This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everyone today to today's class on self-esteem. Over the next 45 minutes or so, we're going to go through some topics that are brought up in McKay and Fanning's self-esteem book, including the nature of self-esteem identifying and disarming the critic, creating an accurate self-assessment, identifying cognitive distortions, developing compassion, shaking the shoulds, handling mistakes, responding to criticism, goal-setting, identifying your core beliefs, and just generally how we can help build self-esteem in children. Over the past few weeks and for the next few weeks, I'm doing a lot of these classes based on books that you can get online from Amazon. And some of them are also in your local bookstores. And why is that? Because what we can go over in an hour is not going to be enough in many cases to give you the tools that you need to actually implement them in group. So what we're going to do is provide a really high-level overview of some of the things that are being talked about. And if it rings true with you and you want to learn more, you can go get the book. If it's a good refresher and you don't need the book, well, then that's awesome. So my goal is to really get those creative juices flowing. A lot of us do self-esteem groups and we've done the same self-esteem groups for 5, 10, 15 years. It's always good to have new material. So I'll also talk about different ways that you can use some of the activities in group, as well as in individual, as well as homework. So the nature of self-esteem is how you feel about yourself in contrast to who you think you should be. One of the activities that I have my groups do to begin self-esteem workshop is to identify all the characteristics of who they want to be, their ideal self. And then I have them make a list of all the characteristics of who they are right now, what characteristics they have. And then we compare and contrast. The next thing we do is we go through the who I should be characteristics and look at of those shoulds, which ones are really important? Let's rank order those puppies and figure out are we putting too much stress on our self or are we thinking we should be something that we're not going to be? I am not going to be 5, 10. I would love to be 5, 10, but I'm 5, 4 and that's the way it's going to be. So I need to let go of that concept that I'm going to be taller. The more rejecting we are of ourselves, the more distressed we experience. We need to have a good relationship with our self before we can have a good relationship with anybody else. When we have a bad relationship with our self, when we're constantly criticizing our self, then where do we get that validation and love and belonging from? Guess what? Other people. So we're constantly looking for external validation. We're looking for other people to tell us we're okay. So self-esteem is really about developing the capacity to be our own best friend. In order to develop healthy relationships, you know, we have to know what's important to us. When we make that list of who I should be, we're identifying a lot of characteristics that are important, at least we think are important at this point in time. And we can use that as a barometer when we're identifying, you know, what kinds of people do I want to surround myself with? We may have very different opinions than a lot of other people. Does that make them bad? No, that means they have different opinions. When we're surrounding ourselves with our close circle of friends, it's probably going to be with people who share similar interests. If you have 15 interests and they share three of them, you know, great. And the other 12, you know, so you're different. But it gives you an idea about what you're looking for instead of just going, you know, hey, you've got a pulse, you've got a heartbeat, you can tell me I'm okay. So we're going to be best buds. That's not how to form a healthy relationship. So the first thing we need to look at is this pathological critic. We all have it or had it. You know, some people have tamed this guy and he doesn't talk much anymore. But most people in the back of their head have this pathological critic that tells us what we should do or what we should have done. And he's really good with hindsight and he looks back and he goes, well, you should have known better. So we need to look whenever we use this word should. It's a buzzword. It's a trigger word. It's one that says stop. Who says we should have? And is it realistic to say that we should have been able to predict it? Should is one of those words that almost always puts additional stress on people. So I like them to really start focusing over the course of a week or a month on how often they use the word should. Now, sometimes you're going to use it like I should do laundry today. But if I don't get to it, it's not a big deal. It's not the end of the world. So there are times that you're going to use this word that are not necessarily devastating or harmful to your self-esteem. You can change the word should to I would like to if you want to go from a strictly CBT perspective and start changing your verbiage. The origin of the critic, when we're little, we are exposed to conditions of worth. We're given praise for things that we do well that other people think we should do well because our parents think we should behave in a certain way. So when we behave in the way that they expect or they want us to behave, we get praise. We get luxuries. We get some freedoms. When we don't behave that way, if you've got somebody, you know, paying attention or lording over you or whatever you want to say, then there's generally a punishment involved. And this doesn't go away just when we move out of mom and dad's house. We have conditions of worth put upon us when we are in school. If you do your paper to these certain conditions, then you'll get an A. We have conditions of worth put upon our work at our job. If you do these particular behaviors, then great. If you just come up and come to work and sit there and you've got a pulse, you may be a wonderful person, but you're going to lose your job. So we need to look at conditions of worth. Yes, we can't have a job without a job description. We have to have rules. We have to have expectations. Part of it comes from identifying, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, whether we're taking the conditions of worth and implying them globally or we're looking at specific characteristics. So why do we listen to the critic? Because we always have. When you were little, you didn't think to challenge mom or dad and go, why should I do that? Or maybe you did, but generally there were probably negative consequences. So we've learned through time often not to challenge the critic as we grow up and as we become more free and we become more independent. A lot of times we don't challenge that. We still hear that parental figure in the back of our head. We still hear your best friend in high school. Whoever those critics are, the hecklers in your gallery, you still hear them. And we want to be appreciated. We want to fit in. We want to be part of something. So a lot of times we listen to the critic instead of going, weighing the options and saying, okay, where I want to go from here. Is this getting me closer to where I want to be or further away? The role of reinforcement really plays in here and the book encourages people to look at what behaviors do you do now are reinforced and what behaviors are punished and what behaviors that you want to develop, how and are those reinforced and is that really what you're looking for? You know, if one of the characteristics that you have in your ideal self is to be a powerful CEO, okay, so what are the rewards for that? And are those rewards important to you? Most people don't take it to that second step when they're setting their goals. They're like, yeah, I want to be a CEO. I want to be powerful. I want to earn a big paycheck. But then when they start looking at, you know, why is this important to me in, in terms of in relation to my other goals, it may not make as much sense. Catching your critic, we need to teach people to listen for that heckler. I mean, think about basically life is you're on stage and you've got a heckler in the gallery paying attention to when that person talks and instead of automatically changing direction, catching that person and going, no, you know, I don't know that I believe what you're saying, or I hear what you're saying, let me think about it. Cause sometimes the critics have a point, you know, sometimes they tell us something that we may not want to hear, but they may have a point and we can take that and do something with it. Other times we hear that critic and we go, you know, this isn't something that's important to me. Maybe, you know, when I was growing up, this was something that my family told me I should do, but now that I've formed my own identity, this isn't something that's as important to me now. Unmasking the critic's purpose, what is your critic trying to do? What is your critic trying to tell you? And figuring out where you want to belong, because your critic is basically saying, if you want to be part of this group, if you want to be accepted, you need to do these things. Now, the paradigm shift is to say, well, what if I form another group who accepts me for who I am? Hope there's a concept. What if I accept myself and I don't need others to tell me I'm okay? Well, that's a new concept too. At that point, we start talking back to the critic and going, I hear what you're saying, and that may be a good choice for you. However, it's not for me.  But if you have these negative thoughts coming up, if you have these heckler moments, even being able to say in your own head, not right now, I need to do something else, or I can't deal with this right now, and shut the credit down, then you can go back and reexamine whatever was going on later. Accurate self-assessment is another huge part of self-esteem. A lot of people have never really sat down and looked at their good qualities. They're so busy focusing on how to fix their bad qualities or the qualities they don't want. They haven't focused on their strengths. So let's look at those strengths. What do you bring to the table? Because everybody brings something. Listing your strengths and weaknesses. So let's start listing those. And then let's have a paradigm shift and look at weaknesses in terms of areas that you can improve, things that you can learn about, or areas in which you realize this is not something that's a strength of mine. So I'm going to rely on someone else who has that strength. When I used to write grants, I was the main grant writer. I could take a grant idea and I could see how it would interface with our organization and I could write this beautiful global meta concept laden proposal. But when it came down to actually implementing it, once the grant was already written, I was done with it.  