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Podcast 7 - transcript

Podcast theme - Levelling the playing field

This episode talks about making our world more accessible, diversity in advertising, and how legal experts are helping people to get the support they are entitled to.

Host Suzie McCarthy speaks to:

  • Dr Giulia Barbareschi, Researcher in Assistive Technology, UCL Interaction Centre, GDI Hub
  • Prof Jessica Ringrose, Professor of the Sociology of Gender and Education, UCL Institute of Education
  • Rachel Knowles & the UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic (UCL iLAC) team

TRANSCRIPT

[Upbeat music]

Suzie McCarthy

This is MadeAtUCL: The Podcast. Bringing you closer to the UCL research answerings life’s big questions. From engineering to art, healthcare to space exploration, ancient artifacts to the technology of the future.

Episode 7: Levelling the Playing field

[Music fades]

Hello! I’m Suzie, welcome to the last episode in this series of Made at UCL. We’be been speaking to academics from all areas of the university and I have to say I’ve really enjoyed hearing about their many passions, determination and curiosity and how that impacts our daily lives.

For this final episode, we’re looking at how UCL research is helping to level out various playing fields. We’ll hear how legal experts are helping people to get the support they are entitled to, share thoughts with London’s commuters on how advertising can be more representative. And, for our first story, we’re taking a look at the creation of new technologies which make our world more accessible.

[Upbeat plucked strings]

Giulia Barbareschi 

My name’s Giulia Barbareschi and I'm a research fellow on Disability and Assistive Technology at the Global Disability Innovation Hub.

Suzie McCarthy 

The UCL global disability Innovation Hub, or GDI hub for short, was born out of the legacy of the 2012 Paralympics. It aims to research and develop all sorts of new and exciting innovations, whether that's technological solutions to accessibility, or new cultural ideas that change attitudes towards disability.

[Music plays out then fades]

Giulia Barbareschi 

It's actually one of the most pressing global problem of this generation, and it’ll get a lot bigger in the next one. At the moment, you have 1 billion people with disabilities around the world. It's expected to be 2 billions in 30 years time.

Suzie McCarthy

According to the World Health Organisation, that’s largely due to aging populations around the  world, but it’s also due to a rise in chronic health conditions. There are also huge barriers to accessing appropriate health care and disability support across the globe. Barriers that can make it harder for disabled people to achieve whatever they want to achieve.

Giulia Barbareschi 

And sometimes barriers are physical things like you know, a flight of stairs or someone that does not understand or speak sign language. But a lot of other time barriers are simply stigma or you know, the wrong perception that people have around things.

Suzie McCarthy (in interview)

How do you change those kinds of ideas?

Giulia Barbareschi

So that really brings me back to what the hub really is. So, the way you break these kind of barriers, is you bring people together that normally don't work together.

[Gently busy music, plucked strings, marimba and piano]

So a lot of what I do as a researcher but also what we do as GDI hub is to bring together like assistive technology users and people with disabilities and, and, government to try to understand the impact that this devices have. To, you know, tech designers or clinicians in the same room together. And sometimes like it can be quite challenging because because everyone has different opinions, but that's how great ideas and great change are made really.

[Music fades]

Suzie McCarthy

Giulia’s research focuses specifically on making those changes in the area of assistive technology, but what exactly is that?

Giulia Barbareschi 

So assistive technology is a very loose term, but it's anything that can help a person that has a disability to achieve whatever goal they have in life and do whatever they want. So it can be anything from things that we readily imagine like a wheelchair, but also I see that you wear glasses so your glasses are an assistive technology! But a lot of times so it's our smartphones so smartphone have accessibility features built into them. And you can use them to read aloud text that helps you to communicate or to make a video call if you are deaf and you want to sign. And that's also an assistive technology.

Suzie McCarthy  

I don't think I’ve thought of my glasses in this way before, but many of us use some sort of assistive technology in our daily lives. But it’s not yet accessible to everyone.

Giulia Barbareschi

Only about 1, maybe 2 in 10, have access to the assistive technology that they need. And the majority of these people don't live here or in Europe or in the states where a lot of the research take place, but they live in the global south.

Suzie McCarthy 

You might then think that to provide equal access to these technologies across the globe, Europe and the States simply need to export them overseas. But actually...

