Author Archives: Hilary
Unsure Start For Sure Start?
The idea of ‘joined up’ services and support for babies and young children and their carers is excellent. The delivery is of course more complex. Sure Start may not as yet be a complete or fully accessed programme, but it is already showing us ways forward which hold promise for the future.
Sure Start’s a great idea. It’s intended to bring together all the support and services required by parents and carers of young children (up to their fourth birthday), so that those perhaps otherwise at risk will be able to flourish alongside their more fortunate classmates-to-be.
A National Evaluation of Sure Start report out this week from Birkbeck College, London, suggests however that at best the impact of Sure Start so far is ‘patchy’. Well, just three years from inception, I’d be rather surprised if it were anything else.
Grounded research
This, of course, is also what the evaluators say. Sure Start is a programme to reverse unconstructive or unfocused cultural patterns of behaviour which have sometimes now been embedded for decades. This is quite a challenge; and at present the programme still struggles to reach some of its target ‘audience’.
It may feel difficult to say this so starkly, but children may have very little chance unless they are offered more care and encouragement than some parents and carers can give. Fortunately, the very large majority of parents love their children; but that, without a synergy between positive examples of how to conduct onesself in adulthood and the opportunities to do so, is a tough call. This I think is what the evaluators are seeing thus far.
Tying future prospects into current contexts
It’s not just provision for small children which is on the agenda here. There’s also the whole question of how adults with the care of these children perceive and respond to their own world.
The message is not necessarily that new mothers (or indeed fathers) need to work full-time right now, but rather that they need to feel engaged in and connected with their communities and the opportunities which are there and on offer – whether joined up services, voluntary and social activities, education and training or whatever else.
Adults who themselves thrive in the world they inhabit are also adults who can care more confidently for their children. If we can help those currently engaged in caring for their young children to see a promising and potentially more prosperous future, then surely these adults will be more comfortably able to enjoy and nurture their small charges now.
Prioritising The Health Priorities
The messages of health promotion are universal; but are they coming over sufficiently effectively to the person in the street?
There are a number of things which anyone can do to enhance their chances of good health – don’t smoke, don’t drink too much, get some exercise and eat sensibly are the main bits of advice; and we could add to that, try to live in a physically healthy environment, make sure you have your immunisations, check ups and the like, and give your kids a good start in life (breastfeed, cuddle and talk to them, etc).
Not really rocket science, is it?
Why local priorities?
Given these universal priorities, the way healthy living is often promoted sometimes puzzles me. The messages are simple, and can I suspect be targeted quite straightforwardly where they have most effect. So why the huge plethora of leaflets, people and campaigns?
Of course some individuals will always want more than the generic message, and that’s good – if they know, they’ll probably tell others – but I suspect that the huge amount of ‘individually packed’ info which comes into play at the level of single primary care trusts is sometimes more confusing than helpful.
There are of course some priorities which apply more to certain places and people than others – smoking and unhealthy eating are two examples – but the wider the campaign, the more effect it will have.
Health promotion is often marketing
Perhaps I’ve got it wrong, but marketing is a specialist activity, and lots of health promotion boils down to marketing. And marketing often seems to work best when the message is simple.
By all means have more info ready in the wings, but perhaps more visible messages from the ‘centre’ would be helpful too. It’s beginning to happen, but it’s not yet connected for everyone.
Anger Management is a Key Skill
Emotional literacy, which includes anger management, is a fundamental of civil society. Let’s build very positively on the new acknowledgement that relational education can bring benefit to children who may be under stress and in need to support to make the most of their lives.
Good to see in today’s media that “>Anger Management is to be included in the school curriculum, at least on a pilot basis in 50 schools.
To be honest, I’m surprised it’s taken this long – but obviously pleased to see some recognition that this is necessary. As I know from work I’ve undertaken in the Youth Service, there is a real need to help young people see that sometimes ‘just walk away, stay cool’ is the very best response.