I am not a detail person. And I realized that. So I made sure that the people that were in my team were able to handle or help me handle the details. You know, if I had to handle the details, I needed somebody that I could count on to go, you missed something. And I miss things. It happens. So understanding your strengths and weaknesses and accepting accepted. Wow. Accepting them just as fact. It's what they are. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just easier qualities.  So using that and developing a new self description that's not so laden with criticism. You know, identifying your weaknesses and figuring out how that fits in the big scheme of things. I personally am not at all skilled when it comes to like handyman type things, when it comes to woodworking. So is this important to me? Not really. You know, I know that there are other people that have those skills and have I tried it? Sure. Have I found it to be exceedingly frustrating? Yes. So as far as a use of my energy, I've decided that that's not a necessary part of my self description to be able to completely remodel a house. So helping people develop a self description that is realistic and it's based on their strengths and maybe, you know, honing in on some weaknesses and developing those a little bit more celebrate strengths, focusing on things that people don't normally sell celebrate like optimism, you know, when we think of strengths, most people list, you know, I'm punctual, I'm smart, I'm funny, but we look at some of the things like compassion and creative. And there's a whole list of different strengths that people have that are necessary. One of the things I like to do with these self assessment groups, when we start talking about strengths and weaknesses, but especially strengths is identifying some of these more vague concepts like compassion. All right, compassion, how is that a strength in what way is that helpful to you in your personal relationships? In what way is that helpful to you in your mental health? In what way is that helpful to you in your work relationships? Because you know what, most of the time, if you can be compassionate with others, it's going to mean that you can get along better at the work in the workplace. It's going to mean that you can be a stronger asset to a team. Helping people connect the dots and draw all the lines back to why is this important? Why is this a good characteristic? Why is this something I should celebrate and enhance? Cognitive distortions. Oh, we've talked about those a bunch, but we want to talk about combating them. Magnification and exaggeration.  So we want to help them figure out, you know, how big of a deal is this really? One of the things that I have them do is, you know, especially if I'm working with a group of adolescents, but it can work the same with adults if they're willing to kind of play along for a while. But I have them look at something and, you know, it can be a chair, it can be the rug, it can be any myriad number of things. And tell me what it is they see. I have them describe it to me.  And, you know, they describe it to me. It's going to be a very different description.  But the average person sees what you see without the magnifying glass. Only you see those things that you saw when you had the magnifying glass, because nobody else is looking that closely, unless you let them all or nothing thinking, we've talked about this, encourage them to find the middle ground. If it's always find exceptions, if it's never find exceptions, if somebody's talking about something in terms of really extreme ideas, have them argue the other point or have tell them, ask them what would be a middle ground, what would be a compromise? So you have this concept over here and this concept over here, what would be a middle ground? The availability phenomenon. And this activity I do if people have access to computers, because it's a lot more powerful if you've actually got data in order to back it up. The availability phenomenon means we remember things that are most recent in our mind and seem to be more dangerous, like plane crashes. We focus on the one plane crash that may have killed 250 people and that's a tragedy. However, there were probably 20,000 planes that flew that day that didn't crash. We don't focus on that because the media brings our attention to that one. When we talk about officer involved shootings, we focus on that one and extrapolate and go, you know, they must be pretty free and loose with the gun when we don't take into consideration sometimes that, you know, maybe there were 40,000 officers on duty that day and there was one officer involved shooting. And those don't happen every day. So we need to look at how often does this really happen in the big scheme of things? How threatening is it? How frequent is it?  Let's take a look at that. Let's look at the data and see what proportion of people actually have blue eyes.  But let's look at how often it actually occurs. Emotional reasoning, encouraging people to think before they make decisions, am I making these decisions? Am I judging things based on how I feel? I feel scared. So this must be threatening. Or am I basing it on fact? I feel scared. Let me look around and see if there's anything to really be afraid of. Remember when you were a kid and, you know, you are afraid of the things in the dark or you didn't like walking in front of windows at night that were open because you couldn't see out. You just saw your own reflection. You know, as kids, we all find something spooky. That's emotional reasoning. You know, how likely is it really that there's a monster under your bed? You know, you feel like it's a scary situation. So you're saying this is threatening. This is scary. But in reality, when we look at the facts, there are no monsters with kids. Once you show them under the bed, you know, every night and there's a whole lot of other ways to handle it, but over time with the availability phenomenon, as they go through five, 10, 15 nights, if you're looking under the bed and going, Nope, nothing there. They start to go, Oh, you know what? There's nothing there. And it becomes more salient in their mind that every time I've looked, there hasn't been anything there. Overgeneralization, encouraging people to not use the all word.  No, that's not it. Let's not overgeneralize about people or about situations. Every time I go to make a public speech, I end up getting sick to my stomach and not being able to do the speech. Okay, let's look at that. You know, have there been times when you've been able to speak in front of people, maybe not 50, maybe it was just five, and then, you know, let's talk about what may be happening. The other thing that happens with overgeneralization a lot of times is you create a self fulfilling prophecy. If you expect that every other time this has happened, this has been the outcome, then a lot of times we will inadvertently create that same outcome again. So encouraging people to look at their thought patterns. Do they have a mental filter? Are they always looking for the negative? You know, if somebody has a mental filter that's rose colored and they can only see the positive, most likely they're not going to be in our office. But if they have a mental filter and they see the negative in everything, then it's important to help them balance that with, okay, you see the negative. What are the positives? I encourage my kids to do this when they see the negative in someone or something. I said, okay, that's a negative that you identified. I'm not going to invalidate that, but tell me two positives, you know, tell me two potential positives about this situation or about this person. And, you know, we do that on each other too, because having two teenagers in the house, they can fight like cats and dogs. Personalization and blaming. Personalization, it's all my fault, blaming, it's all your fault. When something happens, generally, it's a little bit of everybody's fault. Encouraging people to look rationally and objectively at what the situation was. What was your part? What was the other person's part? And what could you do differently the next time? And global labeling.  I make mistakes a lot.  That's very different. I am versus a silly thing.  Which takes us to compassion. What is compassion? This is can be 15, 20 minute group in and of itself. Having people talk about what is compassion? What does it look like? What kinds of activities are compassionate? What are, you know, where do random acts of kindness fit into this? Does compassion mean we have to be nice to everybody all the time, regardless of how they act towards us? You know, you can put these different ideas out there for discussion. And then you can start taking it back all the way around full circle and go, OK, now, these are all the things you identified as compassionate activities or compassionate things to do for people. How often do you do them for yourself? Creating a compassionate world, we brainstorm ways to spread compassion, being the change in the world, making the choices and doing the things that we would like to see everyone do. But guess what? If we model it, maybe others will catch on. And if not, that's OK. Because we did it because it made us feel good and it made us feel good about ourselves for being kind. We talk about the problem of worth. A lot of people don't think that they're worthy of compassion. They're not worthy of cutting themselves a break. They are their own worst critic going back to that pathological critic. So talking about what makes you a worthwhile individual. Sometimes we'll role play and I'll say, OK, we're going to you're going to step outside your own body right now and you're going to I'm going to interview you and you're going to tell me all about your best friend who is you. So you're going to pretend you're your best friend and you're going to tell me all about you. And we'll do this little video segment to help them identify what their best friend might see as their positive qualities. And then developing compassion for others. I like doing this as a two session activity myself because we've talked about compassion and what compassionate activities look like. We talk and then in the second session I asked them to spend the time between sessions looking for examples of compassion in the world online. There was an article that came out today that I saw my Facebook feed. I have a soft spot for pitbulls all dogs. But these something happened and these two pitbulls were terrified and the officers that were responding just gave them both hugs that gave the little pitbulls hugs big pitbulls and it helped calm them down. They weren't being vicious. They were scared to death and