Giulia Barbareschi 

The worst mistake that you can do, it's to pick a technology that was developed here for people here, and parachute it somewhere where it doesn't work in the context. A lot of the work that we do at the moment it's based in Kenya in a wheelchair that works perfectly well here, might not be repairable in Kenya because it's made of the wrong material or might not be suited for rough terrains.

Suzie McCarthy

And more than just making products that aren't globally accessible, US and European based designers and manufacturers are getting in the way of local innovation in countries where this technology will be used.

Giulia Barbareschi

One of the preconceptions that they have, it's that low and middle income countries don't have potential and they need to be given things from us. They really don't.

[Busy plucked string music]

The level of innovation and ingenuity and brilliance that I found in Kenya in the last few years I've rarely seen everywhere else. But a lot of time, they need to be enabled, you know, they need to be able to present this image to the rest of the world and show how brilliant they can be.

Suzie McCarthy  

The solution to this isn't necessarily to stop trying to help altogether. Far from it! But it's about changing the approaches that manufacturers take when designing these technologies, to make them in a way that has all sorts of needs in mind, and that can be adapted locally.

[Music plays out and fades]

So much of Giulia’s work at the GDIhub focuses on identifying what those needs are. For example, in a lot of lower and middle income countries:

Giulia Barbareschi 

The way that wheelchair provision system works is that they get a bulk delivery of wheelchairs of different size and and if you go and you need a wheelchair of your size but your size is not there you will need to wait until all these wheelchairs run out and the next shipment will come on.

Suzie McCarthy

Global development and disability charity Motivation might just have the solution to this…

Kenyan Trial Participant 1

This project is one of the best project I’ve worked with. And uh, since it involves the person who is the wheelchair user. You are given the priority to customise the wheelchair which you are going to use.

Giulia Barbareschi

Their amazing product designers, within the last couple of years, came up with a different idea which was, what if we could use digital fabrication? 3D printing to make wheelchairs that are custom made?

Kenyan Trial Participant 1

From the measurements, to everything you want, to, to the appearance of the wheelchair you want.

Giulia Barbareschi

You take measurements of a person, you input it in a computer and it will produce the design of a wheelchair of the appropriate size. What you need to make that wheelchair, it's a series of aluminium tubes and the computer will tell you what measures to cut them. And a series of 3D printed joints that used to combine together. And the technicians then build the frame. You need some add ons that can be bought in bulk like wheels and brakes and that sort of things. And you can provide someone with a wheelchair that is made perfectly for them.

This system allows you to have, uh...  cut waiting time but also, like, boost local manufacturing and enable people to repair locally rather than you know if something break having to buy a completely new wheelchairs or having to wait for replacement part to come from the UK or the US.

Kenyan Trial Participant 2

The assessment was lovely, it was the first one. I’ve used wheelchair for the last 13 years and I’ve never been through an assessment to get a wheelchair. So it was fun for me.

Giulia Barbareschi

This system allows you to cut waiting time, but also to boost local manufacturing and enable people to repair locally, rather than, you know, if something break, having to buy completely new wheelchairs or having to wait for a replacement part to come from Europe or the US.

Suzie McCarthy 

This custom-wheelchair project, known as Motivation InnovATe, ran a highly successful pilot trial in Kenya during the summer of 2019 and they’re currently working on responding to the feedback they received, and how to scale up the system so it can be tested further afield. This was supported with funding from the GDI Hub’s AT2030 program.

But of course, it’s not just about providing financial resources to make these sorts of collaborations possible. The GDI Hub is also hoping to bring together the world’s best and brightest innovators through its new flagship teaching program.

[Gently busy music returns]

The Master's of Science in Disability Design and Innovation is a multidisciplinary program in collaboration with several London universities.

Giulia Barbareschi  

We got this first cohort this year, and they're amazing. They come from anything from product design, to people that have worked in social development. From some people that have worked on architecture and inclusive design of buildings, to people that would have done more degrees, like psychology and are more familiar with sort of qualitative studies. And we need all of them.

If you're interested about disability, and you're interested in trying to do something meaningful and innovating and really exciting, I would definitely recommend people to apply, especially if they do have a lived experience of disability.

