Health news - ex-councillor Sue Scott-Horne to help teenagers

Published: 7 October, 2010
by TOM FOOT

SUE Scott-Horne felt like her life was over when she severely damaged her ankle in a nasty fall in 2007.

The 52-year-old was forced to quit work for good after 25 years working in Islington Council’s education department.

But three years later, she has turned her life around and will this week discover if she has been named Britain’s most inspirational woman.

Ms Scott-Horne is on a shortlist of six for the Inspiration Awards for Women award. ­Others up for the honour include Sara Payne, mother of paedophile murder victim Sarah Payne, and Helen Newlove, whose husband was kicked to death on his doorstep by youths in Warrington.

Ms Scott-Horne, a “born and bred Islington woman”, who now lives in Belsize Park, said she felt compelled to act following a spate of teenage knife and gun crime in north London.

The fatal stabbing of A-star Holloway School pupil Ben Kinsella – which came in the wake of the murders of Tommy Winston, Martin Dinnegan and Nassirudeen Osawe – led her to use her skills to help teenagers lay down their arms.

From young love to gun crime, Ms Scott-Horne described how her Education Games and Resources (EGAR) discussion card sets, which encourage teenagers to talk about their problems in groups or one to one with parents, “fill a gap” where traditional attempts to connect with “at-risk” teenagers have failed.

She said: “When I was working I saw people inside prisons and in gangs. Gang stuff had been around forever – it’s tribal. I’ve seen fights, blood on the floor, I’ve seen all that. But I never saw anyone kill each ­other. When a young person wants to put a knife in another person’s body something has to be done.”

Ms Scott-Horne’s ankle injury happened when she was out shopping in Chiswick and fell at a traffic crossing.

“I severely broke my ankle,” she said. “Four ligaments. It was time for early retirement. I didn’t know what to do. It was at the time of those murders – I knew the Kinsella family and my son was at William Ellis. I became a frantic mum. I was asking what my son was doing every night, where he was going. I started scribbling – I thought, ‘we need to have a discussion’.”

Her son Kane, 20, is now helping with the business side of the project and Ms Scott-Horne  said the EGAR discussion card sets have “really taken off”.

“It’s not about finding an answer, it’s about talking,” she said. “It’s a way of communicating with teenagers – it’s a totally different psychological approach. ­There are sets for crime prevention, drugs, alcohol, love and kindness – there’s one coming out on citizenship. Whatever you went through in adolescence there’s one for you.”

The discussion games are being used in schools, libraries, youth clubs, and by Barnardo’s, the Children’s Society, in prisons, and even in Dubai.

Ms Scott-Horne was recently invited to a lunch with Dragons’ Den business guru Peter Jones. 

She said: “I was sitting bang in front of him having lunch and he said, ‘you know what, that is a very good idea’. I thought, ‘we’re away’.”

The Inspiration Awards for Women also raises money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. Ms Scott-Horne’s card sets are available at www.egar.co.uk