1 Captions by Faith Hamblyn. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015 INSPIRING MUSIC VIOLIN MUSIC My name's Daniel Alan Bensemann, and I'm 18 years old. I've been trying to get my life on track since being on the streets for nearly a year. My family don't really want much to do with me. They don't like the way that I have been over the years. I've been getting in trouble with the police and the system since I was about 8 or 9 years old, so that's why I'm on my own, really. VIOLIN MUSIC CONTINUES Well, this a place where I used to sleep. This was one of my main spots cos it's hidden. I used to be just back from where I am here, but I'd tuck right up against the wall. People really never even knew I was here. The outside of my body would have been about here, so it was pretty well sheltered. And cos I was small, my feet only came to about here and I could tuck them right in here. I've slept in some pretty hard places to sleep. I've spent nights on the street where I just can't be bothered sleeping, so I'm just walking round all night. Well, my grandmother got me assessed when I was young, and it came back as that I had supposedly... according to them, I had foetal alcohol syndrome. Um, they've tested me again recently, and it's come back as non-applicable, nothing. It's really confusing. But my grandmother and all the rest of my family seem to say, oh, I've got foetal alcohol syndrome. Well, I know for a fact I've got ADD, but this foetal alcohol stuff, my mum can't understand, cos she never touched alcohol when she was pregnant with me, so she can't understand why everyone's saying that everything I've done says I've got foetal alcohol syndrome. The DHB seem to go, 'Oh, well, you're crazy, you're schizophrenic,' and whatever they think all because of my genes that have been passed down through the family. My sister's very similar to what I am. I'm Kirsty-Lee Marie Sixtus, and I'm Daniel's older sister. I was adopted out, and Daniel was adopted to my grandparents when he was born, so we didn't really live together. I was always the good girl. I was diagnosed with foetal alcohol, and that does cause growth issues, learning difficulties and other issues, so really bad. Daniel has foetal alcohol syndrome. I think he denies it because he doesn't want people to know that he has a disability, cos he thinks he'll, you know, lose his ego that he has and be picked on. Like, I was picked on at school too because of my condition. It is terrible, but, you know, you learn to live with it and just say, 'You know what? It could be worse.' Daniel is very clever. Like, he knows what's right and wrong. And at the end of the day, it's his decision, so, like, yeah, there's nothing much we can do for him. He just needs to go out there and get help, so... I got bullied since my very first days at school, pretty much every single day of my life. I still get picked on today, but now I know how to deal with it. Back then I'd take the bait, then it'd just keep going, keep going, and then I'd end up hurting them or I'd end up beating them up. I had a bit of counselling, and I just turned my nose up, 'Nuh,' walked out on a number of them. I just don't like the way that they do stuff. It just annoys me. They treat me like a child, exactly the same thing. I did have a lot of support when I was younger, but I didn't really like that support. I felt that they treated me childish. And I just don't like people treating me childish, and I've been like that ever since I was a child. Yep. All right, mate. Good luck. Yep. Daniel Bensemann, I met him a few years ago. Um, I represented him in Youth Court. He comes across as a nice young guy. He certainly has some difficulties. Um, he's got foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Um, my dealing with that is we're all learning about that. It's not really, uh, recognised. It's probably at the forefront of it at the moment. Cos of the condition that he's got, he does get victimised, he gets picked on, he's easily lead. We have all these assessments, we've got all the people to tell us what the problem is, but the reality is, they don't get the resources or the treatment that they need, so they're treated as an adult. And the cause of his offending, really, is part and parcel of his condition. He ends up in a criminal system for a problem that he was born with, really. This place is Crossroads. It's basically for people who can't really afford a lot of stuff. So there's breakfast here, there's lunch. It's good for me, cos I can come in and get a drink of juice for 50c. I can get apples, bread and all that for free. So basically, I'm not gonna be hungry during the whole day. If it wasn't for this place, we'd be scrounging on the street. Yeah. How long have you been coming here for? Ever since I've been on the street, which is around maybe half a year, going on a year. < It's no good if you haven't got nowhere to stay. Winter's coming up, brother. What are you gonna do for the rest of the year? Dunno. Yeah. Try and keep out of trouble. (CHUCKLES) Well, I'm just lucky I've got a roof over my head, you know? Going gets tough, uh, you can, 'Can you put us up for the night?' Dunno about a feed, though. (LAUGHS) Wouldn't want that to go. It's not good, not good. This is most of what I eat, just bread and apples. I do like my apples. INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS (SIGHS) INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS Have you got any smokes, Steve? My lucky day. < And what are you gonna do for the rest of the day? Are you gonna be hanging, stressing out again? Oh, I'll just be walking round, minding my own business ` same old same old. I normally come here every morning