[Piano continues, then fades]

Suzie McCarthy

You probably agree that whatever kind of bodies we inhabit, we ought to be able to not only live fulfilling lives, but feel good about ourselves whilst doing it.

[Moody drums and synth music]

That's not always the message we receive from billboards, TV screens and social media accounts as we go about our daily lives.

In 2015, one ad in particular caused a great deal of controversy.

Commuter 1

They’re just showing a perfect, perfect body which to my eyes has been shined and buffed and worked on.

Suzie McCarthy

This 'shined and buffed and worked on' image was front and centre of Protein World's campaign for their weight loss supplements. The poster shows a very thin model with a bright yellow bikini, looking down at the viewer from the billboard. And next to it, there’s the question: “Are you beach body ready?”

The advert blew up on social media with thousands of people protesting that every body is beach body ready, and that the advert was irresponsible for promoting unhealthy body images.

Commuter 2

It's saying that you need to get your body into shape because what are people going to think of you when you go to the beach and you have like, you don't have like a six pack or like a really skinny tummy? It just makes you feel really bad because like, so many of us don't have that body. So I'm not going to like wear a bikini and I'm not going to get to the beach because I don't feel... and that's like to the extent that it takes me. It's actually like preventing me from going to a beach in my bikini.

[Tube sounds]

Suzie McCarthy

Despite hundreds of complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority chose not to ban the ad.

[Tube slows and music fades, with echo]

But Sadiq Khan, at the time London's newly elected Mayor, decided to take matters into his own hands. He banned the ad from the London Underground, saying:

"As the father of two teenage girls, I’m extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end."

He was especially concerned to improve the standards of advertising on the tube, as this is something that commuters can't simply switch off from, like they would if they saw something they didn't like on TV or in a magazine.

But they needed to know more about how women feel when seeing these ads on their travels around the city. And that's where UCL came in..

[Upbeat, gentle electric guitar]

Jessica Ringrose 

I'm Jessica Ringrose. I'm a professor of sociology of gender and education at the UCL Institute of Education and I particularly look at youth digital sexual cultures.

Suzie McCarthy

In 2018, the Mayor’s office got in touch with Jessica with an idea for a research project.

Jessica Ringrose

They said we want to interview women, like, on the streets of London as they go back and forth, you know on their journeys on Transport for London and see what is their actual real life live experience of advertisements.

Suzie McCarthy

As well as conducting a survey of over 2000 men and women, Jessica’s team accompanied 16 women from diverse backgrounds, aged 21 to 65 as they went about their journeys on the tube.

Whether that was a retiree going to the library or a party-goer getting on the night train after clubs closed. As they travelled, they discussed the adverts they saw on their journey.

[Music fades, tube sounds and outdoor atmosphere]

Commuter 2

Like that’s…

Commuter 3

Offensive

Commuter 1

Racist

Commuter 3

Brave

Commuter 4

Empowered

Commuter 5

Great

Commuter 2

I don't like it!

Commuter 4

I think why? What’s the point of it?

[Tube gets louder then echoes and fades]

Suzie McCarthy

Alongside this, they asked participants about campaigns that had attempted in some way to improve the tone of their advertising.

Jessica Ringrose (in the field) 

These are two adverts that have been thought to be they've been regarded as empowering for women. Do you think that this is empowering?

Commuter 4 

I think it's, they’re trying to say that all body shapes it doesn't matter with your big small, thin, fat, tall, brown, white, whatever, it doesn't really matter. We're all women, we're all empowered and we all want nice skin.

Commuter 1 

It looks more real and fresh. You know, they're not plastered with makeup.

Commuter 5  

The women are bigger. They're all different shapes, they're all different colors, they're all different.

Suzie McCarthy

They’re looking at a Dove advert, featuring several women in bright white underwear, all different shapes and skin tones. And for the most part, people felt that this more diverse advert was more realistic.. But not everyone agreed on this one...

Commuter 3

These kind of one. I just don't... Do we always have to be in our underwear? It's just nonsense. I'm sick of seeing underdressed women. We don't walk around like that! Yeah, so yeah, for me and empowering advert would just be an ordinary looking woman dressed in ordinary clothes, not inviting anyone to come and do stuff to her.

