communities to yarn, plan, prepare. By building strong relationships with stakeholders, working in partnership with as many services to help close gaps, identify any issue to collaborate seamless care for patients and their families. It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a community approach for end-of-life journey. I believe in equity for everyone, and everyone should have access to a Deadly (Good) death if I can help to empower, educate, and advocate for my people my mob, on being prepared in charge of their end-of-life journey to how they'd like their story to go then I've achieved more than I could have ever wishes for." - Tammy McGrath

100 - Simon Lennane: How developing trust with community builds community health "Social infrastructure is a good way of framing community capacity" Simon Lennane is a GP in Shropshire who has a new book out, called Creating Community Health. For many people in healthcare, common sense tells them that health is more than application of medical treatments. The context in which people live has a tremendous impact on how they experience health and ill health. Simon discovered this through visiting people in the homes. To help address the issues of community he partnered with the Ross Community Development Trust. This led him down the road of exploring the social context of health and the important role that communities play and keeping people healthy, improving their well-being and making sure that when they suffer ill health they remain connected to the community. His book is an extensive presentation of how this can be done and is a treasury of resources

99 - Vishanthie Sewpaul: Hearing, Listening, Helping. - Part 2 Helping people does not always have to be something tangible or material that you give. It's hearing people. It's listening to them. It's taking them seriously. Vishanthie Sewpaul is a Senior Emeritus Professor of Social Work at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. She has an extraordinary life story, living as a South African Indian through apartheid. Her mother was an inspirational figure, dedicated to integrity, working hard and bringing up her family as a single parent.  Vishanthie entered education without expectation of going to university but, following a chance meeting, she realised that she could study social work. Through dedication to her work, a deep belief in social justice and a forthrightness of spirit, she rose to be an international lead in the field of social work. Her autobiography is called The Arc of Our Paths and is a fascinating read.  This podcast is divided into 2 episodes to give full justice to the depth of Vishanthie's story.

97 -  Antoine Boivin and Ghislaine Rouly: Standardisation, depersonalisation and the impact this has on peoples health and wellness "My whole journey really as a physician has been to meet people in important moments of their lives, build relationships." - Antoine Boivin For many clinicians, the routine practice of medicine is unsatisfactory. Standardisation, depersonalisation, lack of emphasis on relationship and the impact this has on peoples health and wellness is often an obvious omission. Clinicians find ways of developing their practice to do what they can to close the gap. Listeners to Survival of the Kindest will be familiar with the Frome Model of enhanced primary care and compassionate communities and how this had a transformative impact on the whole population of Frome. This week's Survival of the Kindest podcast features Antoine Boivin and Ghislaine Rouly. Antoine is a practicing family physician and the Chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Partnership with Patients and Communities. Working as a family physician in the community of Center-South Montreal, he completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in health services research in the United Kingdom and Netherlands. He found an excellent partner in Ghislaine Rouly, in bridging the gap between professional care and a more personalised, relationship approach. Ghislaine Rouly has been a patient since birth, living with two orphan genetic diseases. Ghislaine has always been working in the health sector and has acquired a unique level of experiential knowledge. For the past five years, at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal, she has been working within the Patient Partnership Collaboration Directorate team, where patient partnership has become her passion. She participates in mentoring, ethics courses, the courses on collaborative practices and also sits on the expert patient committee.

96 - Gonzalo Brito Pons: Compassion in Chile "I take wisdom and kindness wherever I can find it" This week @julianabel welcomes Chilean clinical psychologist and researcher into compassion Gonzalo Brito Pons @CulivarMente to the Survival of the Kindest podcast. Gonzalo talks about his work spanning 20 years on the impact of compassion, most recently during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

We are fully dependent on and interdependent with the food that's grown from the ground, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the sunlight, the moon, and everything that keeps our ecosystem functioning. On this week's Survival of the Kindest we hear from Dave Oates. Dave he is an advocate of regenerative farming practices on his family farm on The Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, Southwest England. He firmly believes that farming can have a positive impact on the environment, both increasing biodiversity and carbon capture, at the same time as producing healthy, nutritious food.

94 - Tania Singer: "We need to start measuring social interactions and understand compassion" "We need to start measuring social interactions and understand compassion" I am delighted to welcome Tania Singer on this week survival of the kindest podcast. Tanya is a psychologist and Professor of Social Neuroscience. She is the scientific director of the Max Planck Society's Social Neuroscience Lab in Berlin. Between 2007 and 2010, she became the inaugural chair of social neuroscience and neuroeconomics at the University of Zurich and was the co-director of the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research in Zurich. Her research focuses on the developmental, neuronal, and hormonal mechanisms underlying human social behaviour and social emotions such as compassion and empathy. She is founder and principal investigator of the ReSource project, one of the largest longitudinal studies on the effects of mental training on brain plasticity, as well as mental and physical health, co-funded by the European Research Council.