the officers took the time instead of judging and going to that's a pitbull you know stay away to be compassionate towards this animal who was terrified. You know I tend to see a lot of those animal things probably because that's what Facebook feeds me but encouraging people to find examples of compassion for others encouraging them to find those memes. I love finding memes that are positive and uplifting and demonstrate compassion for self or others and we share those in the second group and we talk about how if it's a meme talk about how you could personify that how you could do that in your daily life not only for yourself but for others. And what that makes you feel like when you do something nice for other people or other animals or you know whoever the case may be the shoulds so we can spend a lot of time talking about how values are formed and when we're young like I talked about earlier our parents and you know maybe our church and our school and the media tell us what we should think and a lot of times as children with you know dichotomous thinking we go okay this is what they say we should think so we're gonna think that and we don't question it as we get older we form the ability to think more abstractly and start questioning these things but we don't so this is where we start questioning and people keep a list or running journal of all the times they say something they should have done or they should be and we talk about those in group and people will share that yeah I feel that way too and we'll talk about where does that come from and is this something that is important in your life because should told you hostage should be means you're not there yet should have means you didn't do it so should is in this limbo land which means you can't fix it necessarily so I will or you know looking back of something you should have done you know in retrospect I could have so next time I will we talk about healthy versus unhealthy values body images a big thing that comes up in my adolescent groups focusing on body shaming you know what does the media teach us about body image and what are your values about body image and weight and appearance and of those which promote health and happiness in you and which promote unhealthy and unhappiness in you that can get into a pretty heated discussion it obviously tends to go better if it's a all female or all male group coeducational groups especially with adolescents wouldn't advise it but even among adults I found that some of these hot button issues in self esteem tend to be more openly discussed in groups that are only male or only female so we encourage people to challenge and revisit their should they go over that list and they said I thought that I should have so you know what do I really think and then atonement because like I said sometimes should make sense I should have written a thank you card for that okay yeah in the back of your mind you can hear your grandma saying you should write in a thank you card within 48 hours of getting a gift and yada yada and I and I didn't so I need to atone for that that gets rid of that should because again the critics said you should have and you can say all right you know I'm going to learn from that I didn't that's important to me so I'm going to make it right and then the should goes away because you did it but there are going to be times when people make mistakes so what do we do reframe them learning if you make a mistake at the job you learn from it if you must make a mistake and something you say to someone you can apologize for it and learn something from it you know maybe you said something that was insensitive and it was a mistake obviously to say something that was insensitive to someone so you can apologize for that but then what can you learn from that experience partly you probably don't want to say that again and how hurtful it was but you also might learn something about yourself about what prompted you to make that statement in the first place and you might learn something about yourself in terms of behaviors that you don't normally notice you know with the election and everything just having passed I've become much more aware and maybe hypersensitive some would say to people name calling and you know so I don't want to see that on my on my wall I don't want to see that on my Facebook boards I don't want to hear that around my house but then I also have to look at my own behavior and go have you never engaged in name calling and I can't say that I have never engaged in name calling so it's for me to learn that you know what that's not okay and move on from it so taking mistakes and turning them into learning activities turning them into ways to make yourself better again people can keep a log of different mistakes or they can share their most embarrassing moment or there's a lot of different ways that you can look at mistakes making sure that there's a certain amount of awareness people may not be aware when they make mistakes so you know in order to learn from them you have to be aware that you made them if somebody's always covering for you and you don't know that you made a mistake then you're not going to ever change your behavior so it's important that whether it's ourselves or our children or our employees or our clients when there's a mistake and you know if it's not one that we made you know we may cover for them we may try to smooth things over whatever we do but then we've got to go back to that person and go hey we need to have a little chat here if you do it then obviously you have to have a little chat with yourself about you need to become more aware of your own behavior and how that affects other people which leads into raising your mistake consciousness the other thing with raising mistake consciousness involves understanding that other people make mistakes too that's a new concept for a lot of our clients they're so busy beating themselves up and focusing on the things that everybody else does right they don't see the mistakes and I'm like you know what I wonder how often that person focuses on their own stuff so much they don't see your mistakes you know we may be more sensitive that goes back to that whole concept of personalization we may be more sensitive to our mistakes and think it a big thing them a bigger deal because they're very salient for us whereas somebody else may not even really notice you know when you're giving a speech maybe you have everything planned out and you forget a segment and you just add lib most people probably didn't even notice unless you stopped and went wow I forgot but if you just kept going most people probably didn't notice the mistake responding to criticism we all make mistakes we all are going to receive criticism some of it is constructive and some of it is on point but not constructive so being able to hear criticism take it in mull it over take what's important take what's useful and leave the rest you know there's been a lot of criticism lately you know flying around the media and and Facebook and whatever else but reading it taking it in and going this is important to me this is not or this is resounds with me this does not and figuring out how to respond to that do we need to respond to every criticism no we do also do we need to understand where that criticism comes from one of my favorite groups that we used to do when I worked in the residential facility it was a Sunday night group and we would put all the residents together in a big circle and there would be one person in the hot seat and people would go around every person in the house would get a chance to speak and they would talk about where they saw that particular person whoever was on the hot seat in their readiness for change pre contemplation contemplation preparation action and why it had to be objective and it had to provide feedback of a nature that the person was able to do something about it's not you've just been lazy this week because that's not objective useful feedback so people learned how to give constructive criticism the person in the hot seat was not allowed to respond after the group they could go talk with their counselor and process it if they were really upset but they were not allowed to respond to anyone in the group for 24 hours they had to mull it over when a lot of times when you deal with people with addictions their immediate reaction is to lash out to defend to blame their self-esteem is low anyway they can't take criticism they're already feeling unlovable so part of this activity was to help people learn to hear the criticism and let that initial wave of adrenaline and reactivity go away so and then they could process what they had heard and go you know that person's got a point that person's got a point these six over here now I don't see what they were saying and they learned how to take the constructive do something about it and leave the rest and we would talk about well these six people who you say have no basis in their in their statements why do you what made them make those statements what brought them to that those observations which is another way we can help them see different people's perspectives and understand why some people may have different reactions to situations asking for what you want identifying what your needs are differentiating needs from wants you know I want a Ferrari I don't need a Ferrari I need some reasonable reliable method of transportation to get around town I want a big juicy hamburger do I need it no and you know I need something to sustain me so talking about the difference between wants and needs and having people identify what their needs are but also what their wants are everybody has wants we all have things that we strive for and that's great that's okay I don't want to tell them not to want anything that's part of motivation is working towards something but we need to identify what is it is it that you want how do we put this in priority in comparison with everything else and how will you know when you've achieved what you wanted goal setting and planning so we take those wants and we create goals from them which a lot of people have never learned how to create good goals or smart goals small measurable achievable realistic and time limited people need to learn how to set good goals because if you set goals and you fail if you set bad goals and you fail then it hits your self-esteem negatively if you set good goals you're almost guaranteed to succeed you may have to adjust them here and there and go well it's going to take a little longer than I thought but you can have incremental successes we talk about making a commitment and identifying blocks to achieving goals goes back to that decisional balance exercise again what are the things that might prevent you from achieving your goal what are the reasons you might not want to achieve your goal what were