Bulletin #11, April 2020
As week five of lockdown blurs into week six this amazing network seems more alive than ever. Yes, we are missing the face-to-face time, and the depth of relationship-building that comes from that. But still, we continue to grow, and in unexpected ways we are connecting across the country better than ever before.
Our Call to Action for a Better Way celebrated the power of connection and community, and set out actions we can all take to share power, change practices and organisations, and adopt collaborative leadership. Even more relevant in the current circumstances, it seems.
Now, in our national and local Zoom events, on Twitter, in our members’ blogs and video clips, one message is coming through again and again. However demanding and stressful these times are, we must not let the opportunity slip to discover and to name and to shape a future which is better than the past which went before.
As Laura Seebohm has said in her recent blog:
‘We must not take our eye off what this crisis has shown us about the entrenched practices that do and don’t work for people, and imagine what new could look like.’
We are setting up some on-going virtual groups to delve deeper into elements of our Call to Action and the current crisis, so if you are interested in being involved in these do let us know.
And if you would like to write a blog or provide a video clip that we could circulate to others about these themes, please do get in contact.
Please forward this bulletin to others who may be interested.
Caroline Slocock and Steve Wyler
Better Way thinking
The coronavirus crisis and the power of connection and community. Over 40 people joined our Zoom meeting on 7th April.
We explored what is changing now that we’d like to keep for good. Examples included solidarity and a shared sense of purpose, new connections and collaborations, including new ways of doing things online.
We noted the risks, not least outside ‘rescuers’ disempowering those they sought to help.
A lot emerged from the discussion and you can read a summary here.
How can we break down the barriers between services and campaigning? Sue Tibballs from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation introduced our on-line roundtable on 21 April.
Many in the social sector, she said, act as supplicants rather than agents of change, and deliver transactional services which fail to bring about the transformations that are needed.
Testimony from those taking part in our discussion illustrated that the shift from transactional to transformational behaviours is hard but certainly achievable. When service providers place lived experience centre stage, and stop designating people they serve as ‘other’, the barriers start to break down.
As Sue concluded, the social sector needs to keep challenging itself, and integrate everything it does in pursuit of social change. You can read more in the note of the discussion here.
Do check us out on twitter @betterwaynetwrk, where you can also see video clips from some of these discussions; and also take a look at our website page on the crisis, which we will continue to update.
What our members are saying
Solidarity Stirring. ‘My thoughts have been running to leadership,’ Clare Wightman writes. In a time of crisis what kind of leadership emerges, and what kind do we really need? More here.
Social landlords, what role can we play? Rachael Orr from PlaceShapers, the national network of community-based housing associations, describes how their members are responding to the emergency, and starting to ask themselves challenging questions about how they should work differently in the future. More here.
Kindness - my first 90 days. Edel Harris has become CEO of Mencap and reflects on the role of kindness in her recent experience and in society more generally. More here.
Is Real Power Sharing Possible? A Better Way discusses with Henry Tam, author of Time to Save Democracy, what it takes for genuine power-sharing to be secured for communities. More here.
The biggest chance we will probably ever get. We must not romanticise a situation that denies a harsh but invisible reality for many people, says Laura Seebohm. But we do have the biggest chance we will probably ever get to build on a new and emerging way of working, where power dynamics are shifting in organisations and front-line staff become the solution. More here.
Relationships and trust. In a posting about ‘The recalibration of trust’, David Robinson explores the recent shift in the balance from rules to trust, and the significance of this.
Social care. Neil Crowther from Social Care Future is calling here for a new narrative about social care, which elevates it in a similar way that the NHS has been celebrated in the crisis, based around the idea, because we care about one another.
Common cause – some links to what others are doing
The Relationships Project has established an Observatory, to gather and curate examples and insights of relationship-centred responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is running a meeting at 4pm on 28 April to discuss the recalibration of trust and its impact on relationships, now and in the future. If you'd like to join, please email immy@relationshipsproject.org.
Charity So White has produced a position paper pointing out that COVID-19 is not a social equaliser: ‘It is disproportionately impacting BAME communities and we need urgent action.’
The New Local Government Network (NLGN) is running a series of on-line briefings which highlight practical and creative ways in which local councils are taking action in this crisis, often going well beyond their traditional roles.
Nurture Development is producing guidance on moving from deficit-based to asset based community response to COVID-19, part 1 of which is in this blog by Cormac Russell.
The Q initiative is sharing insights in this blog by Jo Scott about new ways of working in the health service that are demonstrating, amongst other things, new more dispersed forms of leadership at local level, systems thinking and collaborative working, with huge potential for transformative working long-term.
And finally…
In 1848, in response to the cholera outbreak which claimed 52,000 lives in the UK, the Bradford wool manufacturer and social reformer Titus Salt said this: ‘The cholera most forcibly teaches us our mutual connection.’ Still true, it seems.