The Impact of Neglect on the Developing Brain

Clare Shaw, Poet in Residence for the BASPCAN 10th International Child Protection Congress considers the impact of neglect on the developing brain.

With just 3 weeks to go, it’s not too late to register for the congress and what promises to be an exciting and stimulating programme combining cutting edge science, evidence-informed practice, and reflective creative space.

You can read all of Clare’s poems and find out more about the congress here.

The Impact of Neglect on the Developing Brain

Dreams:

you can’t find your mother.

A series of rooms

one after another

each smelling of urine

and dust.

And of course

there are ghosts –

you fear them like murder.

By night, there are spiders and mice.

Then sleep is a space

with no air.

It’s too hot.

All of your words have been sucked out.

The books on the shelves

are rotten. You read them.

You almost forgot that door

and the corridor leads to outside.

In the yard,

how small you are

in this rain

you will never own.

It’s all falling around your ears.

The rabbits are still in their hutches

and no-one has fed them

for years.

March 8, 2018

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is a great opportunity to celebrate so many amazing women who have made a difference to our world. And, for me, to remember with gratitude the many incredible women I have had the privilege to know.

It is also an opportunity to recognise the ongoing violence and abuse that affects so many women and girls across the world.

The statistics are horrific.

But even more salutary are the individual stories that lie behind those statistics – salutary not just because of the appalling circumstances so many women and girls have to live with, but also because of the amazing courage, resilience and hope that they embody.

Today also marks one month till our 2018 BASPCAN international child protection congress. And, as it approaches, I am looking forward to it more and more. And not least because of some of the incredible women whom we have lined up as speakers.

People like:

Elaine Storkey, former president of Tearfund, and long-standing campaigner for women’s rights, who has powerfully documented the reality of violence against women and girls in her book, Scars across Humanity

Clare Shaw, our poet in residence, whose poems reflect the depth of expertise held by someone who has walked with trauma

Siobhan Beckwith, whose talk, Hearts in the Goldfish Bowl, draws on her experience coming alongside mothers who have had to live apart from their children

Kish Bhatti-Sinclair, a reader in social policy and social work, who will be challenging us to rethink our own prejudices, discrimination and unconscious bias

Anne Fine, the celebrated author, whose novels capture, in a very human way, the reality of many children’s lives

There are so many more I could mention. And I’m really looking forward to meeting them and hearing what they have to say.

It is not too late to book, so do take a look at the programme on our congress website:

BASPCAN Congress 2018

February 10, 2018

Love as a Yoga Class in Bradford

Clare Shaw, Poet in Residence for the BASPCAN 2018 child protection congress reflects on Yoga, social connection, and safety…

You can find out more about Clare, and read all her congress poems here

Love as a Yoga Class in Bradford

I believe that knowledge is power

I believe that social connection is as vital as food and shelter

I believe that when you bend the front knee and bring the fists down

you feel like a warrior

I believe there’s a lot of bollocks out there

but yoga provides tangible relief

and we breathed and moved and made shapes together

and the women lay there in a line under blankets

and some of them fell asleep.

I believe that what I’m doing has a lineage

at least three thousand years old

I believe that when people breathe together, their hearts synchronise.

It transcends language.

I believe that when you’ve lost everything

to rebuild your life here

along with a house, a visa, safety,

there’s also being so fucking alone

I believe that in none of my training

did anyone talk about love –

I mean, all of these women

who’ve been through horrific stuff

– beyond comprehension horrific –

felt calm enough to lie down, rest,

even safe enough

to fall asleep –

I believe that however shit we’re feeling

connecting to someone we feel safe with

is so unbelievably precious

I believe that when I started going to yoga classes

in a small room on an island in Hong Kong

it changed my experience of life,

it felt like hope

and when I think about what the system does to those women

and all they’ve been through

I’m a she-wolf

and it feels like this gentle fierceness

on their behalf

because I believe that ‘yoga posture’ is a weird word

and I like the word “shape” better

I believe in the neurophysiology of trauma.

I believe that when you stretch

the belly of the muscle begins to pull on the tendons

they release a neuro transmitter that makes that muscle relax

I believe that to be trusted to hold that safety

it’s a total honour.

A group of women under their blankets.

I’ve been thinking, is it okay –

is it weird that this feels like

love?

January 13, 2018January 13, 2018

This poem moves awkwardly…

This poem:

a poem in two parts by Niamh, aged 10 and Clare, aged 45

for the BASPCAN 2018 child protection congress

This poem moves awkwardly.

It lives in the sea, near the shore

where the waves crash

and poetry is swept onto the beach.

This poem eats slimy things.

It has one blunt tooth

and its tail is ripped by rocks.

It swims with small poems

and big poems and songs –

the books are far off in the ocean

which looks plain from a distance

but from the inside,

it’s full of life.

This poem is red, like ore.

It is small and wide

and its eyes are sapphire.

They look straight ahead.

I almost caught this poem.

It was on the tips of my fingers,

I felt its smooth skin.

Though I followed this poem

to the shore

it had gone. It had gone

and the sky was grey.

This poem lives in a slow river

where it’s summer and I am seven

and the river is green

and the dark current scares me

it hangs in the shallows

there are pebbles

and low trees

and feet turned the colour of rust

in the sun through the water

and its mouth is a tiny dot

it flickers off on and on

and its eyes are invisible

but it sees

how the universe moves in colour

and a huge sun that simmers

and darkness I cannot describe

and the rocks are worlds

and the currents are storms

and my hand is a shadow

and cage

This poem is by Clare Shaw and her daughter Niamh which they wrote for the BASPCAN 2018 child protection congress in April.