the benefits to the old behavior and it's important that people identify you know what benefits the old behavior had if you're trying to one of your goals is going to the gym every day that's great and you can identify a lot of positive reasons for going to the gym but what are some drawbacks to going to the gym I really enjoy sitting on the couch and watching TV for an hour after work going to the gym sometimes you're sore afterwards there have the person identify the reasons that may block them or be unmotivating to achieve their goals and then figure out ways around it core beliefs in order for people to develop a self-esteem develop a value system they have to understand what their core beliefs are about the world and about themselves so in this process we identify basically those shoulds again these are their core beliefs and help them identify ways to develop new core beliefs what is it that they want to do you know back in the 1950s one of the core beliefs was women were supposed to stay home 10 the house have 2.4 children a dog and a white picket fence or you know whatever the it was supposed to be back then today's landscape is very different we have different core beliefs but we still have some people from the 1950s who hold on to those old 1950s core beliefs and you know that's part of their belief system and that's how they were raised and who they are so am I going to tell them they're wrong for believing that way no you know that's that works for them great doesn't work for me so what are my core beliefs surrounding as a woman what I should do or what I want to do as a woman as an entrepreneur as a mother and defining those so people can say this is important to me because some of this will ring true for you and you'll think back to acceptance and commitment therapy when people are really working on defining their values and what they're working toward so children we've talked about what we're doing with our clients but how can we prevent self-esteem problems how can we build self-esteem in children the power of parents we have a lot of power and it's not just taken away the TV kids see what we do kids hear what we say and if we say if we are constantly using global labels like you're a bad boy or you're a bad girl they're going to internalize that we have the ability to say you made a mistake with this I still love you how can we fix it or what can we learn from it we can teach children how to identify what's important we can teach children how to deal with criticism we can teach children how to be their own best friend parents are mirrors so one of the activities that I encourage my adult clients to do if they've got children at home is to mirror self-esteem for your children if you're constantly walking around talking about how fat you are how ugly you are how miserable you are guess what they're hearing that and they're picking up on that they're learning to be self-critical if you're constantly talking about negatively about other people guess what children are hearing that and they're picking up on that another thing we can do is just look at our kids take a look and go wow you are an awesome creation and you know I did part of it but they did a lot of it my daughter couldn't be more different than me on so many different levels and I look at her every day and I'm just stunned at the strengths that she has my son is the same way so telling them regularly these things about you are awesome these are the things I appreciate listening to them when they say whatever their ideas are instead of shutting them down if or when they say that they're upset instead of going you really shouldn't be upset about that listening to them validating their feelings imagine that validating their thoughts and their feelings and going okay now where do we go from here my daughter is you know kind of in turmoil with her best friend right now her best friend is not one of my favorite people you know so as a mother I can see what's going on and I can see what's hurting hurting her you know making her heart hurt and it kills me however that's a decision she needs to come to on her own about what she's going to do about that relationship so when I'm listening to her I'm hearing her say all these negative things but I'm also hearing her say all these positive things and as a parent it's my job to help her weigh the pros and cons encourage the language of self-esteem that positive affirming language the language that says okay I made a mistake I'll learn from it nobody's perfect helping kids create some sort of a mantra that they can tell themselves because we've talked before about how adolescents everything seems like it is a mountain there there are no molehills and adolescents everything seems like something people are going to remember forever so we talk about how to talk nicely about themselves how to remind themselves of their strengths and how to handle when they feel like they've done something wrong or made a mistake but we also talk about how to be nice and compassionate there's that word again to other people discipline you wouldn't think this would come in a self-esteem class would you but it does we don't want to say life is a free for all go for it kids want structure and there are going to be some things that you know as parents we've got to set limits on candy if your child is six years old and they come home with a great big old bag of Halloween candy and they want to eat it all that night it probably not the best thing to do so helping them learn discipline and self-control so they can learn how to make choices that are thoughtful instead of just impulsive and reactive encouraging autonomy you know by the time the kid gets to be 10 11 12 then you can look at them and we're going to stay with the Halloween candy analogy you can look at them and go okay what do you think are the consequences if you eat this whole bag of candy right now and encourage them to make educated decisions obviously as parents we have to protect them from harm but there are sometimes that you know you can give them a little bit of wiggle room because it's not going to be totally detrimental and again model self-esteem model positive self-talk model identifying your strong characteristics but also model identifying that you have weaknesses you make mistakes you have character defects but they those things don't define you self-esteem really begins in childhood when we impose those conditions of worth I mean it's just it's what happens in parenting I would love to think that we could provide unconditional positive regard to children from the time they're you know breathing until the time they move out but at a certain point there are going to be times where we institute conditions of worth where we institute rules and we tell somebody you need to behave this way I don't approve of you behaving another way but we also need to talk about it in terms of behavior it's not that I don't approve of you as a person I don't approve of that behavior encouraging children to separate the difference so they can say I'm a good person even if I make a mistake it's imperative to help people separate strengths and weaknesses from who they are yeah you have amazing strengths but if all those strengths were to go away who are you and why are you amazing self-loathing and rejection contributes to dysphoria so what are all the things you don't like about yourself and let's talk about how to fix those let's talk about why you don't like them and let's look at how important that is to you in terms of your values and your goals part of self-esteem development includes values identification before you can get there you have to know where there is you can draw you know on a map I'm a big fan of maps I don't know why I guess because they're visual representations of getting from point A to point B or you can identify on a lot on a picture of stairs you know sometimes people look at it better and can conceptualize steps but identify what your values are and those are you know the endpoint these are the things that you want to embody people need to understand their wants versus their needs so they're not pursuing something that isn't getting them closer to their values going back to that Ferrari again you know if my wants are to have a happy healthy family I need transportation to buy food I need transportation to get to work but I don't need a Ferrari that may be a want and that can be filed away on would be really nice but it's not something I have to have to be happy and then reminding people of cognitive distortions when they start feeling frustrated angry anxious whatever dysphoric emotion they're expressing have them go through a checklist of cognitive distortions and say are any of these in play right now once they get used to that once they've kind of mastered most people use the same four or five whatever works or doesn't work for them then they'll be able to start doing it more automatically without having to look at the list and go okay I am using emotional reasoning right now how do I counter emotional reasoning I identify the facts in the situation so it's a long process self-esteem is one of those sort of ambiguous things that we help people work toward but ultimately it comes down to what is going to make you feel good about you what is going to make you feel like I'm all that and a bag of chips thank you very much and and that those are the things that you can work toward if you're looking for visuals you know I like to use metaphors in my visuals so I have had people before I take a picture of literally a bag of chips with the chips filling out and I have people identify strengths on the chips because that's where they want to be and you know it can work in an art therapy class it can work for something for adolescence and sometimes it can work in an adult situation so there are a lot of different ways you can go about communicating the same concepts now in the book by McKay and Fanning they do give you examples and activities to use for all of these different concepts so you can also go on books dot Google dot com and I believe there are excerpts from the book on there so you can see what some of the examples are that they gave and it's another resource it's another place that you can turn to when you're having a brain freeze about I've got to do a self-esteem group today what am I going to do or I need to do a group on identifying values what are some activities that might be fun for this group because we don't want to just sit there and lecture the whole time we don't want to just sit there and go all right now everybody share I like to do activities I like to do things where people can apply it to what's going on with them but they also have fun because it makes group go by a lot faster for everybody are there any questions if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube you can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at all see us dot com slash counselor toolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by all see us dot com providing 24 7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 use coupon code counselor toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month


