In working to build our relationships and
find out and understand more about how
care has been developing in Britain over
the last decade or so over the last year
I've got to know some really interesting
people and I'm delighted to say that
three of them are with me today. Three people who have changed the way I think and have
introduced me to new information and they
got access to doing that because of the
way they made me feel. We all know that
if you want to get people to think
differently you first have to get them to
feel differently and these three that are
with me today have done that with their
warmth and the inspiring nature of the
work they do and the way they go about
it. I'm delighted to have so many of
you on online with us you're only gonna
be seeing my guests and I today but my
colleagues and I will be watching the
Q&A closely you can start out
in your questions of our panelists any
time you like we'll be following them
but we will start the first half hour or
so by giving a chance to my three guests
to talk about the theme that they
inspired me to make the
title of this webinar which is, What's
love got to do with it. The three of
them are as you know Donna Hall, Kathy
Evans and Maff Potts and I'm gonna start
with Donna because unfortunately Donna
has to leave us in about half an hour to
go away and be very serious somewhere
else haven't you Donna and so I'm gonna
start with you and I'm gonna start by
asking you as the chief
executive officer in Wigan that led the work
on the Wigan deal that's become
internationally famous not only in
Britain and now the chair of Bolton
National Health Service and many other
accomplishments looking at your CV I'm
saying you are a very tough woman so
what's love got to do with it. That's great
thank you. I'm a big softy really Brendan
I'm not tough at all but I I think
love has got everything to do with it
and we really do miss a trick as chief
executives and political leaders if we
don't recognize the value of love and I
think just to illustrate something that
happened to me in Wigan and how
it really made me think differently
about the nature of love. So I've got
my special I love my dog cup 
because I do love my dogs
and we found that a lot of people
homeless people in Wigan that we are trying to rehouse
also love their dog and we hadn't
factored the dog into any of our
accommodation plans and people were
refusing our emergency accommodation
because we couldn't accommodate the dog and you know when public servants or
community groups or political leaders
ignore love and ignore what matters to
people then they do really fail
in creating in building communities and
in supporting people who need our
support and our help. I've been really
impressed with my two colleagues
and I can't wait to hear them I'm so
sorry I have to go at half past 
twelve and I'm not going to
go and be serious, I can't be serious but
I think there's some great examples
out there and so the Scottish care
review which was launched just around
Christmas time is a really brilliant
example of how you can put love in the
heart of policy making as a government
level and not be embarrassed to talk
about it. I wrote a blog for you
yesterday Brendan which you kindly
published about how difficult is to
actually use the word love as leader
especially when you're in a room with
other leaders they look at you like
you're bonkers and I kind of got used to
that over the years. You know you can
see Nicola Sturgeon very proudly
declaring her love for the children of
Scotland and that is so powerful you
know I can't really see our leaders
at the moment in England doing that you
know. It's very much kind of stiff upper
lip and we're all in wartime kind of
talk but love is what motivates people
to do things it's what motivates people
to change their lives and you know
because you because you love your family
and you want to keep them safe and well
you go to work to do that. it's love that drives every aspect
of our lives basic humanity basic emotion and
one of the things that I chair, the new
local government Network, which is
fantastic network of about 70 councils
and public service systems all wanting
to build love, compassion into their
systems but really importantly I think
is past power put power in the hands of
communities who know much more about
love than we do. Community organisations
are much more agile and able to
understand the nature of love and
emotion when they're designing things
around places and our own communities
and neighbourhoods so really trying to
build on that the expertise is already
in our communities because there's a big
surge and up swelling of kindness at the
moment, kindness is the kind of thing
that everyone's talking about and that's
fantastic. It is beautiful to hear that
but kindness and love without power is
can be a little bit vacuous and a little
bit sounds a bit like virtue signaling
to me. You've got to have love which
enables people to do things Julia Unwin speaks about this so beautifully in
her piece of work that she's done for
the Carnegie trust and you know she is
absolutely fantastic at this and people
like Bridged Russell up in Scotland
Project Lift is based on love based on
the real humanity and what drives us to
do things. So it's not just warm words
it's very much about giving power to
communities letting communities and
frontline staff redesign services based
on what works for people. That's what
Buurtzorg the principles of Buurtzorg
are perfect for this that's what Buurtzorg is all about and the beauty of
that happening in real life is what is
what I want to see in in my system in
Bolton for example so I want us to to
look at the Buurtzorg model as a hospital
model on the wards you know using the
love and the compassion that our doctor
and nurses and everyone cleaners
everyone who works in in the hospital
you know getting them getting us to value the love that they have the
patients the love they have for each
other, the love they have for Bolton as a
place and really tapping into that. But
we have so much to learn from the
community sector as public servants and
you know trying to get people to talk
about love is hard but I think this this
is we've been given a bit of a platform
really with the the horror of this
pandemic to be able to do that more
readily now I think. Thank You Donna and
we're so looking forward to coming and
working with you in Bolton and we're
excited about supporting you to
introduce the Buurtzorg way there. Let me
turn to my second guest Kathy Evans.