[Moody synth music returns]

Suzie McCarthy

This under-dressing of women was something that many participants raised, questioning why women are  often almost-naked when advertising anything from furniture to hair products.

But they were somewhat divided on what message this sends. With some...

Jessica Ringrose 

Accepting that glamorous women should be profiled in highly sexualized ways in the advert. So there were some people that were just like, “They're getting paid. They're making a living. It's, it's not a big deal. I'm not a prude.”

Suzie McCarthy

It’s not exactly news that adverts are often designed to create false ideals which make us feel bad about ourselves so that we buy products promising to make us feel better. We’ve all heard that sex sells! But does that make it acceptable to have these images filling up London billboards?

The UCL survey showed that the sexualisation of both women and men was the number one reason people were likely to find an advert unacceptable or at the least, inaccurate. The survey also found that many people saw the fact that women are more often shown in states of undress than men as sexist.

[Music fades]

Some of the people Jessica spoke to were especially concerned about their children being exposed to these sorts of sexualised images.

[Schoolground sounds]

So the UCL team expanded their research to understand how adverts are experienced by teenagers. Who certainly had their fair share of opinions about being beach body ready!

School pupil 

It’s basically, a way of saying like you should, if you want to go to beach and you want to show off your body, you should look like that.

School pupil 2

Not everyone…It's not right.

School pupil 3

It’s pretty stupid, like, you know, like… No one's explicitly saying he to go to the beach you have to look like this. You know, if like, you're because you're looking at those people, like you know, “That's normal, I should be like that that's a new thing that I should do.”

School pupil 4

We're brainwashed into thinking we need to be like this, in order to be accepted because the boys are like, “Oh, I want to go with this type of body blah, blah blah.” And because we're young and naive, we don't really understand it, that we're kind of like... We're losing the love we have for ourselves just to be accepted by people who don’t love us.

Suzie McCarthy  

But away from billboards and public spaces...

Jessica Ringrose 

Targeted advertising on their phones and on social media was a huge issue for the teen girls.

[Busy drums and baseline]

Suzie McCarthy

If you ever feel like your phone is listening to you, that's probably targeted advertising. It uses demographic information to figure out which people are most likely to buy a product. It means companies don't waste money on advertising to people who aren't interested. It’s often combined with the use of social media stars and celebrity influences to advertise products to young girls.

Jessica Ringrose 

They were talking about the Kardashians marketing these gummy bear hair vitamins, so it's like it's like... Basically like candy but it's marketed as a vitamin and it's supposed to make your hair nice

Jessica Ringrose (in school with pupils)

Sugarbear hair what's that?

School pupil 2

It's a gummy, like a gummy that the Kardashians have. And then they like chew it and then apparently it gives you amazing hair. Like on their bio it says, “Get healthy hair, eat the blue bear.”

Jessica Ringrose  

As an older person I really felt for how pressurized they felt.

Jessica Ringrose  (with school pupils)

So celebrities eat these gummy bears, that are good for your hair?

School Pupil 2

Yeah. They do get paid for it though. Like they're paid to do it.

School Pupil 5

Not going to lie, yeah, I thought it was real. I was telling my mum about that and she was like “Oh really?”

Jessica Ringrose (with school pupils)

What?

School Pupil 5

I thought they were real.

Jessica Ringrose (with school pupils)  

You thought they were real?

School Pupil 5

Yeah I thought it actually works. I told my mum about that.

Jessica Ringrose (with school pupils)

Ok.

School Pupil 6

If you go on Instagram initially if you go on your explore page you'll see at least once and it's been advertised a lot and you’ll come to a point where you actually believe it.

School Pupil 5

When it's so much advertisement, you're just like why not? And then you don't look like that, it just gives you this sense of like, “What's wrong with me?” Type of thing.

School Pupil 3

It sort of wears you down. Like once you see it like over and over again I was actually thinking of buying those like little gummy bear things because they look nice and stuff and yeah, it's like is is isn't real. It is life. It just wears you down so often.

Suzie McCarthy

These teenagers are a lot more aware of how advertising influences them than I was at their age! But that just goes to show what a huge impact these campaigns have in today’s social-media world.

That’s why it is so important to have good guidelines on what images and suggestions adverts include, and a good understanding of how we respond to them.