Rwy'n rydyn ni geto liattwch ar wyb батaniau Cyfrouveordd a rydyn ni'nuning mor croeswyr nôl. Llyrgelliableig, have we recognised the work evaluated by the hard-press staff that reactions to although 999 calls? However, this meeting this week we have heard more evidence of things going tragically wrong. Elizabeth Bow called 999 to report a domestic abuse situation. 84 minutes later, gemeinsam police had been murdered in cold blood by her brother, yet the control room told her that they were refusing to send officers to her house. We know that this is not an isolated incident, and the question people are asking is this. How many more times will a call for help go unheeded before the situation in our emergency control rooms is sorted out? First Minister. Well, this is an extremely serious issue and involves an extremely serious case. I think that the first thing I would want to do here today, Presiding Officer, is convey my thoughts and sympathies, my heartfelt thoughts and sympathies to the family of Elizabeth Bow. This was a tragic incident. Police Scotland has rightly offered an apology to the family for its handling of the initial call that was made. It is beyond doubt that there were significant failings here and Police Scotland went out with their own procedures in dealing with these types of calls. In other words, Police Scotland did not provide the response that was expected of them. That is not acceptable and it is crucial that the police service learns lessons from that. In terms of Ruth Davidson's wider question, there are significant improvements that have been made to police call handling. That is not just my view. We know from the update report that was published by Her Majesty's inspectorate earlier this year that that is the view of the inspectorate as well. Clearly, following another tragic case, there was a review of call handling that was published in November 2015. There have been a number of improvements made and it is vital that the police continue to make those improvements. Indeed, since the incident that Ruth Davidson has raised today, further action has been taken. For example, the police have rolled out risk and vulnerability training to more than 800 staff. Further guidance has been issued to all control room staff in relation to the regrading and closing of incidents. A national quality assurance unit for police call handling has also been established. That was a tragic and unacceptable case and nothing I say today is intended to detract from the seriousness of that. It is simply not the case to say that significant improvements are not being made and have not been made to call handling. It is important that lessons from cases like that continue to be learned. Ruth Davidson. I thank the First Minister for that answer and she points to the assurance review by Her Majesty's inspectorate that was made in January of this year in her Government's defence. Let me run through some of the 200 incidents from the last year that we have uncovered, mostly since that report was made. In one case, a suicidal man was told to hang up. In another, two separate call handlers failed to record a report of a dead body in the house. In another, a couple rang 999 to report that their front door was being kicked in but did not get any help because firstly the wrong address was written down and secondly police officers weren't even dispatched. That is the reality of what is happening right now. Does that sound to the First Minister like a system that is functioning well yet? Every single one of the incidents that has been cited today by Ruth Davidson is serious and unacceptable. As I said in my initial answer, I do not want anybody to hear anything that I say today as detracting from the seriousness and the unacceptable of those incidents. However, I think that it is important to put the situation into context. Ruth Davidson cites 200 incidents, as I said, completely unacceptable. However, Police Scotland handles 2.6 million calls every year. Let me quote what Derek Penman, the chief inspector of constabulary, said on this very issue when he appeared earlier this year before the justice sub-committee on policing. He said, we must realise that there will always be risks and things will happen. Some people fail to accept that but we need to recognise that improvements have been made and that there is no crisis in police call handling. I am very clear that one incident of the type that Ruth Davidson cited here today is one too many. Lessons must be learned from all those incidents, as lessons will be learned from the one that Perk reported on this week. I also think that we need to recognise the number of calls that are handled and use that as context, but also to recognise, again, as has been recognised by Her Majesty's Inspectorate, the significant improvements that have been made. The responsibility of the police, overseen by the SPA and, of course, with the ultimate accountability of this Government, is to continue to make sure that those improvements are made and that all lessons, when they need to be learned, are learned. We keep hearing that things are getting better but, time and time again, members of this chamber have raised concerns about the way the centralisation of our police force has been administered. Time and time again, the justice secretary brushes those concerns aside and insists that the rush closure of control rooms under his watch is safe. As I have just read out, incidents are continuing and the problem in part of this Government's making is still live. The public has a right to expect better. The justice secretary claims that he is on top of this. Does the First Minister share his confidence? Ruth Davidson, to her credit, is raising a significantly important issue and one that is of concern to the public across Scotland. However, I think that she risks doing herself a bit of a disservice in how she is characterising the approach both of the police and of the Government. It is simply not true and it is not fair, Presiding Officer, to say that this Government or the justice secretary has ever brushed aside concerns of this nature that has been raised. Indeed, it was the justice secretary who commissioned the report into call-handling that Her Majesty's Inspectorate carried out and published in November 2015 with the update report that we have referred to in January of this year. It is also not just me or indeed the justice secretary who is saying that significant improvements have been made. That is the view of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. The vast majority of the recommendations that were made in that original report have already been implemented. Significant action, some of which I have already narrated today, has been taken to strengthen the call-handling processes and to make sure that the whole process is of the quality that people deserve. However, I will never ever stand here and say anything other than that the type of cases that we have heard reported this week or the ones that Ruth Davidson has quoted in this chamber are in anything other than completely unacceptable. In accepting that, it would equally be wrong for me somehow to say that no improvements have been made. It is wrong for Ruth Davidson to say that because that is not the case. Significant improvements have been made and will continue to be made and all lessons that are required to be learned absolutely will be learned. The issues that I am citing have happened since that report was published. That is not an issue that has been resolved, it is still on-going. We were promised all of us in this chamber that taking control rooms out of local areas would not result in a loss of local knowledge. Let me read some more cases from this year. A woman threatened by her ex-partner who did not get a response from police because they were sent to the wrong address. A man threatened with a knife where police were sent to the right flat, in the right street but in the wrong town. A caller who rang as their mother and their niece were being assaulted and again police sent to the wrong location. The justice secretary promised that if performance dropped at any of Police Scotland's call handling centres there would be rapid intervention and he made that promise two years ago. We are still seeing hundreds of serious incidents. Can the First Minister look those families in the eye and say that her Government has lived up to its promise? I would say to any family who has experienced the kind of experiences that Ruth Davidson has cited today that that is completely unacceptable. There is no dispute between Ruth Davidson and I on that fact. I would like nothing better to stand here and say and to be able to give an absolute category guarantee that in a police system that handles 2.6 million calls every year nothing will ever go wrong. However, there is no country on the face of this planet that has a Government that can stand up and give that category guarantee. However, we will continue to take all appropriate and necessary steps to make sure that the system that is in place is as robust as possible. The point that I am making is that there have been significant steps taken leading to significant improvements since the report in 2015. Again, I would say that if it was only me standing here saying that, I guess that the scepticism that Ruth Davidson is articulating today may have more justification. However, Her Majesty's inspectorate is saying that significant improvements have been made and has also made the point that given the volume of calls, unfortunately, and is of deep regret to everybody, there will be cases where things go wrong. Our duty is to try to make sure that that risk is minimised as much as possible and that is what we will do. Those lessons will continue to be learned and we will continue to give our police service the support that it needs to make sure that the public has assurance that the call handling arrangements that are in place are robust. I have already quoted Her Majesty's inspectorate. Let me also quote from this year, in fact, very recently, Niven Rennie, who used to be the president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents. I do know that police receive millions of calls a year. The vast majority of them are answered extremely well, very professionally, but recognise that sometimes things will go wrong. Our duty is to make sure that we act in any case where that happens so that all appropriate lessons are learned and that is what we will continue to do. 2. Jackie Baillie Will