Kathy you started and I think I'm right
in saying that when you left University
your first job is in children's volunteering
and you've been working as a voulunteer and you've
been a staunch advocate for children's
rights and been very active in not only
advocating but fighting for children's
rights ever since and now do that as the
CEO of children England. And I see behind
you the the yeah the well you can you
can tell us about that in a minute. What's love got to do with it. Okay well I've got
three anecdotes from the career along
the way and it starts with that with
that that experience we were going to
be able entombed in a children's home
and I I was blessed with a childhood
that was perfect as far as I was
concerned. I didn't even have arguments
so I wanted to understand what was going
on with the children it but I expected
it to be a very alien traumatized
context and the first conversation I had
with my manager there has set the entire
pathway of my career and this is the
connection to this theme because I said
look I have no idea what happens here
and what you need for me but you just
need to tell me what my job is
and I'll do it. He said our
job is to is to make these children feel
loved that's it beginning and end
and because love is to children what Sun
Light is to plants it's the light that
they grow towards it warms the air that
they breathe it allows them to unfurl
and to face the weather whatever the
weather is. It takes many other things too.
You need nutrients and minerals you
need strong roots you need healthy soil
you need water from the rain but none of
those things can work without sunlight
and the sunlight of love is what we have
to give to these children. So he said you
may not feel love for every one of the
children we can't pay you or expect you
to love to feel love for them but we do
expect you to behave with love towards
every one of them because they need to
feel loved.
and acting with love is a behavior not a feeling in the
words of massive attack love is a verb a
doing word you know. He then left me
with the easy job description
of saying we don't have to do anything
to change these children we have to
change the world for them and that is
now the mission of my charity. The second
anecdote and you might see the
plant-based theme that I'll come on and
explain further and I found myself doing
policy work in the drug sector some
years after after working in a care
system and on the drug treatment and
testing order group to work out what
kind of treatment we could put offenders
on - as a punishment for their crimes
and in order to do that there had been
this meta-analysis of all of the
evidence of effectiveness of different kinds and approaches and
treatment and right up at the top it
said of course the strongest two
indicators of successful treatment
outcome or how old you are and how many
times you tried this before and being in
love. The entire group and the
whole process then went so you know we
can't do anything about those so let's
scratch and carry on with the question
of whether it's methadone or abstinence.
and I thought yes this feels like the
medical this scientific approach to
saying well we can't control things
about people's personal lives so let's
just talk about what we
can control. It's like the placebo effect
in pharmaceutical trials we know its reliable enough that human
beings can simulate their own healing if
they believe that they're receiving a
drug we just factored it in and
said oh that's the thing we didn't say
how on earth do we use the placebo
effect and understand it and wonder at
humans ability to heal themselves. That's where I kind of started having
problems with the scientific, the
social scientific approach to social
care and social intervention which
seemed to willingly brush aside things
that didn't feel scientific. Then
after many years of what Donna was
saying what we were talking about the
years of the new public management
approach to the services that I'd worked
in and then advocated for for decades
targets kpi's payment by results you
know evaluation evidence, I found
myself at a round table in in Whitehall
with a with a sea of consultants in
front of me proclaiming proudly that the
problem was we don't know what works
with children. This this was one of
those crystallizing moments where I just
said this is ridiculous of course we
know what works with children. What works
with all children is love and we've
known ever since human being started
having children and this this it
crystallized me that thought that whole
agenda is about the marketization of
Social Care in the turning of it into a
product for sale. It's about robbing us
of our universal human capacity to heal
each other and to help each other and
then to put a market price on it so that
it's scarce and rare. I came across
the work of Edgar Kann an American
economist who actually discovered it
discovered he'd already covered all of
this so so he talks about the core
economy and the cash economy. the core
economy being three times larger than
the cash economy and the core economy
being what we do for love. What we do for each other for love and
the ways in which we do things without
any need for payment to help each other
and then he talks about market value
being determined
by scarcity you know gold is expensive
because you can't because there's not
enough of it for everyone you know. When
when something is scarce the price goes
up in a market and he said that market
market definition of value devalues
those very Universal capacities that
enabled our species to survive and to
evolve, our ability to care for each
other, to come to each other's rescue to
learn from each other to stand up for
what's right and to oppose what is wrong
in market terms those capacities if
abundant are worthless. In terms of
rebuilding a core economy those values
are literally priceless. I think
we've been persuaded that we don't have
an abundance of capacity to help each
other through the decisions of life and
we've been turned into a product that's
been made increasingly scare and then
cut to the bone.