[Gentle electric guitar music returns]

Jessica's research made suggestions for such guidelines, finding that people generally found adverts more empowering, acceptable and fairer the more diverse they were.

This went on to spark a competition run by Transport for London to encourage more inclusive advertising.

[Music swells]

They got a great range of responses, and the winner, Holland and Barratt, included clothed women of all different shapes, ethnicities, and body types doing the activities they enjoy like spending time outdoors, boxing and swimming, to advertise their supplements.

Jessica Ringrose 

It was really incredible as a researcher to be able to see what the creative people in the agencies came up with to kind of like, tackle the issues that we had highlighted. I think we're in a new era where people actually want to see some kind of inclusion. They want to see diversity. They don't want to see just one type of person.

Suzie McCarthy  

Levelling playing fields in all sectors can be about providing the resources that people need to achieve what they want to achieve. It can also, as we’ve seen, be about the sorts of messages we impress upon each another.  It’s also about supporting each other  to fight for what is right  Our final story of this series is about just that.

[Music plays out then fades]

Last year, and fittingly, the day after the UK’s general election, I went to visit UCL’s integrated legal advice clinic.

[Cello music]

Thul Khan 

Hello, my name’s

Katrina McDonald 

Katrina McDonald

Ben Cartwright 

Ben Cartwright

Clara Fugue 

Clara Fugue

Rachel Knowles 

Rachel Knowles

Thul Khan 

Thulk Khan. I'm a housing solicitor

Katrina McDonald 

I'm an advisor

Ben Cartwright 

I'm a student assistant

Clara Fugue  

A paralegal.

Rachel Knowles 

I'm head of legal practice at the UCL integrated legal advice clinic.

Suzie McCarthy

The integrated legal advice clinic is based in Newham, East London. Their lawyers provide free legal advice to local residents on a whole range of issues. Whilst I was there, I not only got to speak to staff and students, but I met with two mothers who had recently sought help from the clinic. They’ve asked to remain anonymous, but both had quite similar cases.

[Music fades]

Mother 1 

My son has ASD, he has autism. And his Autism is quite severe because he has severe behavioral difficulties as well.

Mother 2 

He's got severe autism, he’s got global, global development delay as well. He's got sensory issues as well. He needs one to one throughout the whole day for himself and to keep others safe.

Mother 1 

I've had to give up my job to just to obviously cater for my child, because obviously that's a priority to handle him in the evenings, especially to give him that time. As a mother, I think that's what's important.

Mother 2 

He doesn't know what he's doing. So, he has no idea what (I’m talking about my son), has no idea like, if he's on the road, he'll just run on the road and he doesn't know that someone can hit him and, you know, kill him or if I'm running after him, same thing can happen to me.

Suzie McCarthy 

There are systems in place that are designed to help out those with disabilities and their carers.

Mother 1  

You know, little little things like getting a disabled badge will be a bit a lot easier for me because you can park in the disabled bay, you've got the space around so you can walk around without me you know, worrying having to worry, “Oh, he's gonna walk out onto the road. “

Suzie McCarthy  

As well as disabled badges, the UK offers welfare entitlements such as the disabled living allowance to support the most vulnerable in our society. And you'd think that the support ought to be easy to access.

Mother 1  

I've had to appeal and appeal and appeal in the past to get my disabled badge for him.

[Slow, low energy, acoustic guitar music]

Suzie McCarthy 

But the process of applying for things like benefit payments, getting access to suitable housing or being granted a blue badge parking permit has become increasingly complicated, hostile, and demoralising.

Mother 2 

You they make you feel like, you know, “It's okay, you know, you can just live with it. And you know, it's totally fine. You know, everyone else is going through it, you know. [Or] it's only for people with physical disability.” But they don't know that like people who don't understand things. It's really, really difficult for them in the benefit system.

Clara Fugue 

In the benefit system currently, it seems to be the case that everything is taken from a starting point with a view of suspicion. So you, you you ask for something that you're entitled to because of your condition, but you're met with suspicion from the providers. So you have to prove every single thing that you're saying.

Suzie McCarthy

That’s Clara, one of the paralegals at the clinic, which gives legal advice and representation in cases where governments and local authorities are failing to provide the support that people are entitled to.