the First Minister join with me in commending the bravery and courage of all those who have come forward to speak out about sexual harassment? First Minister. Yes, I absolutely join with Jackie Baillie in doing that. Many organisations, all political parties, indeed this Parliament and other parliaments have had to confront some very difficult situations in recent days but it is absolutely right and proper that we have been prepared to do so. I think that the priority for all of us in this and these are not easy situations is to encourage women to come forward and to make sure that when women do, the environment that is being provided for them is as supportive as possible. I think that they have confidence that they will be listened to and believed and that any concerns or complaints that they bring forward will be robustly investigated. I think that that has led to all of us looking afresh at our procedures and tightening those procedures. I know that my own party has done that and I know that the Scottish Parliament is doing likewise but we should pay tribute to women coming forward and we should encourage others to do so if they feel that is what they want to do. Jackie Baillie. I agree with the First Minister on that point because it does take incredible bravery to speak out about harassment, especially when often it is a woman having to report the behaviour of a man in a position of power. A helpline is a welcome first step but it is pointless if it does not ring and it will not ring if victims do not see that allegations made are then investigated transparently because an absence of complaints does not mean an absence of harassment. Our response needs to go further because we know that apologies are not always enough. Can the First Minister tell us what changes she wants to see in the Parliament to create that safe space for people to speak out? Of course that is not just a matter for me, that is a matter for Parliament collectively. I met with representatives of other parties last week where we talked about the changes and procedures that the Parliament should make. I made the point at that meeting, I have made this point publicly, that changes and procedures are necessary and important but it is the underlying culture that allows some men and I stress some men but it is predominantly men to behave in a way that leads to women feeling the way that many women have done and we have to change that underlying culture. John Swinney last week in this chamber rightly said that it was for all men to reflect on their behaviour and I again would reiterate that point. I think that in terms of the Parliament's own procedures that I stress before the Presiding Officer points it out to me that this is not a matter for me as First Minister, this is a matter for Parliament. I think that the situation with the Parliament's corporate body where there are no women represented on it is unacceptable and will have to be addressed and resolved by this Parliament. We are about as a Parliament to consider legislation about gender balance on public bodies. This Parliament has a duty to lead by example so that is a matter for all of Parliament to address but I think that I am making pretty clear this afternoon what my views on that issue are. Jackie Baillie Again, there is much that I can agree with the First Minister on but I think that we all know that a woman will not speak out if she thinks that she will be ignored or if the man's behaviour goes unchallenged or simply excused as a joke. This should be a watershed moment. This is our opportunity to tackle sexual harassment in our Parliament, in our country and in our society and the Scottish Parliament must lead the way.  First Minister, if the standard of behaviour is not good enough for someone to remain as a minister then how can it be good enough for an MSP? Jackie Baillie is referring to the situation of Mark MacDonald. Mark MacDonald did what John Swinney had asked all men to do last week and reflect on his behaviour. He came to the conclusion that that behaviour, whatever he might have thought of it at the time, was behaviour that was not appropriate. He did, in my view, the right thing by resigning. Let me be clear that that behaviour was about language, not physical conduct. While I think that it justified the step that Mark MacDonald took, let me also make it clear that it was not language that would come in any way close to being something that would require to be referred to the police. That context is important. I agree with Jackie Baillie 100 per cent on the point that women will not be encouraged to come forward if they do not believe that they will be taken seriously, if the behaviour that they are complaining of will simply be dismissed or they feel that they will be ignored. I think that there is another issue here. This is particularly relevant to politics and it is particularly difficult for politics. Women will possibly also be discouraged from coming forward if they think that the moment they do every aspect of what they are raising as a concern will be all over the media. In that situation, I think that we would unintentionally give politicians perhaps more protection than others in society and that is not what any of us want to do. That supportive environment that we want to create for women coming forward also on occasion has to involve respecting the confidentiality and the privacy of the issues that women are raising. That will mean that sometimes we have to find balances in those things that are not always easy for those of us standing up in Parliament explaining, but none of that is easy. It is all about making sure that we provide the right environment for women because I want every woman who has had any experience of this nature who wants to come forward now to feel that they can do that and that they can do that in the right way and get all of the support, including at times confidentiality that they require to enable them to do so. I will take a couple of constituency supplementaries, the first one is from Alexander Stewart. Flairing at Mossmorran has been causing anger, distress and upset amongst many Fife residents in my region. The flare that lights up the sky with a pulsating glow can be seen as far away as Angus. The night sky has been turned to daylight in the areas in Cowdenbeath and Kelty, causing anxiety, sleeplessness and distress. Day after day residents have had to endure noise pollution and vibrations, not to talk about the impact of quality of air and the environment. Will the First Minister take affirmative action to hold Exxonwable to account over their unannounced flaring and give my constituents proper answers after months of worry and lack of updates? I understand the issue that has been raised by the member and have a great deal of sympathy with the concerns that the public are expressing over the situation. In all issues like this, in due course, if there are issues of accountability, those must be taken seriously. Here, of course, the regulatory body is SEPA, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. SEPA is very closely engaged in this issue, is looking into it and I understand that its engagement includes engaging with the local population. I will ask the environment secretary to write to the member updating on the action and investigations that are under way by SEPA, but this is a serious matter that must be properly and transparently resolved. To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to support Adam Maxwell, who has barely slept since the death of his wife, Kirsty, in Benidorm in April this year, as he and Kirsty's family pressed for a full investigation into the circumstances of the tragic loss. First Minister? Firstly, let me offer my sincere condolences to Mr Maxwell and to all of Kirsty's family on their tragic loss. It is impossible for any of us to imagine what he and his wider family are going through at this time, but they should know my thoughts, and I am sure that the thoughts of everybody across the Parliament are with them. The justice secretary met the family in September to listen to their concerns. I understand the investigation by the Spanish authorities into the circumstances surrounding Kirsty's death is still on-going and police Scotland officers continue to offer support to the Spanish authorities. I can give Alison Johnstone the assurance that police Scotland will continue to liaise closely with the family or indeed interview any potential witnesses who reside in Scotland. The Scottish family deserves answers about what happened to their loved ones, and the police in Scotland will do everything that they possibly can to make sure that they get them. To ask the First Minister following the sudden decision by VG Energy in Galston to enter liquidation, what action the Scottish Government can take to support the firm's 39 staff? First of all, this will be an extremely difficult time for the staff of the company concerned. As is always the case in these situations, the Scottish Government will liaise with the company to see if there are any ways in which employment can be protected. If it is not already fully engaged, our approach to supporting people facing redundancy will be to offer appropriate support to those affected. I am sure that the employment secretary would be happy to discuss the situation further with the member if there are any other issues that he wishes to raise. 3. Willie Rennie I am sure that the First Minister will join me in wishing a superior recovery to the police officer stabbed at Edinburgh College on Monday. We all stand together in appreciation of his service and his duty. 4. Elizabeth Bowe My constituency's case is deeply troubling. It is an issue that I have raised repeatedly over recent years since the centralisation of the call centres. It is reasonable to ask those questions because Bilston Glen was at the centre of the N9 crash tragedy where two victims were left dying at the side of the motorway for days because of a shortage of experienced call handlers. We perk have recommended in this particular case that there should be additional training. Can the First Minister give us a guarantee that all the staff at Bilston Glen have the appropriate experience and that the staff in this individual case have the appropriate experience as well? 5. Willie Rennie I would join the member in wishing, while the police officer who was stabbed earlier this week wished him a superior recovery. That incident is a reminder of the risks that our police officers take on a daily basis as they work hard to keep all of us safe. 6. Willie Rennie Rennie is, of course, entirely reasonable and legitimate for those questions to be raised. Willie Rennie has indeed raised those issues over a period of time, and that is to his credit. 