What we've done at Children
England's with these kind of momentary
insights we've set about wholeheartedly
challenging the entire existence of new
public management and marketised approaches, we successfully got a profit ban to stop
them outsourcing child protection to the
private sector, we created a declaration
of interdependence to resume an idea of
partnership between councils and
children and charities working for
children's benefit rather than their
bottom line. And I've got various
different reform ideas to get rid of the
private sector from the care market. The
second thing we've done is this child
fair state inquiry of which I'm
enormously proud there which isn't now
being done by us it's being led by young
people and they are researching and
consulting the young people about how to
refresh and redesign and in many ways
simplify the welfare state for the 21st
century. Right at the heart in the
tree I don't think you can see it there
is love so the intention is to return to
Maslow in the universal nature of human
needs we all need home safety and
security love and belonging health and
purpose,  if the welfare state that we all
pay into isn't producing and supporting
those human conditions then
you can be as technical and scientific as
you like but we won't get to the kind of
the kind of social network
infrastructure that we hope for and then
the last thing that we this is very hot
off the press and hasn't started yet but
we've been part of a partnership which
has been awarded money to set up a
children's house for healing in
Scotland and the intention of
that is that any child who's experienced
violence or witnessed violence of
abuse can go straight there with their
family their friends whoever they they
want around them to feel safe. And all of
the systems the medical investigate the
medical system the investigatory system
the court system the police system will
come to them so we make the system come to the child in the place where they
feel safe and make the system work for
them rather than the other way around.
Wow, Thank you for the hot off the press news there is so much there
that we're gonna come back to. Just gonna
go now to a third guest before returning
to Donna because she because she has to
leave soon. Maff I think a lot of what
Kathy said will have resonated with you
because of what I know your background
in senior positions in housing
organisations and in public service
organisations but when I first
encountered you you were dressed up in a
very strange yellow costume playing the
piano and wearing badges which you then
distributed far and wide, tell us about what
love has to do with that.
I'm sorry yeah feelin the love today and
and also kind of feeling a bit saturated
by amazing stimulus from Donna and Kathy I've been writing down furiously yeah
well I I feel particularly these two who
were fighting the fight inside the
system really I I feel like a deserter
because I got so fed up at 25 years of
love never being part of the
conversation that I sort of buggered off
really. Tried to build something
outside the city walls directly with
people in communities that was free
therefore no one could get their
clutches on it because if people get
together around a table and look out for
each other you don't have to measure a KPI do you.
You just get on with it and so so we
send boxes out to communities called
public living room in a box it turns up
and they funnily enough fairy lights are
part of the equation
I do believe that a person's brain
behaves differently when it sees fairy
lights it doesn't think that a needs and
risk assessment is going to turn up next. 
Also a piano so we often have a
piano in our public living rooms I think
if you're going to be more human and
bring the love you've got you've got to
look the part.
You've got to talk the part we have
public living rooms in hospitals well we did
have and we had 110,000 people use
them over 50% of that were staff which
was a big shock for us. We stupidly
thought we were there for patients but
it's actually surgeons doctors and
nurses all started using it. Particularly
in the emergency department just to take
ten minutes out to be a human without a
lanyard and to talk about anything and
in one hospital in Rotherham they
changed our notice board outside which
normally says come in have a chat relax
look out for each other be a camerado because nobody knows what
camerado means you see it's very
useful.
they changed it to it's time to talk
hashtag Mental Health Awareness Week
And we have a little infrared infrared beam
on the door that you can't see that
counts the numbers and we used to get a
thousand a week and when they changed
the language we got 50. I do think how we talk about this is important yeah
the difficulty is using the word love I
have had very similar experiences to
Donna and Kathy. I worked for the biggest
homeless provider I ran the homeless
provision in the UK and Ireland for this
big provider and it was the Sally army
and you know they didn't want me to talk
about love and they're a Church so you
know they thought it was unprofessional.
So I've been to meetings in Whitehall I
think I was telling you the other day
and they wanted to measure the success
of a youth homelessness payment by
results program and they wanted to do it
by checking how many NVQs young
people got and how long they held the
tenancy down and I just said that maybe
they could look at how many positive
networks the young people have grown in
supportive friends basically and and
they literally all laughed I mean it was
like I'd cracked a joke and they all
belittled me by telling me that maybe
they should get all young people on
match.com and that would solve
everything Maff ha ha ha.
Then I was taken to one side
afterwards and told to be more
constructive in meetings. So you know
basically that programs not going to
work is it because for all the years I
worked in homelessness the single
biggest reason for homelessness was
relationship breakdown and yet we try
and solve it with housing and benefits.