for breakfast, and I try and come in for lunch most days. I've got no income at the moment, so as far as I know, I've got about 10c in my bank account. (CHUCKLES) I do walk around a lot. With the ADD that I've got, I was always on edge, I was always trying to get attention. I used to be very bad with my temper, but now I'm more mellow, more calm, more hyper than aggressive. All this was before I was found with, um, foetal alcohol syndrome. They thought there was ADHD, so they gave me Ritalin. Well, I wasn't talking the Ritalin; I was selling them. That's why I was getting angry all the time. What I find, um, is with the foetal alcohol syndrome... is, um, the anger looks bad at the courts. The police look at it bad, but the actual... the thing that I see with it is when people have foetal alcohol syndrome and they get angry, it's not because of the foetal alcohol syndrome; it's because of what's going on at the time. And it could be someone's getting a bit picky,... picking on someone and they just all of a sudden turn around, bang, and beat them up. FASD is one of the most prevalent forms of neuro disability that we're seeing in the court ` a common consequence of the disability that, uh, a person would be unable to regulate their emotions properly. So under stress, they often behave explosively. It's very easy in the justice system to miss this issue altogether, because some of the most clear indicators of the presence of a neuro disability such as FASD are also what people think are the very signs of criminality and, um, deviancy. It makes no sense at all to simply criminalise their behaviour and treat it as a purely criminal issue. It's a combined justice, health, social issue,... and if you respond to it with a combined approach, um, we should expect that there would be a huge reduction in reoffending. Currently, the convention approach taken is a very primitive one. The law hasn't kept up with the science of how brain damage affects behaviour. Um, basically, I come to the library every day, use the computers, use the internet. Well, it's basically where I hang out cos there's nowhere really else. That's basically all I do. I've been coming here ever since I've been growing up in Blenheim. I don't really read books; I more talk to friends on Facebook and YouTube, do whatever. Pretty much everyone who's in the library now is here every day. It's more like a friendly, safe location, where I feel that I'm part of a group. Then when the library closes, I just hang around for a bit, and then cruise off. So, basically, this is my day in the library. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which is brain impairment and causes disability, is not accepted as a disability in NZ. If you have Down's syndrome, then throughout your schooling, you will get special funding, you will get teacher aid, you will get... families will get respite care, and they'll get special activities, and those children, thankfully, now grow up, you know, with very good-quality lives. And children with autism also get services, but children with FASD currently don't, are not eligible for services, because they don't reach the Ministry Of Health requirement for a disability. And that's ridiculous. FASD is most definitely a disability. I would not want to live the life of someone with FASD, day by day having to struggle and fail and be set up to not do well, because people don't understand my disability. And services need to be provided if we want to be a civilised, fair society. Um, I just mainly walk around town, cos it's what I do, just something to do ` minding my own business, catching up with a few people, trying to ask people if they've got any smokes or whatever, just being myself. I slept here last night ` um, one of my favourite winter spots, because this doorway here is sheltered from the wind this way, and I can get the sleeping bag positioned so that the wind can go straight over top of it, rather than into the sleeping bag, which is gonna make me cold. It wasn't too bad last night. Um, it got a bit cold, sort of, early hours of the morning, but then it warmed up a bit more. It was not as warm as a bed, but still warm. And, I mean, I've slept in a couple of public toilets. There's a 24-hour one in town which is warm. I've actually got no shame. I mean, I've slept pretty much right on a footpath. And I'll sleep in some of the most obvious places, where people have seen me. But I've woken up and there's been, like, 100 bucks next to me, so I was happy. (CHUCKLES) Um, during the day, I'll stash my stuff in my, um, stashing spot. It's on the river itself, but it's one of those obvious spots where people don't expect. I've never had stuff taken. This is the spot. (GRUNTS) This is my spot right here. See? Perfect fit. (CHUCKLES) I just keep my life positive. I'm a really strong believer in, um, what Tupac said in a lot of his speeches ` like, no matter what, you keep your head up through times when you're feeling really low. Just keep your head up and just push through, perseverance. And I believe a lot of stuff what he said was true. Um, like keeping your head up in situations that might not be the best situation to be in, but... but yeah. (CHUCKLES) When I'm sleeping on the streets, all I think about is that my life is worth it. I'm not the type of person who's gonna think while I'm down, my life's not worth anything. I know my life is worth of what... to me to live. I don't.... I don't believe in, um, suicide or nothing,... um, so I'm not, like, never gonna go down that path. I've never had thoughts like that in my life, because I've just been a positive thinker my whole life. Round about 25% of... prison populations in Canada have FASD, about 