During the Summer I was asked to speak at this year’s NVR Ireland conference. As a result of the pandemic the conference was to be online and I had a 10 minute slot. I can talk for hours. I have great difficulty talking for 10 minutes.

I played with many ideas for what I would talk about. The remit was “The Parent’s Experience” but that didn’t really narrow things down for me.

When I finally started writing something, 48 hours before I was due to speak, I knew that I needed to condense my lived experience into 10 minutes.

I am now the Grown Folk. I am one of the ones that has survived. I am one of the ones who has taken this program and made it their own, made it a way of life. I am one of the ones who can now sit down and say “let me tell you what I did. Let me tell you a way that it can be fixed”.

So I spoke of my experience. I opted for dignified honesty. I made some people cry. I made more people hope.

I showed up. This is what Grown Folk do.