7. Elizabeth Bowell I have already had exchanges with Ruth Davidson. I can give an assurance that all the recommendations in the perk report will be taken forward by Police Scotland. Implemented in some of the specifics about individual officers, I am not going to get into detail, I am happy to ask the justice secretary to write to Willie Rennie with more detail if he wishes that. As I said earlier, in response to Ruth Davidson, Police Scotland has already taken action to deliver risk and vulnerability training to more than 800 staff. That process will continue. That is about helping staff to better identify and assess risk and to capture all relevant information on calls. I will continue to make sure that everything that is required to be done following those cases is done. I will continue to pay close attention to this as First Minister, but the justice secretary continues to be engaged on those issues on an on-going basis. I would appreciate some more detailed response from the justice secretary in this case, because it is particularly important to understand the level of experience of the staff at Bilston Glen. It is disturbing, however, that the inline crash happened over two years ago, but the family have still not had that fatal accident inquiry that was promised to them at that time. We need to understand what needs to be improved in order for improvements to be made. There are still questions about the underlying reasons for what went wrong in St Andrews. We still do not know what exactly went wrong on the M9. What guarantees can the First Minister give that we will be told before another tragedy happens? In terms of a fatal accident inquiry, I absolutely understand the desire of the family in that case to have all of the answers to the questions that they have. As Willie Rennie knows—and it is important that I make this clear—decisions on fatal accident inquiries are not for me, as First Minister, but for the justice secretary. They are for the Crown Office, and I am sure that the Lord Advocate would be more than willing to update Willie Rennie on the decision-making around a fatal accident inquiry in that case. As I said to Ruth Davidson, I want to make it clear, not just for the benefit of those of us in this chamber but for the wider public, that there is no sense in any of those cases of waiting until fatal accident inquiries before action is taken to learn lessons and address any failings that have been identified. The work of Her Majesty's Inspectorate, the work of Perk, is hugely important in that regard. I repeat what I said to Ruth Davidson. Again, I will stress not seeking in any way to diminish the seriousness of those cases, but it is the case that significant lessons have been learned, significant improvements have been made, that has been recognised by the inspectorate, and we will continue to make sure that that is the case in all cases and that whatever action requires to be taken is taken. The First Minister is the first from Bruce Crawford. In this important week in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, can I ask the First Minister to outline what support the Scottish Government provides for veterans to make the transition from military to civilian life? My constituency of Stilling has a long and proud connections with the military, but I am sure that veterans across Scotland will be interested to hear the First Minister's response. As we approach Remembrance Sunday, the interests and sacrifices of our armed services and our veterans are very much at the forefront of our minds. Last year, the Scottish Government published a summary of our work to support our armed forces community in Scotland. Next week, the Veterans Minister will update Parliament fully on this. We have invested more than £1 million through the Scottish Veterans Fund since 2008 to support over 140 projects across Scotland that provide valuable housing, health and employment support for veterans. We also established a veterans employability group to lead work in this area. This year, we committed £5 million to ensure that veterans in receipt of social care receive the full value of their war pensions. Although transition issues are reserved, we will continue to give veterans across Scotland the support that they deserve. All year round, but particularly at this time of year, all of us recognise that nothing we can do of this nature will ever repay fully the debt of gratitude that we owe to our armed services and our veterans community. Graeme Dey? Thank you, Presiding Officer. Although the legal obstacle to the development of four offshore wind farms in the first of fourth and Tate has now been removed, three of their proposed developments, including Inchcafe, of the Angus Coast, still require contract for different support to proceed. In this offshore wind week, would the First Minister join me in encouraging the UK Government to provide such backing and ensure that we are able to take the significant step forward in renewable electricity generation and meeting our climate change obligations? I absolutely agree with Graeme Dey. We have the Beatrice project now well under construction to be followed by N and G and Murray wind farms in the coming years. Together, those projects are going to provide 2 gigawatts of renewable energy plus huge economic benefits for the entire country. The UK Government has committed to a third contract for difference auction in spring 2019, providing an opportunity for the remaining projects in the fourth and Tate to secure a contract that will build on this momentum to deliver a sustainable and inclusive economy for Scotland. We are absolutely committed to predicting our marine environment, which, of course, is threatened by climate change, so we all need to play our part in tackling this global challenge. It is widely recognised that Scotland is a world leader in this field, and we want to make sure that the support is there that ensures that we can continue to be so. To ask the First Minister what measures the Scottish Government can put in place to curtail tax avoidance. Unfortunately, the Scottish Government only has power to directly tackle tax avoidance in relation to two fully devolved taxis—LBTT and the Scottish landfill tax. We take a simple, clear and very robust approach. We have a general anti-avoidance rule that is wider than the corresponding UK rule. That allows Revenue Scotland to take action against tax avoidance arrangements that are considered to be artificial, even if they otherwise operate within the law. Following recent reports about the use of offshore tax havens, the finance secretary has written to the Chancellor seeking urgent reassurance that the UK Government will now take the issue of tax avoidance seriously and demanding that concrete action is now taken. I thank the First Minister for her answer and, in particular, the steps that the Scottish Government is taking to reduce tax avoidance. However, does she share my disgust, particularly towards those disclosed in the Paradise Papers, whose salaries are paid by the public, such as Fiona and Mark Delaney and Patty Houlin, actors in the hit show Mrs Brown's Boys, whose wages are paid by the BBC, funded by the licensed bearers, with them squirreling away some £2 million offshore to avoid income tax? Does she agree with me that they should consider disbarring themselves from using, for example, any health service across the UK that they obviously do not want to pay for, or would not they like that script? I think that Christine Grahame is right. The anger that underlies Christine Grahame's question is shared by the vast majority of people across the UK. People should pay the taxes that they are due to pay. Paying tax is the collective duty that we have to ensure that we have public services that are there for all of us when we need them. The taxes that we pay provide our national health service, our education system, the infrastructure and the other support that our businesses need to prosper and thrive. When somebody puts money into an offshore haven, for example, that is about not paying full tax, they are depriving the public services of the money that they rely on, and that is wrong. We know that, according to HMRC estimates, the Treasury lost out on £6.9 billion from evasion and avoidance in 2015-16, and £1.7 billion of that was down to tax avoidance. For individuals and businesses, tax contributions should be a matter not of what they can get away with but of respecting the spirit of the law and paying a fair contribution. That would be my message to individuals, but my message to the UK Government is that it is within their power to crack down on some of this stuff. I think that it is a matter of regret and shame that they have not done so. I hope that we will now see some action before the next set of papers are released no doubt sometime in the future. Murdo Fraser. Thank you, Presiding Officer. While I accept that there is always much more to be done to clamp down on tax avoidance and evasion, I wonder if the First Minister would acknowledge that the tax gap in the UK at 6 per cent is the lowest it has ever been and is amongst the lowest in the world. On the subject of regret and shame, I wonder if the First Minister now regrets being part of a Government that paid £10 million of taxpayers' money to Amazon, a company that hardly has an excellent record when it comes to paying tax. If I had to guess what MSP would have lept to their feet today to defend the tax avoiders, I would probably have put Murdo Fraser quite close to the top of that list. We can cite figures as Murdo Fraser has just done about the tax gap being less than it is in other countries, but let me repeat what I said earlier on. Close to £7 billion has been lost to public services in our country because of tax avoidance and evasion. That is unacceptable, and even if Murdo Fraser cannot quite bring himself to see it and to say so, I think that the vast majority of people across the country will do so. We call on all companies, Amazon included, to pay their due tax and we call on the UK Government, where power on this lies, to take the action to ensure that people pay the tax that is due. James Kelly The First Minister correctly points out that companies that participate in tax evasion and tax avoidance reduce the amount of money that goes to public services to address the issues that we talk about weekend and week out in this chamber, building a better health service and supporting education. Will the First Minister therefore agree to call in and cancel any public contracts where companies have been shown to have participated in tax avoidance to ensure that all public contracts are awarded to companies who organise their tax affairs in a fair and transparent manner and pay fairly into the public purse? I generally agree with the sentiment of the question. As James Kelly knows, we have made significant reforms to public procurement over a number of