A skill for life, not just for school
But anger management, and its underlying corollary, emotional literacy, isn’t just something people require when learning in schools.
This is a fundamental for civil society – our democratic tradition, our work styles, and especially our family and personal lives, all function at a much better level when we can ‘read’ and respond to others, and indeed understand ourselves, at suitable levels of insight.
I hope this formal acknowledgement of emotional literacy – an aspect of development which has been promoted by some for many years – will over time become fully embedded in our understanding of children’s early years, in our parenting and educational skills and in our civic life. Some people already have it in spades; but everyone benefits when it’s there for us all.
Sunday Opening Conundrums
Sunday trading laws are antiquated in England, but surprisingly liberal in Scotland. Is there really any sensible rationale for stopping market forces from deciding when shops should be open and closed?
My computer decided to go on strike yesterday evening, so it was up and organised this morning to get down to PC World for a spot of techno-chat…. hardly my favourite way to start Sunday, but better than not getting on with it and thus risking an on-going problem during next week, when I’ll have no time to visit computer megastores.
Anyway, there we were at just before 11 a.m.; and the car park was full, with huddles of folk (mostly chaps) no doubt swapping e-tech tales around the bolted entrance to the shop.
Strange, isn’t it, that we in England are not allowed to do our own thing on the day which is for most of us likely to be free? We have but six hours on Sundays to get our groceries (unless we use the corner shop), go to the garden centre, buy the Christmas presents, or whatever else we fancy.
The Scottish way
But even stranger is that, in Scotland, that place of the Sabbath and the Puritan streak, shops can open whenever they please. None of this ‘no garden centres open on Bank Holiday Sundays’ and so forth. If the shop thinks it will get custom, it can be open as far as I can see.
So why the miserable hours on English Sundays?
One reason is undoubtedly that the Unions have been uncomfortable with Sunday opening. They fear it will intrude on family life and maybe on church attendance (it’s apparently hard luck if your religious observance doesn’t fall on Sundays) or whatever.
This general argument I have some limited sympathy with, but it could easily be addressed by a rule which allows employees currently in retail (but not those entering later on) to refuse to work on Sundays in the future, if it’s so important. I’m not at all sure however that this caution is actually necessary; big stores have a large workforces to call on, and are usually quite flexible towards individual employee preferences for rotas etc.
The English idyll?
Maybe it’s all part of the nostaligia which seems to afflict certain aspects of English life…. misty lanes, bicycles, autumn leaves and cream teas. Change is always threatening to some.
I don’t know for sure that flexible, market-responsive Sunday opening would affect local businesses much one way or the other, but I do know that for lots of workers (health, law, entertainment, catering and much else) the choice to limit their own professional services on Sundays just isn’t there anyway.
These workers apart, people generally have time on Sundays to go out as families, and to catch up on chores and so forth. Constraining unnecessarily ways in which most of us can spend our precious free day / weekend is pointless. If you can buy alcohol till all hours now, why not also bits of computer?
Sunday trading is one commercial area where the Market alone really should be allowed to set the pace.
The Politics Of Aspiration For All
Tony Blair has been unwavering in his determination to tackle low horizons head on. This challenge lies at the bottom of all his thinking on schools and how to improve them. But maybe the voluntary, faith and business groups the Prime Minister so wants to see become involved in schools should ask themselves first what they could do to raise ambition and opportunities for the wider families of the children who most need support.
Education, education, education…. and never conceding the politics of aspiration for all. The two things are, as Prime Minister Tony Blair rightly says in his Guardian article (18 November ’05), intimately connected. For almost all of us, and never more so than for those around the centre-left, this truth is both self-evident and compelling.
Perhaps however the Prime Minister’s idea that ‘there is a huge untapped energy in the private, voluntary and charity sectors for partnerships to help state schools’ is only part of the truth.
From where I look – in Merseyside, as someone who has seen quite a bit as a teacher, social worker, researcher, evaluator, entrepreneur and so on – I’m not sure this hits all the nails on the head. It may hit some; but not all.
