The Inclusion Bites Podcast

Empathy in Action: a Journey from Resilience to Inspiratiom

Paris Bartholomew explores overcoming adversity in care, cultivating resilience, and inspiring a corporate culture shift towards genuine inclusion and diversity.

In this invigorating episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood speaks with Paris Bartholomew about the journey from significant adversity to a source of inspiration for others. Paris shares the often unspoken challenges of discussing equality and inclusion in professional environments and underscores the importance of creating spaces where people can safely learn from their mistakes. Joanne expands on this by highlighting the role of shared experiences and the powerful, connecting threads of storytelling. Through a candid conversation, they examine the balance between resilience, acceptance, and the drive to inspire.

Paris's life is a tapestry woven with threads of hardship and triumph. Having navigated the uncertainties of the British care system from the tender age of six, Paris's story is one of building resilience amidst instability. Despite the lack of consistent love and protection, Paris emerged without casting blame on themselves for the past. Paris’s emotive narrative does not end there—they have parlayed their experiences into a commitment to education, eventually earning a teaching degree in social work at an impressively young age. Today, Paris continues to advocate through their work as a lecturer and trainer, with a strong focus on foster care and cultural identity support.

Throughout this episode, Paris opens up about their struggles with identity, the path to forgiving their mother, and how they forged a protective role for their siblings. They outline their career trajectory from foster carer to educator, touching on their positive impact with Samaritans during the lockdown. The dialogue also sheds light on the need for authentic diversity and inclusion practices within professional settings.

The episode concludes on a note of encouragement for embracing inclusive practices and understanding. Joanne voices her support for Paris's forthcoming book, proposing avenues of publishing, indicating how such personal narratives can vastly influence our community. Listeners are invited to reflect on the discourse and connect with the ongoing inclusion conversation.

A key takeaway from this episode is the understanding that our background and experiences shape, but do not define us. Paris's life speaks volumes about the power of resilience and the importance of inclusivity in creating a more understanding society. For those who face adversity, this episode is a remarkable example of how one can rise above challenges and become an inspirational figure for change. Listeners will find themselves moved and motivated by Paris's story, gaining new perspectives on the role of hardship in forging inspiring leaders and inclusive environments.

  Published: 02.05.2024 Recorded: 13.02.2024 Duration: 0:52:03 Downloads:   Shownotes:

• AI Extracts and Interpretations
• The Inclusion Bites Podcast #108: From Resilience to Inspiration — app.castmagic.io
• Other Links
• SEE Change Happen: The Inclusive Culture Experts
• Inclusion Bites Podcast on YouTube

About The Episode:

In this heartening dialogue, our guest shares her personal journey of overcoming adversity and how it shaped her outlook on equality, inclusion, and resilience. Drawing from a painful past within the care system and her path towards self-discovery and advocacy, she highlights the essence of embracing vulnerability and creating safe spaces for honest conversations. This episode is a vibrant tableau of lived experiences, challenges in corporate inclusion, and the undying human spirit to inspire and be inspired.

Today, we’ll cover:

• The complexities and apprehensions surrounding discussions of equality and inclusion in the workplace.
• Strategies for fostering a culture of openness and learning from errors to advance inclusive progress.
• The role of safe environments in facilitating growth from each other’s varied life experiences.
• Storytelling’s magnetic pull in building community connections and empathetic engagement.
• Enduring a tumultuous upbringing and channeling pain into educational pursuit and personal triumph.
• Valuing authentic diversity and the interplay between mental health and effective inclusion practices.
• Maintaining resilience through volunteering and self-care techniques amidst societal and professional hurdles.

Clips and Highlights

Experiences in the British Care System: “I spent the majority of my childhood within the British care system. I went into care at the age of six and after multiple placements, we’re talking twelve placements over a 13/14 year period.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:02:10 → 00:02:27]

Childhood Resilience and the Care System: “I knew because of the conviction that it was very much something that was done to me that was wrong, something that was punishable and something that was extremely traumatic. But what’s interesting about trauma is that you don’t fully experience it until you learn what it is.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:06:34 → 00:06:52]

Perceptions of Wealth in Childhood: “I got pocket money every week, some of my friends didn’t, some of my friends didn’t have money to sort of buy things that they wanted to buy.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:07:50 → 00:07:59]

Separated Siblings in Foster Care: “I was lucky enough to always know where they were and I was a confident child regardless of what was going on around the age of sort of 12/13/14.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:09:24 → 00:09:34]

Exploring Attitudes on Gay Marriage in the 80s: “It was just assumed in my mind that people respected and loved each other and that it was all about who you was and not about who you slept with.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:21:13 → 00:21:23]

Empowerment Through Volunteering: “I did loads of work with different charities, lots of voluntary work, and that gave me the experience I needed to go on and become self employed as a trainer, developing my own training skills and providing training to professional teachers, youth workers, psychologists.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:26:10 → 00:26:28]

Diversity in the Workforce: “Diversity and the inclusion are real buzzwords at the moment, but I think that companies are still ticking boxes to an extent, and I think that there is still a lot more work that needs to be done about sort of how we actually practically, really kind of take seriously the idea that we need to be moving towards a culture of inclusion.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:30:38 → 00:32:12]

Corporate Inclusivity Challenges: “Sometimes there can be a sense that people sometimes want to just say what they think you want to hear, but maybe it’s my psychology degree. I don’t know if it’s my background or just a natural aptitude. I have the ability of allowing or getting people to open up and be quite open and honest and frank about their difficulties in this area, because I go in with a very non judgmental approach, and I say to companies, this is not about saying, you’re doing this wrong. This is not about pointing a finger and saying, white privilege this and white privilege that. It’s about acknowledging that, yes, people are privileged, but they don’t always ask for that privilege.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:35:12 → 00:35:51]

Overcoming Fear of Failure: “We want you to make mistakes, because actually, that’s how you learn.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:37:50 → 00:37:53]

Fostering Cultural Identity: “Foster care is understanding that children have cultural needs, children have identity needs, and it’s great that you’ve got a spare bedroom and you’ve got all this love to give, but you also need to be able to meet that child’s cultural and identity needs as well.”
— Paris Bartholomew [00:46:48 → 00:47:04] Please connect with our hosts and guests, why not make contact..?
Brought to you by your host Joanne Lockwood
SEE Change Happen
A huge thank you to our wonderful guest Paris Bartholomew
Survive, Grow, Inspire

The post From Resilience to Inspiration appeared first on SEE Change Happen: The Inclusive Culture Experts.