How does that work, it's a little bit
like calling an electrician if you've
got a water leak. I mean it just doesn't
work. Anyway I'm very keen for people
to ask Donna questions before she goes
so I'll shut up. Well thanks to Maff and we'll come back
to you in a minute let's go back to
Donna, Donna I was really struck by what
you were saying earlier about
the knowledge and commitment and
understanding that exists within
communities within community
organizations within community generally
and I know that in the new local
government Network community paradigm
that you're promoting this is very
important. You've also been talking a lot lately about the abject failure frankly of the
government's testing and tracing program
and the fact that the huge capacity that
exists in local government and in
communities to tackle this challenge
which is being shown so much by mutual
aid and so on is simply not being
understood or mobilized by government
and so it's this is really a
life-and-death issue right now, could you
say a bit more about what you think
could be done better in the current
crisis if there was more of an
understanding you've shared about the
strengths and communities? Thanks very
much Brendan I mean I think it's just
been demonstrated so well by Maff and
Kathy there you know, you can see how
local community organizations can get
right into public service systems and
just you know talk about the elephant in
the room which is love relationships and
you know we just they're completely
ignored in new public management and you know we obsess about completely the
wrong things so it's a waste of money
it's a waste of energy and we're not
helping people so you know this is
exactly what's being played out now in
the way that the government are handling
testing and tracing we've seen it writ
large I think we've got a massive
problem what do we do
let's centralize all the power let's
ignore where the expertise is in local
communities in GP practices in councils
directors of public health environmental
health teams who are trained already
and experts in contact tracing. They're
doing it they're working with community
organizations and schools and businesses
to find the famous salt shaker that they
found in the Bavarian canteen were you
know it that will not be done by an app
or a contact centre and that salt shaker
was the source of infection of hundreds
of people in a factory in Germany when
somebody had been over to Wuhan and it is that local fine-grained understanding
and knowledge that is being completely
ignored by the government at the moment
and it's absolutely criminal, I get so annoyed about it. You know and really that
expertise locally I think should be
given the responsibility to do it, we
know what we're doing in local
communities we know what we're doing
just trust us to get on with it.
the private sector are losing information
it's not coming back down into
localities it's a complete dog's dinner.
I'll be honest I'm a little bit
pessimistic about the government really
responding to that message of their own
accord, what do you think we need to do
because it seems to me that we're in a
bit of a crossroads where we need
to go in that direction you're talking
about, what do you think we need to do to
together as a community beyond local
communities but a broader community than
that, to get a change in the way in which
the government is thinking about this. I
think there is a lot of pressure on on
the government at the moment to change
the model but they're not listening and
you've got experts coming in to try to
tell them that and you know I've been
speaking to some individuals who are
trying to help them and they are not
listening so there's something here
about humility, moving away from the
hubris and the talk of war and you've
got to listen and if you don't listen
then you are really you're killing
people it's as simple as that. I really do think we have
the infrastructure in place through
through the NHS through local government
and through communities it's already
there it's called the local resilience
forum and that's what other countries
have done and that's why they've got
much lower death rates than ours and so
if people can help campaign if you want
to follow me on Twitter I'm going on about
it all the time, its @ProfDonnaHall
help me join me lots of others
of us are just like going for it because
it's literally a matter of life life and
death. Yeah it certainly is Donna thank
you so much for joining us today and
good luck with that
I'm certainly very supportive of
it so we'll follow what you're doing
there very closely I urge everybody to
read the wonderful blog that Donna was
kind enough to give to us to publish on
the Buurtzorg UK website yesterday it's
on this theme and Donna we'lll let you go
and have a great day. Thank You.  Kathy
coming back to you if I may you you were
saying that um one of the things you
said was what's happened is
that the processes and instead of
relationships in children's services
there's been a sort of commodification
of the tasks and activities there which
then get packaged up and sold and
particularly to private sector providers. What's been the effect of that on the
children themselves who are so reliant
on these services? Gosh I mean this could
sound quite bleak as a
conversation I mean I think one of the
things I want to emphasize is that I see what's happened in terms of
marketizing social care is an ecosystem
problem it's not that if suddenly I
think that I know that there are good
people working with good motivation in
private sector organizations I don't
think we can be simplistic about
the entities and those structures
through which it's done. The entire
ecosystem has become conditioned by the
idea that you are a producer of a
product whether you're a charity a
public service or a or a private sector
business, all of the ecosystem forces in
a marketized system force you to say
what what's your USP, how good are you package it prove it
that's what will get you more money and
that's what will keep you going in the
markets if the market is so effective at
finding the best price for the best best
product that that's the proof of your
worth if you survive in the marketplace
and many  very good
charities who know that that's not the
test of their work have had to adapt and
adopt that kind of
methodology because it's how you get to
do what you are there to do.
