Finding Strength in Solidarity
Colin Falconer of InspireChilli reflects on how research into the response of listening fund services to Covid-19 connects with Better Way’s vision.
This month sees the publication of a research report for the Listening Fund that explores how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted on the ‘listening’ work of 11 youth organisations from the fund in England and Scotland. The report identifies 6 main findings:
The ability to listen to young people improved how organisations responded to the crisis.
Organisations reacted quickly to the crisis by listening to young people first.
Organisations were able to sustain and grow their listening practices during the crisis.
Effective listening activity promoted increased solidarity with young people.
Young people were interested and able to influence their services and other stakeholders during the crisis, but were not always fully aware of this impact.
Funders and decision makers can actively support the listening work of organisations to respond to a crisis.
The report’s title, ‘Strength in Solidarity’, characterises how organisations used ‘listening first’ practices to respond to the crisis. A feeling of solidarity captured the positive, relational approaches consistently described by young people and practitioners during the research. As a concept which resonates with Better Way principles, from ‘Building on strengths is better than weaknesses’ to ‘Relationships are better than impersonal transactions’, it is worth reflecting on further.
The emphasis on solidarity first came up in the research during a conversation with one of the participating practitioners, who drew attention to the caring way their organisation reached out to young people in lockdown: ‘showing solidarity – that we hear and respect you, we are not trying to fix you’. Showing solidarity offered a signpost to the four common enablers for listening demonstrated by the majority of organisations in the research, in terms of:
The person-centred approaches used to respond to individual needs
Increased frequency of contact and feedback loops focused on empathy and trust
Investment in codifying what had been heard in order to tailor personalised responses
Efforts made to understand and act on the social challenges people were experiencing.
These enablers tended to be rooted in the core ethos and culture of organisations. What the research found was that an organisation’s capacity to show solidarity was just as important for listening practice as a specialist listening post or procedure. In the words of a young person, ‘The way the organisation listens to me makes me feel like I have someone on my side. At a time like this, that’s been a great comfort to me’. For young people, knowing that an organisation was in solidarity with them during a challenging period had real value for their wellbeing.
To show solidarity feels a natural, empathetic response to a crisis. We can see this reflected in the rise of mutual aid groups and the international convergence of voices around Black Lives Matter. Solidarity carries historical resonance too, to past efforts to create social change by sharing power through collective action, and to work to advance a more relational model of charity, memorably described by writer Eduardo Galeano: “I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.’ (See ‘Louder than Bombs: interviews from Progressive Magazine’ by David Barsamian, 2004, p.146.). Linked to Galeano’s stress of the horizontal over the vertical, the research found that organisations dealt most effectively with the pandemic by applying highly personalised listening techniques that were more dependent on the quality of 1-1 relationships than top-down transactional surveys. Having a positive ethos to connect with people really matters in a crisis.
What also struck me in the research was how a focus on ‘solidarity’ might help to promote the characteristics of asset-based or ‘Advantaged Thinking’ provision to a wider audience, something I’m actively engaged with through my work at InspireChilli. Referring to solidarity bypasses the need for labels such as ‘asset’, ‘strength-based’ or ‘person-centred’ that often limit people’s understanding. In a more immediate way, showing solidarity identifies the humanity of seeing people in terms of strengths rather than problems; of working with people, not doing to them; of involving people in shaping their own solutions; of investing in people’s capacity to thrive, not just survive. These are all key to Better Way’s own Call to Action for ‘a radical shift to liberate the power of connection and community’.
Solidarity really shines a light on why we need to take action to achieve social change. It’s no good trying to deliver asset-based services without showing solidarity to tackle the social issues that disadvantage the people who use them. Yet we often hear organisations describe the challenge of influencing social change as too much of a distraction from fundraising activity or frontline support. That might be understandable, but through the lens of solidarity it’s a clear sign of indifference. We all have responsibility to ‘show up’. Indeed, a notable finding in the research is that young people really care about organisations being involved in campaign and influencing work, even though they are not fully aware of it. We need to do more to rise to the campaign challenge – as well as close feedback loops with the people whose voices should drive the campaign. The truth is, not enough young people are always in positions to influence the action. That is only likely to be addressed through future activism (see #PowerOfYouth), or, as one young person suggested, by recruiting more practitioners from lived experience backgrounds to ‘change decision making to be more focused on sharing power with young people’.
For any leader preparing for or responding to a crisis, a good place to start is to look at where and how an organisation shows solidarity with those it seeks to help. That requires what Better Way’s Karin Woodley describes as ‘radical listening’ to really hear how well an organisation is connected to what matters to the people it should be accountable to. The organisations in the Listening Fund offer powerful examples of how ‘radical listening’ has been achieved during Covid-19. The report concludes with forty recommendations from the research to advance future work, along with a ‘health check’ to reflect on areas of listening practice most likely to nurture solidarity. You can access the ‘Strength in Solidarity’ report at https://www.thelisteningfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/full-report-final-.pdf or email colin@inspirechilli.com for a conversation.