25% of children or youth in the youth prisons, so I'm guessing we're way higher than that. That's my guess. Maybe 30%, 40%. Who knows? Um,... and so it's costing a lot of money to incarcerate people or,... you know, to provide residential care in justice facilities that really needs to be provided within disability services. And it would be cheaper to address this at a younger age, absolutely. FASD or foetal alcohol syndrome is really common in the world at this present time. Um, there's a lot of people out there that have got it. A lot of people that I know have got it. I even know some members of gangs that've got it. Just basically, everyone that I know has traces of it. My mum was an alcoholic. Um, my father was a heavy drinker,... who died when I was 7 years old. First time I got put in cuffs, I was 13 years old. And that was for drunk and disorderly behaviour. That was the first time I spent the night in the cells, when I was 13 years old. I don't really like places like prisons or in the cells. I always rark up in the cells. I end up getting beaten up by police. Well, fair enough, but... I mean, cos I do get smart to them. I do get rowdy. I do wake all the others up in the cells, and they get sick of it. The thing that I notice with my temper, most people have levels of temper. Like, they'll be a bit frustrated, then they'll get a bit loud, and then they'll get a bit aggressive towards someone, and then they'll strike out. With me, it's from just a bit rowdy, getting a bit annoyed, and then, bang, I just hit straight to the top. And that's when I end up getting in trouble. Um, I've even lost my temper in a courtroom in front of a judge, and that wasn't too good. (CHUCKLES) He didn't like that very well. Those with a neuro disability, like FASD, are likely to,... um, come back again, usually committing the same sort of offending, because their impairment means that, um, uh, you know, under the, sort of, conventional responses, the first time they appear, they're not really able to derive the sorts of benefits that could protect them from, or the community from, them reoffending. So that's one of the telltale signs. And so, yeah, I tend to see the same faces coming back, and then after they've left the Youth Court, see some of them in the adult court as well. What we know is if you've got a brain-based disability, punishment is not gonna make that go away ` it's probably gonna make it worse, rather than better. BIRDS CHIRP This is my sleep-out. I was getting quite stressed out with my parents, you know, as teenagers do, and I felt like I needed my own space. When I get really angry, it's like it's not me. It's kind of like someone's controlling me, and there's, like, nothing I can do about it ` I just need to calm down. Cos I'll end up, you know, smashing stuff or something. So it's quite good coming up here, cos it's got no parents to annoy me. There are times that we really struggled. I sort of think you've just gotta hold on and ride it out a little bit and, uh, just continually be there. We became a family via adoption ` firstly in Russia, and then we were lucky enough to get our younger son in NZ. And they were both 18 months old when they came to us. So, how was work this week? Yeah, nah, it was good. Busy, but, nah, it's really steady. The early years of Jakob's life with us was wonderful. I loved every minute of it. He was always a really full-on kid, but you know, he was kind of a likeable rogue, really. He started having real trouble at school, and I think it wasn't really until intermediate that we started to see that. And high school, it was just a disaster. High school was where it really all happened. I was in trouble so much at school. I couldn't focus on my work. I was real fidgety and just, yeah, I was a big distraction at school. Despite us trying to convince them that they needed to look at things differently, the education system, I found, was incredibly inflexible. He's got a normal IQ, but he struggled with learning because he's dyslexic and he has poor working memory. His memory would not transfer from day to day, so his learnings would not transfer from day to day. Unfortunately, the education system viewed that as a wilful act on his part, that he was just being lazy, that he was trying to get out of it, 'Oh, he could do it yesterday; why can't he do it today?' So the spiky learning pattern was never acknowledged or accommodated. We were getting a little bit desperate, because he was starting to act out in a violent way as well, so we were... you know, there were holes in every single wall of our house, um, starting to pop up just from his sheer frustration. I wasn't really good at, um, following instructions; I'd, kind of, like, do my own thing, so that's why I left school. I think he was labelled as a bad kid, he was treated like a bad kid, so he accommodated and became the bad kid. He would disappear for days on end, and we didn't know where he was, so just extremely stressful. There were many nights I was driving round the streets, looking for him. There were times when I thought there were only two possible outcomes, and that was prison or death. And I'd get angry real fast. Like, I would just snap like that over little-as things. 'Oh, Jakob, can you come put the dishes away?' 'Nah, eff you. I'm going. 