Some of my members have been working with
children and looking after children for
much longer than the state right they
invented children's homes and did it out of gift and voluntary kindness
and philanthropic largesse and then
we persuaded the state to do it and
worked alongside the state for a while
and then ended up in this situation
where where you're effectively being
told prove your worth or you're out of
business. And so the effects
are multiple but one I think one of the
most pernicious effects for
children is that they have become the
people that have to fit into other
organizations business models. We've
ended up saying that you have
to have a target client group and
know who your product works for so
you end up with as I said that you know
scarcity drives market value so
every provider of residential or
foster care that I know of has ended up
needing some how to describe their
specialism in order to keep/hold up
their market price. So we specialize in working with children of this age or with that
experience and that the ecosystem has
become one in which to survive
organizations have to over claim their
scarcity and their specialness. And then
children have to fit. This place
is not right for you it's like well what
do they need they just need looking
after and we've ended up with a
care system that actually doesn't
have enough capacity to care for as many
children as we're putting into it. That's scarcity drives up market price
and it ends up with us sending children
all over the country because there isn't
enough, so not just taking
out their family home because of
whatever caused the Care order made but
then uprooted from their
community and their school and sent away. Those are all
consequences of a competitive
ecosystem in which scarcity drives
value. There's nothing safe that we can do to
get rid of the private sector tomorrow
even if that's what we wanted. 75
percent of children's homes are private
sector and it's packed with people who
really do care and are trying to care for children but
systemically we've just got to move away
from the whole idea, the whole idea that
these are transactions and sales of
products, you know as soon as you start
buying bed by bed per night the home in
which a child is meant to recover and
heal and then we're toast. We've tried to look at
the whole redesign of the system and the
underlying principles of it rather than
just picking out what we think is bad. if
that makes sense
Thank you. Maff I'm gonna come to you
because we've had a question
specifically for you which is from
Rhonda in Oxford which is have
you published hospital walking data I
suppose she's talking about the public
living rooms now for those who don't
know what one of the things that camerados
do is they they basically send out
kits I think Maff I'm right to say where
you can just set up your own public
living room and there's no agenda you go
in you just invite people in to do
whatever they want to do have a chat, be,
sit quietly I suppose and you've done
that in hospitals and I'm not surprised
actually that fifty percent of the
people that came into it was
the staff in hospitals because I know how much pressure they're
under and that they need those quiet
places where they can just feel
themselves for a few minutes in in very
stressful situations. I'm being
asked whether you've published the data
on that could you tell us a bit more?
yeah I've been keeping an eye on the
question
so thanks for that one I'm Sheffield
Hallam University our learning partner
and they've just finished a report of
all our hospital work so actually that's
kind of reasonably hot off the presses. I
mean actually we were just about to
publish it when lockdown happened and
that kind of kicked everything up the
arse but yeah we've got
that report definitely from the
hospitals and we should, that's
actually a good nudge for us to get that
out there I mean there's lots of other
learnings we had in there.
I mean we're you know we're not the
first to try this kind of agenda we're
not the only ones, I mean I'm a big fan
of the the person who very sadly passed
away quite recently who who started the
hello my name is campaign in the NHS,
you know just trying to make the place
more human. It was just I guess really
fascinating to see that in a public
living room is meant to be loved in all
its forms. I want to say this actually
today that you know that we've talked
about trust, I think in your
fantastic welfare review and forgive me
what's it called Kathy child welfare
state inquiry, 
so under love you actually break it down
into you know feeling valued feeling
equal and all of that, so in our in
our public living rooms we try and you
know say to people it's all okay to be
rubbish that's a form of love to say to
people no outcome no success in here
necessary hmm and it's extraordinarily
liberating how much that happens how
much that means to people. We had a surgeon come in in his scrubs
from a cancer ward and say I'm not
coping and a patient got up and gave him
a big hug and they had a laugh
and he went back on his shift. Now that's
a power shift right but you have to work
hard to create this because the single
most common thing people say when they
come in our public living rooms is who's
in charge and the second thing they say
is what's the rules. So playing to
another question on the on the Q&A from
someone saying how do you deal with
commissioners who don't get the use of
love, I would say that there is an
education responsibility on
you when talking to them about creating
an environment that is not the
environment we're all conditioned
heavily into we're all conditioned into
a hierarchy as soon as you walk into a
room of the Commissioner as far as he's
concerned or she's concerned they're in
charge. So you've got do something about
that you've got to level that playing
field you contribute to a
conversation it's not one-sided but a
lot of us and I put my hand up here for
20 years
receiving money you get into this kind
of thanks very much what is it you need
for your contract vibe, what you need to
say is well that's what you need that's
great here's what we need as well. so
when I was at the Salvation Army
we had five things we inspected our
services on and oh what a surprise there
were the five core objectives of the
funding stream at the time and I said
but where where are we
finding out about relationships and
purpose and the people at Salvation Army
said to me oh we don't have to measure
that Maff because a Commissioner doesn't
want us to measure it and I said well we
bloody do want to measure that actually
and since when did we get in the
contract I mean we gave away our
autonomy and Kathy nailed it just now
talking about all the social reformers
in the 19th century, there was no welfare
state. They just had to create something
and they did it but seventy years or
whatever of the welfare state has
conditioned us to forget that we can be
creative as well we could make stuff
happen and we have a part to play and
actually beverage built it on the backs
of William Booth and Charles Booth and
all the other social reformers you know
so the state are johnny-come-lately to
this and we need to remind them of that
occasionally and I do think you've got
to be a bit brave with commissioners
sometimes and say yeah no we can't do
that. Yeah that's not gonna work yeah and
and a lot of them will kind of walk back
on the heels and some of them because
guess what there were some great people
who are commissioners they need a little
nudge and I've had great responses from
that they'll go oh actually Maff no
thanks. Yaah I mean we we've had that
to Maff we've had situations where
I mean we because Buurtzorg has been
so successful in the Netherlands at
improving working
of the nurses and the other staff
at improving care and at reducing costs. 
