Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan - Importance of the Early Years - Transcript

Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan - Importance of the early years

I think it’s important first of all that people might find it strange that it’s a police officer in charge of a violence reduction unit speaking about early years, and the importance of children’s experience in early years. But we started to look at violence a few years ago to find out how we could reduce the levels of violence, in all sorts of violence from bullying through to suicide and interpersonal violence, and everything there, because we are quite a violent country. And what we found was that you can’t police your way out of this problem; locking people up is not the answer to this, and we started to look with other people at, why is it that some people are violent and some people are not, why is that we have this aggression? And what we found was, when we framed that problem, that life skills are important; the ability to make good decisions about yourself, the ability to communicate, to negotiate, to compromise, to empathise with your fellow human being’s relationships, are at the heart of that. And when we looked further into that we discovered research that indicated that the most important four years of a child’s life were up to age three, and so those moments when that baby is developing in the womb are vital to what happens. We discovered that there was research that indicated that if a pregnant woman produces cortisol, which is a stress hormone, it will damage the baby’s development. We found that babies are very adaptive, and that they will adapt to the environment that they are in, and they will survive, and that babies are born, in effect, prematurely because their brains aren’t fully developed, so those first few months and years are absolutely vital to developing, and programming and hardwiring that baby to grow up into an adult and have a good life, and have good relationships.

Violence has a serious affect on that, so domestic violence is an issue for us. We know that in adults, if you go to Polmont Prison and you speak to young offenders there who are violent young men, they don’t know any better; they were brought up in a war zone so they are warriors, that is what they do, that’s how they understand life. And so that’s why, for me as a police officer, I would like us not to be investigating as many murders in the years to come, not to be investigating as many domestic abuse incidents in the years to come. And the way to do that is to invest in early years, the way to do that is to understand and articulate and support and resource those early years. Understand that children and babies need consistency in their life, and often they don’t get that in their home environment. And key places they might get that would be in nursery schools, would be in primary schools, where significant adults can be consistent with them, where there is that safe circle they can go to. And so those children who are most at risk, and those babies who are most at risk will be babies and children who live in stressful, demanding environments that have inconsistent home lives.

And I am not saying that single parents are bad parents, I am not saying that inexperienced parents are necessarily bad parents, but if they don’t know what to do, then they don’t know what to do; it’s not something that is inherent in us all, and we think this is some innate skill that we have, that once you become pregnant you automatically know what it is to be a mum or a dad and do it. We don’t, it’s very difficult; it is very difficult if you are living in a comfortable environment, it’s very difficult if you have got a good supportive family and network around you, it’s even more difficult if you are on your own, it’s even more difficult if your husband or partner is abusive, it’s even more difficult if you live in an area where there is loads of violence, or alcohol abuse, or drugs available, it is even more difficult to be a good parent then, or to be as good as you can be. And so anything that we can do as a society to support parents to be as good as they can be is the right thing to do.

If we are spending public money, and there is only one public purse, it’s not a health purse, or an education purse, or a police purse, or a social sector, there is only one public purse, and if we are spending public money we should be spending it on those things that will give us the best return. We should be spending on those things that will give us the best return, we should be spending it on those things that are evidences, that work, that make a difference, and challenge the issues that we have for Scotland in the twenty-first century. And some of the issues we have in Scotland for the twenty-first century are violence, they are relationships, gender equality, access to alcohol and drugs; if we can’t increase the services we have to reduce the demand for services, and that is about needing fewer drug counsellors because we have got fewer drug addicts, needing fewer victim services because we have got fewer victims. And so it’s about how we do that, and I am confident that we have started the journey. We have an economy of scale in Scotland; there are only five million of us. We have a very rich history; the Scottish enlightenment informed the world about how to examine things and how to pay close attention, and understand what we know, and act on that. I think we are at that stage again where Scotland understands the importance of early years, we are starting to articulate it now, we have an early years minister, and we have an early years framework. We treat violence as a public health issue in Scotland, one of the few countries in the world to do that; that is very enlightened, we are starting to tackle alcohol, which is very enlightened. So I am confident that we have the knowledge, we have the skill and the right people, and what we need to do is just keep plugging away; it is about people and attitudes, and we need to change attitudes. And we need to support people who are doing the right thing, and there are more and more and more people who are doing the right thing. We are not alone anymore thinking that we are the loan voice in this.