Clare is our poet in residence for the congress, part of our exciting ‘out of the box’ programme.

December 15, 2017

Poetry Writing with Year 8

Our poem of the month from Clare Shaw, poet in residence for the BASPCAN 2018 Child Protection Congress

Poetry Writing with Year 8

Caitlin thinks Jackie Kay

switched on the Blackpool lights.

No, I say, that’s Peter. Now tell me

one thing about your room.

Ellie glares from the back row

and Emily won’t meet my eye.

It’s the coldest day today

by far. The mountains are black in the dusk

but the lake is sunset, my arms are wings

and the water is fiery with frost.

I come from a town full of smackheads,

he tells us, but my house is boss.

If someone reads out

they’re showing you what’s in their heart

and you must respect it.

I come from the forest, she says,

I come from the back of the co-op

and the sea is a road

and the moon is a candle. Miss,

no-one plays music in our house.

No-one leaves home

unless home is the mouth of a shark

and I’m lost, my street is dark.

and I come from the sea,

I come from pizza,

from chicken nuggets, I come from

the Xbox and telly

I come from a town of useless parents

and on the North Sea, the waves are roaring.

The seagulls are children, crying

and though the stars are shining

there’s nowhere to shelter from the rain.

This is what’s in my heart

and you should respect it.

I come from silence, he says.

It’s the only music I hear.

To find out more about the congress, read other poems by Clare, or to book (hurry, Early Bird bookings close at the end of December), please go to our website: https://www.baspcan.org.uk/congress-2018/

October 14, 2017October 14, 2017

My father was no ordinary man

Another poem by Clare Shaw, poet in residence for the BASPCAN 2018 International Child Protection Congress

My father was no ordinary man

My father could fly. He needed no father –

he had mother, the hunger of four older brothers –

my father was one of an army of brothers

and he learnt all the ways of men.

My father was handsome and worshipped by women.

His loins were a river: they flowed with his children

and he was the fountain of truth we all drank from

and when he held forth we would not interrupt him.

My father named every flower in the garden,

each star in the night by the right constellation.

He knew all the birds by their song

and they sang it. My father could never be wrong.

His hands were a gun and they brought down the rabbit.

He fed us on flesh that was studded with bullets.

There was fire in his fist, there was gold in his pocket.

My father turned water to wine and he drank it –

he needed no prayer and no God

for he was the word and he rang like a hammer.

Oh, my father was victor; he rode on our shoulders,

he rode deep inside us. We carried my father

through hell and high water,

we proved ourselves worthy of love

and his love was a river in flood.

The sun made him happy.

The truth was soft mud in his hands, oh truly

he was the truth and he was the glory.

He filled all the rooms with his song and his story,

his whisper could silence a house

for my father bore pain that you could not imagine.

His forearms were scarred and his fingers were broken.

His lungs were a pit and his heart was a puncture.

Oh, my father was hard and my father was tender

and his hand was a mark

we will all wear forever.

August 19, 2017

You are teaching your daughter to swim

in open waters

though you don’t know the depth

of the lake at its centre; who might have died there,

whether the pike will scare her or bite her,

if the current will pull her down.

At the level of water, the mountains are higher.

The cold is a world she will walk to and enter

where deep mud is softer than skin.

Let the pebbles swim under her feet!

All the darkness beneath her

is answered by birds

and the trees will be tall and kind.

The sun will light up the water above her.

When there’s no ground left to stand on,

then she’ll fly.

Though the cold makes her teeth ache

she can take it. The rain cannot soak her,

the swan will not harm her. No dead man

will reach out his hand. You will watch her

leaving the shore behind

and the current will flow

the right way. That day,

the water will hold her

and take her far from you.

Now let her go from you. Let go.

A poem by Clare Shaw,

Poet in Residence for the

BASPCAN 2018 International Child Protection Congress

To read more of Clare’s poems and to find out more about the Congress see our website:

BASPCAN Congress 2018

and the water holds you

and carries you

it stops you from going down

and occasional sun

Y Living things scare you –

their dark little nudges

you imagine them,

snake-like and toothy and eyeless.

there’s nothing makes sense

but your arms

the rhythm of you moving forwards

beat and stroke

and sun on the surface

ou are leaving the shore behind.

July 22, 2017July 22, 2017

My mother was a verified miracle.

A poem for July by Clare Shaw, Poet in Residence for the BASPCAN 2018 International Child Protection Congress

My mother was church door where millions entered.
My mother was tower where four kestrels roosted –
my mother was hooded, she plunged and she hovered.
She flew at the speed of the wind, oh
my mother had wings and her voice was an organ,
she was seraph and cherub and throne and dominion.
My mother was bright with flame.

My mother was saint and my mother was martyr
and she was the light floating over the water.
My mother was whale and I rode safe inside her –
I was blessed and I came out clean
for my mother was sermon and she was the mountain
and she was the tree and the nails and the Roman
and her rafters were oak and her stone was all golden.

My mother said Let there be light
and she was the light. My mother was fruit
and we peopled the earth in her name
for my mother was sun and my mother was thunder.
My mother would get at the truth if it killed her –
she laid waste to the nations for me did my mother
and I could not run from her love

for my mother was choir, she was every bird singing
and she was the song and will not be forgotten.
My mother was angel, my mother was fallen.
She suffered the children and fed them on nothing.
My mother was bread
and my mother was broken
and she was the ark. She was darkness. The ocean.

To read more of Clare’s poems, to find out more about the congress and how you can participate, please take a look at the congress website:

BASPCAN Congress 2018