we have had a few organizations come to
us and say oh we like the idea of
reducing costs can you come and help us
to do that and what we what we say to
them is well actually if you start there
not only will you not reduce costs but
you also won't improve care or improve
people's working lives either and you'll
reduce the costs eventually and quite
quickly if you start from what really is
the is the purpose which is
person-centered care done in a way
that enables the professionals to act to
work with more freedom and
responsibility and professional autonomy.
Start there and create an organizational
environment in which that's possible
well of course you will save because
there's so many transaction costs and so
many unnecessary things and useless
things frankly being done in many
organizations that are wasting resources
so from our point of view we can
really relate to that let me turn to
another of questions from Rob Fountain.
Hi Rob very good to have you with us
with educating in Gloucestershire and he
asks is there a danger of love being
misapplied as paternalism and he
explains the question by saying working
with older people we too often see
compassionate ageism which disempowers, belittles and shrinks purpose how can we
stop people using love as a defense for
protectionism. Who'd like to have a go at
that but I really do want to say
something about that. This raises so much
and it's and it's not just about whether
love can be made patronizing and
paternalistic but it's also you know an
issue for the charity sector in the and
that perpetual risks of charity being
patronizing and belittling and
paternalistic and I also from the
children's sector I have to acknowledge
that there's also been a very well
founded concern about talking too much
about love is the answer for children in
in care in particular when we've learnt
about decades of abuse of children in
the name,
in the fallacious name of love,  the fact that vulnerable
children being in in the care system has
acted as a magnet to malice in the name
you know and their vulnerability is
because they need love and so you
know there are some really really
complicated ethical issues around it and
I wouldn't want to belittle that. I spent
two different parts of my career working
in Christian charities even though I am
and still am a devout atheist and one of
the things that I really appreciated
about working in those charities was
that you could have a live dialogue
always about love and right and wrong.
I'm just talking about those ones I'm
not saying that's always true but I
really appreciated it because it came in
very naturally in a way that we talked
about our practice and our work there in
ways that other organizations where I
wanted to have those conversations were
more difficult to have them but
there's a similar challenge it's not itabout being
self sacrificial in saying I
decide to bestow upon you my healing
love despite the fact that you're really
hard to love.
There's that strain that comes out
through the Christian Victorian
reformist movement and there's kind of
implied in the term compassion although
I think compassion is a very important
quality,
I don't you know that
you can have a systemic way of
preventing that from happening. This is
this is about empowering people to act
on their that their values their beliefs
and understanding that all of us are
capable of behaving in loving ways
giving unconditionally and changing
someone's life for the better just by
how we are around them. All of the
risks of getting that wrong or it being
received wrong we're inherent in that
and I don't think we
can't design a system that says this is
this is loving and this is patronizing
do that don't do that because that's
equally disempowering. Yeah we'd love to hear what Rob thinks about that
we're not set up for that but
unfortunately but we're going to go over
to Maff because I know you'd like
to have respond to That.
oh well yeah I mean I tend to
become a bit of popular on this one but
I get quite get quite animated about
this cuz I I'm not a big fan of love
hearts and rainbows and unicorns.
I'm not a big fan of kindness right okay
so let me explain that a little bit. Kindness is of course the answer to most
things I tell my kids before they go to
school be kind, be interested those
are the two things I say when they go
out the door so don't get me wrong but
you know by Eck there's a lot of bad
kindness out there and we don't hold bad
kindness to account. What Rob's
talking about is is that patronizing element towards older people
and I think a lot of this is about
mutuality you see so in camerados
we talk about I help you you help me why
I like you you like me I don't like you
you don't like me all of which
everything there is cool that's fine.
It's this binary parent-child thing that infects everything it's higher the
hierarchical stuff is everywhere so
think to yourself how have I arranged the
seating in this meeting you know how
have I invited people to this meeting if
I invited them to me, when am I going to
them. You know you should just think
about these things you should be
conscious in the language you use. Am i
using language that I understand but
they don't. Am I on transmit all the time I
mean I you know it's how to create
neutrality so it's really important to
be able to disagree one of the terrible
things about discourse at the moment is
that if you disagree with someone it
seems to equate to not liking them. That
is not the case so you know but you've
got to work hard at this stuff because
we are completely conditioned into
parent-child and love and charity is
exactly the same charity is drenched in
I'm the benefactor you're the helpless
beneficiary you're grateful and I'm
amazing. Alright it's bullshit and
you know the Buurtzorg model is
fantastic for breaking that down and
you know I get very nervous because
people love cammarado's but then they
slightly dress it up in hey fairy lights
and unicorns and love get lost I'm
really not interested in that you know
I'm interested in people being on the
level and but you've got to work hard
for that mutuality and I think everyone
should think about their workplaces the
language, how we create this.