[Dissonant music plays out and fades]

You might be wondering why UCL even has a legal clinic. I know I certainly was as I had thought universities were primarily focused on research and teaching. Here’s Rachel, who heads up the clinic.

Rachel Knowles 

People who have health problems are often... things are exacerbated if they have legal problems. And there's been a fair amount of research that's been done about that. But there's been not very much research done about the fact that if people get help with those legal problems, do their health problems improve? The clinic was originally set up in the hope that maybe we could do some research around that particular issue. That then rapidly increased into a full blown legal advice clinic because we realized that there's a real dearth of advice services in Newham.

Suzie McCarthy  

For many years now it's becoming increasingly difficult, almost impossible even, to get legal advice and representation across the country. There used to be something called Legal Aid, which funded free legal support for those who needed it. But that's been cut dramatically.

Rachel Knowles 

Before 2013 you could get legal aid for things like welfare benefits advice or advice about all types of disrepair and housing,

Thul Khan 

Or, or,  try to get increased priority on the housing waiting list

Rachel Knowles 

Since 2013, you can't get any legal aid for welfare benefits advice. And at the same time as that cut was made, obviously there have been huge changes to the welfare benefit system for example, the introduction of Universal Credit. So lots of people are being left on the breadline, or just with no money at all, and no one to help them challenge it because there's no legal aid to do it.

[Downbeat guitar music returns]

Suzie McCarthy 

I think there's a perception that there are many benefit claimants who are applying to receive money without necessarily needing it. But this has led to the most vulnerable people in society not receiving the support that they're entitled to.

Thul Khan 

You think it will be quite obvious if someone is homeless and then obviously the local authority has legal duties to accommodate and to assist those who are homeless. You we should be... You know, why should there be a legal challenge necessary? But unfortunately, on a daily basis, many applicants are turned away.

Rachel Knowles 

There's a sort of general approach of people just saying no, in the first instance. Because if you turn people away in the first instance, maybe only 20% of them will come back and ask again, maybe it'll be 30. We don't know. But then we've at least got rid of the other 70 or 80.

Suzie McCarthy 

It's worth noting that for some benefits, particularly those relating to disability, 75% of cases that make it to appeal are successful.

[Music fades]

Here's Katrina, who advised one of the mothers I spoke to in appealing for disability living allowance.

Katrina McDonald 

Sometimes clients feel like they don't know... The system feels inaccessible, even though it's supposed to be designed to be more accessible for people to challenge decisions. And so it's a new space that they've never, sort of,navigated before. And that can be quite daunting for people.

For parents of children with autism, and they've got their hands full. They've got a lot going on, day to day life is very full, and even finding the sort of headspace to think about whether to challenge something or whether it's wrong, that takes energy and time and motivation that sometimes by the end of the day, there isn't enough time left for that sort of consideration.

Mother 2 

I'm actually not the sort of challenging sort of parent like, I don't go challenging. I’m kind of like, I get a bit worried and, you know, anxiety and everything. So I'm not the sort of, I'll say brave, I'm not maybe brave enough to go out there, you know, get myself heard.

Mother 1 

Last time I went to an appeal they fired questions at me and, you know, as a mother, you just think, “Oh, I, you know, this is the positiveness that I want for my child.” But you have to remember as well that, you know, these are the difficulties that you're having with your children.

Clara Fugue 

You have to sort of present your day to day life in the most honest way. But obviously, privately, you, in order to cope with all of those difficulties, tend to focus on the positive side. Whereas in an assessment setting or tribunal hearing you have to do, you have to do the opposite to sort of provide the most honest version of your life. And that can be quite counterintuitive and difficult.

Suzie McCarthy 

I learnt that much of the clinic's work is gathering the right evidence and helping with form filling and going through the right procedures. But it's also about helping to coach clients through these unwieldy and often scary processes.

Katrina McDonald 

We try to make sure that clients are fully informed and know what to expect and just taking that uncertainty and unknown factor out of the equation.

Mother 2 

Katrina did explain to me it's going to be a room and there'll be three professionals. But I've never been before, this is going to be my first time. I was nervous but I do feel confident now.

Suzie McCarthy 

This aid has already led to many successful cases. But many of these appeals should never have had to get to that stage in the first place. There are all sorts of widespread injustices like this that the clinic continues to combat.