The options for partnership action are wider
I’m still unconvinced that Tony Bair’s wished-for partnerships are most urgently needed in schools as such. For me, working on the ground, the politics of ambition has to be much broader than ‘just’ schools – though this is a part of the equation.
Ambition simply inside the school gates is not going to take many children very far. I accept that the Prime Minister’s idea of education-other sector partnerships is (at least for now) a matter of choice; but many of the least blessed parents who, like everyone else, want the best for their children, are less concerned with well-meaning voluntary and faith groups or businesses getting involved with their kids, than they are with getting themselves into work.
For lots of people on Merseyside the main objective is just to get a job – and preferably a decent one. If voluntary and business interests, for instance, want to support disenfranchised people, perhaps they could begin by finding ways to employ them.
There are plenty of currently almost-trained adults on Merseyside whose future trade registration depends on work experience which is very hard to find. (Small businesses say they can’t afford to provide this for apprentices; and most of Merseyside’s economy is small businesses….) So how about starting with opportunities for less privileged parents and carers to show their children what ‘real work’ is, by being able to actually do it, for pay?
Ambition is a cultural thing
I don’t doubt for a minute that Tony Blair genuinely wants to see progress and improvements for our children and their futures. He’s absolutely right to throw down the gauntlet to us all. If we, voluntary, faith, business and other communities, want the best for children, we do indeed need to think hard about where we can best support and encourage.
And we need, too, consistently to challenge complacency, incompetence and / or narrow comfort zones, whether in local communities, schools, hospitals, industry, churches or indeed politics itself. If there are employment, educational, medical or other practitioners who don’t cut the mustard, they need to understand just why this is not acceptable – though not at the (perceived) expense of people ‘at the coalface’ who are in fact doing a good job.
I still wonder however whether we have the right ‘mix’ in all this, as yet. Tony Blair has identified and articulated an important, probably fundamental, problem, in that he sees (and always has seen) education and ambition as key elements of a successful future for everyone. But I’d like to think that all those sectors apparently so keen to go into partnership to support children can grasp the aspirational challenge outside the school gates, as well as inside.
Enterprising or Entrepreurial?
The English language is surprisingly unhelpful when we consider the different ways in which enterprising people take on social and private businesses. Why is there no noun, other than ‘entrepreneur’, which reflects the variations between different ways of going about one’s ‘business’? And does this indefinite mode of ‘naming’ influence the way that some folk approach the business world?
I had a very interesting conversation today with a friend who works in suporting Liverpool businesses.
We were mulling over the issue of more public than private sector economic activity in Merseyside, and we got onto social enterprise. The reason there’s so much social enterprise here, it seems, may be that most people who decide to set up their own business come from working in the public sector… so their previous professional experience was of being employed by the state or local government.
From this public sector background, the full-blown private sector can look pretty scary, a step too far. Social enterprise is perhaps seen as closer to the ethos of public service, and perhaps less daunting, than would be full private sector competition in all its glory.
Enterprising and self directed
In some sense the ‘social’ option permits one to develop one’s skills in an enterprising way, without having to ‘go for it’ as would be necessary in a private business.
In my dictionary (Concise Oxford) enterprise is defined as ‘[an] undertaking, esp. bold or difficult one; business firm; courage, readiness, to engage in enterprises’. When defining the adjective, ‘enterprising’, the word ‘imaginative’ is added to this list.
In other words, people who are enterprising are willing to take on challenging and stretching tasks; but they may or may not aim to make financial profit as such. Mostly, it could be said of those who are enterprising that they like to choose their own way forward, and perhaps survive on their skills and wits, rather than that they are out for what they can get in the purely financial sense.
Entrepreneurial and in control
My dictiionary has a slightly different take on the meaning of ‘entrepreneur’. It says of entrepreneurs that these are people ‘in effective control of [a] commercial undertaking; [they] undertake a business or enterprise, with a chance of profit or loss…’.