years to make sure that where companies are benefitting from public contracts they are expected to behave, not just within the letter of the law but to behave in a way that people would think is acceptable. I also would hope that James Kelly would recognise that the powers around tax avoidance and cracking down on tax avoidance principally lie, unfortunately, not in this Parliament but with the UK Government and I would hope that James Kelly will join us in calling on the UK Government to at last do something about it. The First Minister will be aware of reports on the Paradise Papers regarding the St Enoc Centre in Glasgow. She will also be aware that, for example, Edinburgh airports owned by a complex structure located in Grand Cayman and Luxembourg, and there is a large rural estate sale currently being negotiated that involves the transfer of shares in an offshore company that is avoiding land and buildings transaction tax. What additional work has the Scottish Government undertaking to ensure that those risks of tax avoidance by offshore companies are identified and ended? We will continue to do everything within our power to try to crack down on that kind of behaviour. I have already spoken about the fact that we have more robust rules and the two taxes where we have responsibility than is the case across the UK. Andy Wightman is also aware and has a keen interest in some of the work that we are progressing in the context of land reform to increase transparency with a register of controlling interest. I really wish that this Parliament had more power in this area than we do. Unfortunately, we do not. Let those of us who think that that is wrong come together firstly to demand that the UK Government takes action that it has so far dragged its feet on taking, but perhaps ultimately calling for these powers to lie in the hands of this Parliament so that we can have the crack down that people want. To ask the First Minister, in light of reports of crews being attacked when dealing with bonfires over the weekend, what action the Scottish Government is taking to ensure the safety of emergency responders? None of us should ever tolerate attacks against firefighters or indeed any member of our emergency services who do a remarkable job in very challenging circumstances. The Minister for Community Safety visited Dalkeith fire station on Tuesday and spoke to firefighters who had been attacked while on duty on bonfire night and thankfully none sustained any significant injuries. Unfortunately, one police officer suffered burns from a firework-related attack, which I understand to be serious but not life-threatening, and I am sure that the whole chamber will join me in wishing that officer a speedy recovery. We fully support the police and our courts in dealing robustly with those offences. Those charged with attacks against our emergency service workers can face a prison sentence at £10,000 fine or both. Liam Kerr. I thank the First Minister for that answer. As she pointed out, last weekend our emergency services were the target of mindless violence and today there are reports that specialist public order support was demanded by front-line officers but was refused and as a result the officer suffered serious burns from a firework thrown at her face. The Scottish Government does not collate data on how many of those incidents take place. Therefore, if it does not know the scale of the problem, it cannot have any idea whether its solutions will be the right ones. As a first step to protecting those who dedicate their lives to protecting us, will the Scottish Government immediately begin gathering and publishing data on the number of assaults that have taken place against the emergency services and commit to an urgent review of resourcing and protective equipment based on that data? I do believe that there is work already being progressed around the very reasonable issue of data that the member has raised but I will have the justice secretary or the minister for community safety who I believe is overseeing this work right to him with further details. The point about data, not just when we are looking at this issue but generally is an important and reasonable one so we will take that forward and reflect on whether further action is required on that front. More generally, I am sure that all of us want to send our sympathies and good wishes to the officer who was injured. I understand that Police Scotland had put in place a significant amount of planning for bonfire night. A significant number of additional officers had been deployed double the number normally on duty. A formal debrief to review those events has been scheduled to ensure that any lessons that are required to be learned are learned for the future. We should come together to send the clearest of messages. Our emergency services workers put their lives literally on the line each and every day to keep us safe. It is unconscionable and awful that anybody could ever contemplate attacking a member of our emergency services while they are going about their duty and we must condemn that and make clear that there will be zero tolerance towards it. Alex Cole-Hamilton has a lot of interest in that particular question. Last year, the anti-social use of fireworks resulted in several convictions for mobbing and rioting in the Muirhouse area of my constituency. As Liam Kerr mentioned this year, a police officer was hospitalised for burns following a direct hit from a firework that was deliberately thrown at her. Year-on-year, we are seeing an escalation in this kind of behaviour. Does the First Minister agree that, as well as a mature discussion around the licensing of private firework use, we also need to dramatically invest funding in detached and sectional youth work in areas like Muirhouse as a means of diverting young people from this kind of activity in the first place? Yes, I do. That is a reasonable point to make. There are a number of things that we need to do to make sure that our police officers and firefighters are properly resourced on and around occasions like bonfire night. I have already said that there were double the number of officers who were on duty in bonfire night, given some of the disorder that we have seen previously. I also think that there is a discussion to be had and probably a look required at the rules and regulations and laws around both the sale of fireworks and the permitted use of fireworks. As the member will be aware, there is split responsibility between this Parliament and the Westminster Parliament. The Scottish Government has responsibility for legislation on the use of fireworks, but it is reserved to Westminster in terms of sale and possession of fireworks. In fact, I am sure that there is nobody in this chamber who has not had concerns raised by constituents this week about firework use. The Scottish Government will certainly take a look at where we have powers, whether we should do any more or take any further action. Finally, the point that Alec Cole-Hamilton raises about diversion, not just in this context but more generally, is an important one. I have already praised and paid tribute to our emergency service workers, but we also need to pay tribute to those who do youth workers who work with our young people seeking to engage them in more productive conduct than some of the conduct that we are speaking about. That is a valid point to make. I support everything that the First Minister has said about attacks on fire service crew, but attacks on the fire service come in many guises.  Will she commit today to halt any proposals that may come forward in the future that would reduce fire service jobs and reduce the number of fire stations? We will continue to take action to protect the front line of our fire service to do the job that they are there to do. There have been no closures of fire stations since the reform of the fire service took place. It is absolutely right that the fire service, given the changing demands on them, look at the action that it has to take to make sure that our firefighters are properly equipped to do the job that we expect them to do. As we see in this year's budget, where we have increased the revenue operating budget of the fire service, we will continue to work with the fire service to make sure that they are equipped to do the vital job that all of us depend on them doing. 6. Rhoda Grant To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government regarding reports that the UK could leave the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy in March 2019 with no transition period. The First Minister On Monday, the rural economy and environment secretaries met the DEFRA Secretary of State, along with the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs. During the meeting, they pressed the Secretary of State on the issue of transition for the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy. The UK Government at that meeting was not able to give any clear position at all. Farmers and fishermen need to know what regime they will be operating under in less than 18 months time. It is simply unacceptable that the UK Government has so far been unable to provide the clarity that has been requested and that is required. We will continue to press DEFRA and UK ministers on this critical issue in the coming weeks. Rhoda Grant The First Minister knows that many of our fishers and farmers depend on access to UK markets to sell their produce and also on EU subsidies to make our food more affordable and to protect the environment. What steps can she take to provide them with some comfort that that will continue post March 2019? Rhoda Grant We will do everything we can to make sure that the support that our farmers and fishermen depend on continues after the UK leaves the European Union. Right now, the UK Government requires to provide that clarity. We do not even know right now whether CAP and the common fisheries policy will continue for a transitional period or whether the UK will exit at the point of Brexit in March 2019. I mean, just to underline the confusion that reigns in the UK Government, I mean, here's two quotes, a matter of days apart. Lord Duncan from the Scotland office speaking to the AFU said, the Secretary of State, Michael Goff, has been very clear that he believes that farming and fishing should not be part of any transitional deal. Michael Goff, five days later, certainly a transition period of around two years will follow and I have some thoughts about what might happen to CAP during that period. It is unconscionable that our farmers and fishermen who, as the member said, do rely so much on these EU subsidies, still have no clarity whatsoever. I hope that everybody across this chamber will join with us in putting pressure on the UK Government to resolve this situation and give the clarity that is so urgently needed.