Bulletin #2, April 2017
As the Better Way initiative continues to expand across the country, we are discovering a wealth of radical and positive thinking and indeed practice. Despite much that is negative and dispiriting around us, there is also a spirit abroad which is on-the-front-foot, defiant in the face of obstacles, eager to shake things up, and essentially hopeful.
You will see this spirit much in evidence in blogs and articles written by our members, and in insights about our Better Way proposition which we have been collecting, which we are sharing below and which we hope you will enjoy reading.
Do keep sending us your ideas, provocations, connections - and if you are not yet part of a Better Way group but would like to be, just let us know.
Please forward this bulletin to others who may be interested, and best of luck with your adventures,
Steve Wyler and Caroline Slocock
About A Better Way
A Better Way is a network of social activists, from the voluntary sector and beyond, who want to challenge business as usual, improve services, and build strong communities. We have set out some simple propositions, which we believe, if pursued with courage and conviction, would bring about a radical shift in favour of the common good. The initiative is hosted by Civil Exchange, in partnership with Carnegie UK Trust and is also supported by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. You can find out more here: http://www.betterway.network/.
We already have three Better Way groups in London, with others underway or in formation in Manchester, Sheffield, Hastings, Newcastle, Northumberland, and Taunton, and we continue to build a wider network of people interested in Better Way thinking and practice. On 7th and 8th June we will be holding a nationwide gathering of cell members to bring together insights and plan our next steps.
Recent blogs from our members
Change that lasts, by Polly Neate: how Women’s Aid is piloting a new, strengths-based, needs-led and trauma-informed response to domestic abuse.
Advantaged Thinking, by Jane Slowey: how foyers across the country have ditched a deficit model of working with young people and the difference this has made.
Yes, it is time to take back control, by Peter Holbrook: in the face of global centralisation of economic power and ownership we need to take back control and put people first.
We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for, by Caroline Slocock: leadership is innate in everyone and is all the better for being shared.
Insights into our Better Way propositions
With the help of our members and with support from the Carnegie UK Trust we have been gathering insights into our propositions. We have found an impressive range of academic and scientific evidence as well as plenty of examples from this country and overseas which support our thinking. And it is evident that our propositions are interconnected and that a real strength lies in their combination.
As we’ve always known, while our propositions may appear simple and familiar they are also controversial, open to challenge, and subject to immense institutional resistance. Through the discussions in cells we are starting to identify the barriers and also to distinguish between real change and lip service. These are propositions not prescriptions, and we are discovering that the best way to stimulate a shift in favour of a Better Way is not through the laying down of dogma, but through debate and creativity and disruptive practice.
You can follow the links below to find out more:
Prevention is better than cure
Building on strengths is better than focusing on weaknesses
Human relationships are better than impersonal transactions
Collaboration is better than competition
Mass participation is better than centralised power
Principles are better than targets
Changing ourselves is better than demanding change from others
We are always looking out for articles and material to share with each other which illustrate or shed light on our propositions, so please do send any to us that you come across or write yourself.
Self-efficacy – a call for examples
One of our Better Way members, Richard Wilson, is collecting evidence of activities which build people’s self-confidence, self-belief or self-efficacy with a view to improving service outcomes. Examples of this could be health services where people are supported to tackle their health conditions, education services where students are supported to have the confidence to learn for themselves; or activities where staff are given exceptional levels of autonomy, because that helps improve service outcomes. If you know of good examples please let Richard know by responding to his survey here.
And finally…
‘Kittens are evil’ is the title of a recent collection of articles, some written by members of the Better Way network, which challenge many of the prevailing presumptions that shape our services and our communities.
To give you a flavour, one article claims that family intervention doesn’t work: ‘far from addressing the root causes of society’s problems family intervention approaches serve to paper over the cracks’. Another points out that payment by results makes things worse: ‘measuring outcomes cannot be used to performance manage the delivery of social interventions without distorting or corrupting the practices it intends to manage’. A third claims that government cannot innovate: ‘it is generally good at keeping things the same, but generally very bad at making things better’. And a fourth that public service markets aren’t working for the public good: ‘continued reliance on open competition in the supply of public services will lead to market collapse and/or new monopolies’.
There is much more – a stimulating read!