Amongst some of the skills, I think, that babies develop that they will use throughout their life, and will stand them in good stead for their life, resilience, their ability to deal with challenge, to make good decisions about themselves, to judge risk, to get through the hard times, and those sort of skills can be acquired later on in life, but it is very difficult to acquire them later on in life. And usually we only identify the need to acquire them in later life when something has gone drastically wrong, and that will be offending, or alcoholism, or drug abuse, or it could even be mental health, and having challenges with mental health. And I remember as a police officer, and I am a dad as well but didn’t realise the importance of these things, but I remember Suzanne Zeedyk who works at the university had suggested that I read this report, and it was about ... one of the most effective ways of encouraging brain development in a baby is to smile at them, and sometimes they smile back, and since she has told me that I go around smiling at babies now to see if that happens, and it actually works.

But it’s also true that if you are a mum or a parent is living in an environment where it’s hard to smile because there is not much to smile about, then that has a significant effect on that baby, and that toddler. And so anybody that is in contact, and has some role in that baby or toddler’s life need to be consistent, needs to smile at them, needs to say the right things and do the right things, needs to spend quality time with them, needs to be attached to them. And so it will never be substitutes for parents, but if you work in a nursery you can’t underestimate the value that you are adding to that baby’s life; you just might be the difference between that baby acquiring those skills, or not acquiring the skills, which might be the difference to that adolescent taking risks and surviving, which might be the difference between that adult having good relationships and living well when they grow up, and having a good life. The Danes speak about dandelion children, those children no matter how bad their upbringing is, no matter how bad their circumstances they survive. But when we look at those dandelion children there is a significant adult in their life usually, a granny or an aunt or a teacher, or a nursery school teacher, or a baby-minder; there is somebody there who at that vital moment just does the right thing, and the right thing is what we know is the right thing; quality time, smiling, speaking, spending time, loving kids is what it is really about I think.

One of the things that we did was create a narrative about what we mean by early years and the connection to the point of impact and violence, and we looked at a young man at fifteen and a half who had committed a murder, and we looked at his life from the day he was born. And we chose him only because we had some CCTV footage of the murder happening, not because we thought he was really bad. But when we looked at him we found that before he was fifteen he had moved house, I think, eleven times. His mum had had to move house four of those times because of domestic abuse; his mum was an alcoholic. The areas he lived in were some of the most deprived areas in Scotland, and indeed the UK. He had no supportive family around him at all; he had an extended family that was wholly workless, where he had uncles who had previous convictions for violence and a whole range of things. And when he was a baby that was obvious, when he was a toddler it was obvious, but the radar wasn’t smart enough to pick him up; when he was needing our help and couldn’t ask for it, he didn’t get it. And then when he started as an adolescent to annoy us, then we paid attention, and we stopped trying to protect the child and started wanting to punish an adult.

And that is where we are in Scotland sometimes, with a punitive notion that criminal justice will fix this. And you just have to look all around you in newspapers every day of the week, and they are talking about, we need to punish these young people more and they will stop doing it. No they won’t, because they don’t know any better, their sin is ignorance, and it’s our responsibility to banish the ignorance; the technical solution for ignorance is education, the social solution is relationships, so that these young people understand. When they are babies, we can pick up on that, that we can say we might only have you in our day centre, our nursery, our primary school for seven hours a day, five days a week, but while you are with us you will get consistent good relationships demonstrated to you. We will link in with other people around in this community to support you even when you are not here, we will do the best that we can for you, because it’s not about taking kids out of that environment and putting them into another environment that we think is going to be better, and might not be, it’s about saying we will support you and your mum and dad, or your mum, or your dad, or your gran – whoever is looking after you – to be as good as they can be, and that’s what services need to be in Scotland for the twenty-first century, that’s getting it right for every child, not just those ones that will be fine, but those ones that actually need our help.