'I'm not doing that, blah, blah, blah.' I was going down. Honestly, I was going down. Lots of pressure from school, lots of pressure from friends to be things, and I think sort of all just too much, and he exploded. ENGINE REVS Given his history and where he was from, we started getting questions about alcohol consumption during pregnancy. And then I went and got the documents, and I could see in the court reports that clearly, he was from a home where his mother had drunk alcohol. All the literature talked about was the facial features, but he doesn't have any facial features, so I thought he would be fine. I think only 10% have the facial features, and, you know, 90% don't, so they look normal, and we expect them to behave normal. I only got diagnosed, like, a couple of years ago, so I was living with it, and I didn't know I had it. And I felt I was struggling at school, and then when I got diagnosed with FASD, I got all this help, which honestly, helped me so much. But then after the diagnosis, you actually start thinking more about what the diagnosis is, is your brain damaged, so they're not thinking along the lines as you would think a normal person would be. Um, so you've just gotta try handling things differently and approaching everything differently. It sort of makes you think about putting people into a basket, calling them a nut or a badly behaved person. And you think, 'Well, there's probably a reason for it.' So it does make you look at the whole concept rather than just an individual area, which is quite enlightening. There are hundreds of children that are born, uh, with FASD that are undiagnosed. If you look normal, then they expect you to behave normal. And when you've got FASD and you can't see it, people still expect that. So, um... and then it looks like it's wilful bad behaviour when they don't. Because of my FASD, no one really knows, like, I'm honestly way different to other people. I think differently. People can't tell me what to do ` they need to show me, and then I'll get it. These are my pets. These are my babies. I work at Tegel, and I actually bag whole chickens, so... And I watch them come in on a truck, and I think of my own little chickens, and it kind of hurts me inside that chickens just like these ones are getting killed for food. The biggest thing is in what they call adaptive functioning, so it's how they function in everyday life. We take for granted being able to plan and predict the future ` so... if we can plan our future, we can see the goals in front of us; you know, he's living moment to moment. It took me a while to find strategies, like different ways to cope with things. Like, when I got angry,... I used to, you know, just go crazy, but now, like, I'll just go somewhere by myself and just relax, um, you know, just be by myself for a bit, calm down, and then go and approach the situation. It is about routine, and it is about structure, and, um... and I think it's about love. I'm a normal person, but I just have these hurdles... that other people don't have ` like, things that I find difficult that other people might easy. I don't find that... me having FASD, like, a curse. I kind of see it as a benefit. Like, sure, I'm different, but I'm still human. I took these photos, and they're... from my backyard. I get kind of buzzed out of taking a really good photo. I could go out there all day and just take photos of random things, and there's not really any right or wrong in photography; there's just photos. There was no support for parents anywhere. I started FASD-CAN. Uh, it's a care-action networks that's designed to support parents and, uh, educate about FASD across our communities. I have parents from all over the country ringing me and emailing me most evenings. I just see the pain in the parents. There's so much pain, and it's a loss of dreams and a loss of hopes for their kids to have a normal life. Um, and it's just heart-wrenching. Parents get exhausted, and they need a break. You know, there are some parents that are just at the end of their rope, and there's no support for them. DOG BARKS Come on. Shh. (BARKS) (BARKS) Come on. Come on. This is my backyard, my river that I've got. It's kind of where I go just to get away. Every single day I come down here if I can. I was quite depressed about a couple of years ago. Yeah, I came down here to sit down, just take photos and stuff, and it was just real relaxing. Like, it was real peaceful, kind of my place to get away from everything. This is my little piece of paradise. DOG BARKS If I could one wish, it would be that FASD is in the professional curricula of education, justice, health. They all need to learn about it and know it and live and breathe it, really, because they're gonna come across it. I'm on a 'seafood' diet ` I see food; I eat it. If I see a half a pizza or something on a park bench, I'll pick it up and eat it. It won't bother me. Food's energy, and energy is life. I've gone for weeks without food. Like, I've gone for about two and half weeks without food. But, well, that wasn't really without; that was, like, a couple of biscuits a day. So there was still a bit of food there, but I was just drinking a lot of water. I'm the type that doesn't like wasting either food, alcohol, cigarettes. I'll go and buy and box and just drink a whole box, because I don't believe in drinking to stay sober. If I keep it up, I'm gonna go into the same sort of state that my father was in ` bugger-all money, addictions to drugs and addictions to alcohol. My future's starting life, basically. Just starting a family, getting a job. People keep on saying, 'Nah, nah, nah,' which really annoys me. Doesn't have to be full-time, but as long as there's a bit of money there, sweet as. We know how to reduce this problem. They need training and services that will lead them into being more successful. If they're just left to their own devices, they will slip to the bottom of society. And that's just not good enough. VIOLIN MUSIC See more like this on attitudelive.com Captions by Faith Hamblyn. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015