Thul Khan 

We are here to sort of, you know, represent and empower the most vulnerable in society. And yeah, while there is a, you know, while there is poor housing and poor service for clients, we will still, we'll be here to represent them.

Rachel Knowles 

Hopefully with as many people as we can fit in here! I'm hoping that we might come up with ways to challenge things a bit more systemically rather than just doing things on a case by case basis because that hopefully will create more long term significant change.

[Cello music returns]

Suzie McCarthy  

Part of that systemic change also includes working with UCL's law students who are able to take placements at the clinic, which feeds into their education and academic research too. Here's Ben, one of the students I met during my visit, who was just finishing up his placement.

Ben Cartwright 

So whilst in my role, it's mostly clerical, I have been interacting with some really interesting cases and speaking to clients over the phone discussing their cases and whilst lots of the stories are really sad, it is interesting and fascinating to see how we can actually help as lawyers. But I also quite like the, the intersection with politics and with policy. Because whilst it's small legal rules that are at play, ultimately it connects to a much larger, larger monolith I guess, of the state.

Thul Khan 

And the students as well are maybe seeing the world maybe differently for different people's eyes. Coming here, lots of students actually are, they're actually astounded by the realities.

Ben Cartwright 

Being here has helped me get a better understanding of the different types of benefits, how decisions are made, and the actual amounts of money people receive, which is often tiny, £77 or so for a family of five for a week after bills. Which is not enough to live on. Hopefully, people will understand that the benefits system is there to help people and it's just not working.

[Music fades]

Suzie McCarthy 

So you can see that the widespread changes we need to level things out and take on that ‘monolith of the state’ requires legal expertise, but also different attitudes to the benefit system, and political engagement. Until we have that the clinic will continue to celebrate its successes on a case by case basis, empowering Newham's communities to get what they're entitled to.

Mother 1 

We went to the appeal, and then we sat in the waiting room all hesitant, “Okay, you know what's gonna happen now?” And finally, when we went into the room, it was really really nice because they welcomed us in. We sat down and without me saying anything they had made... Come to a decision that he should get high rate mobility for his needs. I've never... For first, for the first time. I didn't have to fight!

Suzie McCarthy (in interview)

You must have been really surprised! Cos you were going in expecting...

Mother 1 

Oh, yeah! [laughs] I was surprised and I ended up in tears! Because I've never been in a place where they understood my child straightaway.

[Upbeat guitar music with tambourine]

I used to be really quiet before I never used to say anything. And now like, you know, I can openly say, “Okay, you know, this is my child's condition. And this is how it is.” A lot of parents I've spoken to, they're suffering at home with their child because they don't know these things. You know, all the support that they can get, all the benefits that they can, they can get as well. I have I have said to them, “Look, anything you need to need help with, you know, definitely go to UCL, they've helped me with my case. And you know, it's been, it's been a really, really good journey.”

[Music continues]

Suzie McCarthy

Thank you so much for joining me throughout this series. I’ve really enjoyed the many trips to labs and libraries to uncover just what goes on at the university and I hope you have too! We’ve explored rainforests, ducked into forensic labs, gone underground to both coal mines and to jump on the tube, headed off to outer space and, once or twice, done a bit of time travelling too!

We’d love to hear from you. So tell us about your favourite stories or most surprising fact that you’ve heard on Facebook or Twitter or iTunes and don’t forget the hashtag #MadeAtUCL.

We’re looking forward to a second season, so stay tuned for updates! In the meantime, I’d like to say a final thank you to all the people we’ve heard from throughout the series, who are striving to answer life’s big questions.

[Music ends, with cymbal flare]

[Theme music]

Made at UCL: The Podcast is made by me, Suzie McCarthy. The Assistant Producers on this episode were Rosalind Chaston  and Cassidy Martin  The executive producer is Nina Garthwaite.  Mixing support from Mike Wooley. We'd like to thank all our researchers for welcoming us into their labs and offices. #MadeatUCL is a campaign that brings to life disruptive thinking from UCL. Research presented in this episode was nominated and selected because of the impact it has made on everyday life and society. This episode is brought to you from UCL Minds, events, lectures and podcasts open to everyone.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai Edited by Suzie McCarthy