I've got to be honest with you I'm a bit
of a curmudgeon about a lot of the
kindness that's happening with Covid
because you know isolation has been
around forever it's just now hitting the middle classes
and so you know it's now suddenly people
are doing hey let's come out into the
street well you know I've been working
with people who are maybe a little
smellier a little more challenging they
might be a pain in the ass
but we've not been coming out in the
streets for them and so for me it's
kind of like okay if you're gonna use
rainbows and love hearts you know
what's this about? Is this about you or
this about the person you're doing it to
I think it's about you sorry. Maff
do not apologise and fantastic and I've
got a question here from Jackie Carter
she says to you both, Donna talked about
the need for power you've both spoken about the
frustrations to put it mildly in
engaging with those in power, what advice
would you have for those listening to
get involved so we can change things? And
she explained she works in higher
education and teaches social science
students. Advice for Jackie either of you?
Well I mean if I knew how to effectively
change the minds of people in power I
wouldn't still have a job would I?!
You got to try you
know I think that the entire
all of the systems that are we're trying
to affect to change the world around
children are drenched in power
differentials. But the
biggest one is that a child is small and
dependent on big people and you know
until they you know
that they aren't in that paradigm where
we can say look you know best how to
look after yourself and we'll just let
you make that and see if you fall we'll
get it that's not the nature of
childhood so it is both the reason that
we have to have systems that ultimately
have quite a lot of power over children
and families like child protection
powers they can be used to abuse and
they can be used abusively and they
can be used with love but we can't not
have them because not having them means leaving a child to a power imbalance
that could kill them. I
like to think that within the children's
sector we have an acute sense of the
differential in power between adults who
have the ability to do things well or
badly and children who aren't yet in
similar or equal stage of power but you
know I've always wrestled with the
idea that the people that I speak to in
Whitehall or in Parliament have more
power than me because the reality when I
meet most of them is that they think
we've got more power than them and you
know sometimes power is assumed because you have control over a budget or you've been
elected to a seat in parliament that
means you can do things and I need to
appeal to your power and we often
fail to recognize that they don't
necessarily feel very powerful
themselves. So I usually try to
find common ground about how people are
being constrained in what they might
otherwise like to do by the system in
which they find themselves whoever they
are at whatever stage and then to find
common ground about how this system is
what needs to change and how do
we make that happen but if I'd
got that all right then we wouldn't need
to still be here working progress. Maff
I'm thinking given what you've done that
you've got some thoughts on this subject
to about where power lies and how power
can be used. Yeah I mean we made a lot of
mistakes setting up Camerado's we didn't realize
how much power we were wading through
and so we set up all these public living
rooms and
all these cliques started to form and
people start to create power and we
stupidly put staff into one public
living room because we wanted a cafe so
you know you can't poison people so we
had to have regulations and all that so
we employed staff and before we knew it
when our back was turned that the staff
had got themselves uniforms with staff
written on and and they started taking
people home with them and and buying
them stuff and it's like whoa. They were
they were fixing people because they
were staff and they were I don't know
presumably had more power or felt they
did and we just kind of like it was a
car crash we had to close that public
living room. We've never had a staff one
since we just realized that you would
stumbled naively into this minefield
of power so we realized that you
have to I'm sorry to come back to it but
the social Student Services a student
social student so who are going into
services my advice to them would be
aware of what you're turning up with
before you even open your mouth. When I
used to run homeless shelters many years
ago
the Metropolitan Police would come in
the door if something happened and I
really felt badly for them because just
looking at a policeman or a policewoman
it ruins the whole atmosphere
immediately well a social services
student or whatever you know they're
going to turn up and they're part of the
system and what they mean to the person
set opposite them is not good
probably so I would say do what
everything you can to break that down so
most of Camerdos principals and
I urge people to check them out on their
website is about disassembling that
power and bringing us on to the same
level you know I'm a bit crap too you
know our most popular badges I'm a bit
shit sometimes okay you talk about your
own failures don't try and fix people do
not try to fix people because if you
have a conversation that it doesn't
involve an outcome you'll be amazed what
actually does get fixed in and happen
but don't go in there with I'm here to
fix you because
I'm a social services student. So you
know these are some of our principles
which just try and break down that power
and create mutuality because I'm afraid
we don't believe live in a society where
mutual aid is natural. Yeah. And that
relates I think to another of the questions
that's come up about how to include love
and relationships in recruitment across
all levels and types of organization. I
think much of what you said there
touched on that Maff I don't know if you've
got anything more to add in that context
or Kathy what would you say about
the significance of the themes which
were exploring today for recruitment in
to organizations generally. I suppose
particularly public service
organizations. It's hard I mean if you
put out a job advert and said we want
people to come and love the kids here
it's hiding nothing and all sorts are
dangerous you know and as I said
we're constrained by the
knowledge that is hard learnt that there
anywhere that vulnerable children are is
somewhere there predatory people will
find. So there is a
there is an essential duty to do
some serious filtering of who we allow
to work with children but for the best
of reasons. One of the things that
that we have sort of a a small
long-running side campaign about is just
more broadly and for certainly for the
whole charity sector is just weaning us
all off the idea that university degrees
provide qualifications for jobs. So you
know because one of the
implications of all that we've been
discussing is that as professionals
whatever we count ourselves as
however we earn our living, whether we
think it's the definition of who we are
and our purpose in life or just the way
that we earn money to get on with the
life that defines us, you know you have
to bring your whole person to work the
and the workplace therefore
needs to see the whole person so you
know there are movements that want to
recognize and give higher credibility to
the expertise of having lived the
experience in which you want to work
later. You know
the expertise that comes from actually
having experienced the problems that other people are having now
what that has to offer and that's
really important but the last thing we
need to do is to just start listing its
be like experience of trauma and grief
or childhood problems as a
qualification for doing a job.
