Perspectives

About Perspectives

In today’s fast-moving world, it’s easy to feel disconnected, from our communities, from other generations, and even from ourselves. The Informed Perspective exists to pause that rush, to listen more carefully, and to create space for meaningful reflection and dialogue. We believe that when people share their experiences—across generations, cultures, and backgrounds—they offer insights that strengthen the communities we live in. Conversations that begin locally can be enriched by broader voices, bringing fresh context, challenges, and inspiration that help us grow together. Each episode of our podcast also includes input from tween contributors, whose questions and reflections often open up new ways of thinking. Their contributions add richness to the conversation and create opportunities for learning and connection across all ages. This platform is about imagining better communities: by listening more closely, learning from each other, and finding new ways to reconnect with what matters, right where we are. Keep informing those perspectives. theinformedperspective.substack.com (https://theinformedperspective.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

With Penny & Jennie from The Informed Perspective

Category

business · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 Mar 2025

Latest episode

11 Jun 2026

Latest episodes

46 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Jun 2026

   Perspectives: Youth Mental Health

   We recorded this episode on youth mental health in response to what we are picking up in our community. We knew it would be an important conversation and it was. We came out of it feeling genuinely hopeful and that is not always the case with this subject. Rachel Kelly author of The Gift of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less, opened up about her own mental health journey in a way that took real courage. Ten years of severe depression. And here is the thing that struck us most, the first time it happened, she didn’t address it properly. She pushed through, carried on, and it came back. It was only the second time that she finally stopped and did the work. She was honest about what helped and what didn’t, about the years it took, and about what she now wishes she had known sooner. That kind of honesty is rare. And it matters, because her honesty gives permission. Permission to struggle. Permission to ask for help. And permission to try again when the first attempt doesn't work. What came through again and again in this conversation is that connection is at the heart of mental health. Being around other people. Showing compassion to others, and how that, perhaps surprisingly, builds compassion for ourselves. Rachel described a school where one house had measurably better mental health outcomes than all the others. The reason was a child in a wheelchair. The daily experience of showing up for someone else had built something in those young people that no lesson could teach. Yes, the statistics are dire. Half a million young people in the UK on waiting lists. A ten year delay between first symptom and getting help. But there is hope too. Stigma is reducing. More people are talking. And former teacher Vicki Barsby's Life Story Education programme , where teenagers role-play as parents navigating real life challenges, is producing results that formal sessions never reach. Because it gives young people agency. The sense that they can navigate difficulty rather than be overwhelmed by it. Because it gives young people agency. The sense that they can navigate difficulty rather than be overwhelmed by it. Both guests were clear that the change we need is not just a system change, it is a culture change. A culture in schools, in families, in communities where mental health is not a topic reserved for a rushed lesson once a term, but part of how we live alongside each other every day. Where asking for help is seen as strength. Where adults model the behaviour they want to see. Where young people do not have to reach crisis point before anyone notices. But it’s also clear that we need more spaces for this work. Spaces where young people can share their burdens without pressure, without a grade attached, without the bell about to go. We need an education system that sees the mental health of each child, not just their academic performance and gives them the tools to navigate difficulty and challenge before the pressure becomes too much. That means knowing who they can turn to. That means making mental health part of the fabric of school life rather than a rushed lesson once a term. And it means recognising something we sometimes forget. The mental health of parents and the mental wellbeing of their children are not separate things. They feed each other. Which means this conversation is for all of us, not just the young people in our lives. Listen In! Penny & Jenny Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe (https://theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   10 Jun 2026

   Perspectives: Family Dynamics

   In this episode we chatted with Catherine Carr, author of Who’s The Favourite? The Loving, Messy Realities of Sibling Relationships, and Dalton Conley, Professor of Sociology at Princeton, whose research into the genetics of family life has produced findings we weren’t expecting. Here is the one that has stayed with us most. Children shape their parents just as much as parents shape their children. From as young as 18 months, children with higher genetic potential for educational success are drawing more reading, more play, more cognitive investment from their parents, not because parents are consciously choosing it, but because the child is eliciting it. The parenting is a response to the genome. Catherine brought something equally striking from the human side. The roles our families assign us in childhood, the responsible one, the funny one, the difficult one, follow us into our adult lives in ways most of us don’t realise. Into our workplaces. Into our relationships. And the labels hold even when the person wearing them has long since moved on. There is also something in this episode about the conversations we never have. The ones where we sit down with our siblings as adults and ask: what was childhood like for you? What did you experience that I didn’t see? Catherine describes it as spinning around and suddenly seeing the whole story from the other side of the room. Most of us keep putting those conversations off. This episode is a gentle argument for having them sooner. The tween talk question at the end — “I love my family, but sometimes they really annoy me. Is that normal?” — got the most immediate answer of any question we’ve asked. Both guests, simultaneously: yes. Completely. The episode is out now — wherever you listen. Penny & Jenny Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe (https://theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   28 May 2026

   Perspectives: Youth Engagement

   We’ve just finished recording our Youth Engagement episode, and it has left me truly hopeful. We spend a lot of time worrying about whether young people are engaged. We spend considerably less time asking whether we are. This podcast is all about how we can co-design along side each other. Our guests were Abbee McLatchie, Deputy CEO of the National Youth Agency in England, and Paul Stepczak, a community engagement specialist who has co-facilitated nearly 100 co-design events across Wales. Abbee told us about a campaign that produced the biggest surge in youth voter registration the UK has ever seen — in one day. About 16-year-olds sitting with the Prime Minister, not for a photo, but for a real conversation. And about young people who shaped a national strategy — her hope being that they’re the ones who drive it forward. Owned, sustained, and decided upon by the very people it was built for. Paul told us about a room in Wrexham where businesspeople, politicians, and 14-year-olds wore the same lanyard. First name. No titles. And what happened when the hierarchy dissolved. There’s also something in this episode that gave us pause — about why so much well-meaning engagement still falls short. Paul has a name for it. You’ll want to hear it. One exchange has stayed with me in particular because it made me refect on our daughter. Our tween talk question: “Is there any point doing anything now, when nobody cares what we think?” Paul: “I care. Get in those spaces.” Abbee: “Start from where you are.” That’s the whole philosophy, really, in two sentences. Listen In. And in a few weeks, the floor will be entirely theirs: an episode devoted entirely to youth voice. Until then, keep listening. Penny & Jenny Perspectives from the Informed Perspective Get full access to The Informed Perspective at theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe (https://theinformedperspective.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

Podcast Authority Score: 21 / 100

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