We've been on a journey
with this ourselves in terms of saying
there is no set qualification to work
for Children England what we want to
know is what you want to
achieve what's your passion what do you
know how do you go about doing these
things but like we are not looking for
graduates we're looking for people who
think and feel and are committed to
change. You have to work through
that process of knowing that you then
need to develop a different way of
assessing a whole load of people who are
going to come forward so it's it's not
as easy as it might sound. I think there
are pitfalls in it but for me it most
employers could disabuse themselves of
the idea of academic qualifications for
doing human facing work. What you've just
said about it not being as easy as it sounds
and I can certainly relate to that comes
to the last question we've got
time for which is have you had any
advice Kathy and Maff for holding your
nerve and the questioner Serena says
when you work in the social sector as
she does and all around are claiming
themselves as saviors of our communities
fixing people's loneliness and so on
What are some ways to hold your nerve, we've got a minute or two to look at
Good luck, Probably rather a lot of alcohol and music no I mean listen I won't lie
there's been some bad times but I
would say that I made a big mistake for
20 years which was and I think it's cuz
I'm a bad Catholic I felt I had to go
into the wilderness and convert the
heathens and that's where and work with
the bad energy because the bad
energy was where the real work was and
it isn't I got a lot of scars on my back
nearly lost my marriage certainly lost
my marbles a few times and the truth is
because it's bloody hard so my
sympathies if people are doing that with
a lot of bad energy I have to say that
working with good people where there's
good energy and finding those people in
the meeting
your in or in the organisation you're in
accelerates change so much faster and
better than working with the bad energy
and think no I'm going to convert them
I'm sorry to transmit this message but I
found that didn't get anywhere long-term
and it took too much toll on me and my
family. I would go where the good
energy is, it also relates to answer
about recruitment is the whole
recruitment process has to be a good
energy experience involving people and
the culture of your organization because
the people who were wrong will stand
out like a sore thumb. Thanks
Maff, Kathy any final thoughts. Only the
question throws me back to time that I
was training and counseling skills and I
mean had probably the most personally
challenging experience in my life but
but coming to terms with the
idea that in doing
personal work the social care work with
yourself, with your clients or your
service users or the children or however
we wanted to refer to it you would be at
any one time one of only three different
things Saviour victim or oppressor that
you know to that to that person who's
trying to work through their trauma
they're either asking you to be their
Saviour hoping that you're going to be
their Saviour and you need to hold off
from pretending to be but if you move
away from being their Savior you're
likely to end up feeling like a victim
of them or becoming oppressive towards
them and that I had to sit with that for
a really long time to fight to stop
finding it the bleakest thing I'd
understood. What it drove
home to me is that there's nothing
healthy about sitting in any satisfied
way with the idea that you're saving
anyone, it's 
natural it's inevitable and actually
sometimes it will be
people who are saying what a savior you
are look at you what a hero NHS hero you
know but but there's nothing healthy
about that there's nothing healthy about
that for the people you're working with
all for yourself so yeah whenever we
support people indulging savior
complex it's just for their own goods
it's worth kind of underlining it.
Kathy and Maff thank you so much we could go on
with this all day they've been so
stimulating I've got lots I'd like to
say there isn't time and I need to
process it anyway and I'll probably
write a blog drawing on a lot of what
I've heard today. Thank you
everybody who's joined us today we'll be
putting a recording of this on our
YouTube channel there you can also find
a recording of my conversation with Jos
de Blok from a couple of weeks ago we'll
be announcing further webinars when we
can we're a small team with lots to do
we'll get to it as soon as we can until
then please check out the Camerados website go and have a look
at the child fair state inquiry at
Children England take a look at Donna's
blog onBuurtzorg.org.uk and go well and
stay safe
Thanks Maff
you