So is the difference between someone who is ‘enterprising’ and someone who is ‘entrepreneurial’, that the latter are willing to drive forward – not simply direct – their activity in a way that exposes them to risk as well as profit?
Would social entrepreneurs agree?
It’s probably unjust to suggest that some social entrepreneurs are unwilling to take risks; the best and most socially amibitious of them certainly do… though sometimes – not always – the ‘risk’ may be more to their standing and others’ view of their skills and judgement, than directly to their pockets. (Social entrepreneurs, please do disagree, if you wish!)
Nonetheless, there may be something in this. We are many and varied in the way we see the world. Some of us value hard cash and all that goes with it; some of us put more store by value judgements of other kinds; and of course some of us try to bring these different, perhaps in part conflicting, elements of our lives together in what we set out to do. The world is a complex place.
Inadequate vocabulary
There’s one thing that strikes me about all this, however: There simply isn’t a separate noun in the English language which refers to people who are enterprising, rather than those, the ‘entrepreneurs’, who are entrepreneurial in the ‘strong’ sense.
When we talk about people setting up small businesses (even if they have absolutely no intention to become big ones), or social enterprises, we use the same word – entrepreneur – as when we discuss those who seek to take on huge financially make-or-break activities of the fundamentally ‘red in tooth and claw’ sort, in the private sector.
What’s the best balance of enterprise to entrepreneurship?
Perhaps this lack of distinction in our naming of activities and roles goes a little way towards explaining the lack of ‘ambition’ in significant numbers of people, for instance, in Merseyside. Because they haven’t actually rubbed shoulders with too many folk who really are ‘full-blooded’ entrepreneurs, they don’t recognise there are two senses in which one can become enterprising and / or entrepreneurial.
Undoubtedly, many industrious business people, in both the social and the private sectors, would not want to be entrepreneurial in the strongest sense, even if they saw the opportunity. I’d be interested, nonetheless, to find out what general percentage of businesses in any locality is the best predictor of a healthy and reasonably stable economy. Does anybody know?
‘Lifestyle’ Versus Value Creation In Merseyside’s Economy
Merseyside’s economy is often criticised for being too public-sector driven. And now the critque has extended to some sharp observations about the type of businesses which are here, as well as just how few of them there are. Maybe a bit of ‘experience swap’ would help us to get a wider picture?
There has been a lot of comment in recent years about the over-reliance of the Merseyside economy on the public sector, over the private one. It’s not so much, we are told, that there’s too much of the former, but rather that there’s not enough of the latter.
But now it seems even that defence is blown. At his quarterly report to the Liverpool Society of Chartered Accountants, corporate financier Steve Stuart has criticised Merseyside’s private sector for being ‘life-style’ at the expense of ‘value creation’.
This seems fair comment. Apparently, of 27,000 VAT-registered businesses in the area, 26,000 employed fewer than five people – and less than 700 had a turnover of more than £2m.
Too cosy or too costly?
The problem seems to be that most local businesses are averse to interference from outsiders, and like to do things their own way. This is a situation for which Mr Stuart holds local business advisers in part responsible.
Given the choice of external ‘interference’, or keeping things within the family, nearly all business people in these parts chooses to stay cosy. Not many want to take on the extra cost of private equity funding.
Well, I’m not surprised. Who around here has even heard of private equity funding? Of course, those in the world of banking are familiar on a day-to-day basis with this sort of arrangement; but you don’t bump into equity financiers on every corner in these parts.
This is, sadly, a part of the country where having A-levels is quite a considerable achievement for some folk… and where the difference between a pass degree and a doctorate is often seen – if it’s understood at all – as an irrelevant distinction. So not many of our home-grown entrepreneurs are bothered about the fancy stuff.
Who’s responsible for the Merseyside economy?
But before we ‘blame’ anyone too much for this unambitious state of affairs, for inhabiting such cosy comfort zones, it might be interesting to ask exactly who we think is ‘responsible’ for the health of our local economy. And my answer is, I’m not sure anyone really knows.
For my part, I regret that local people seem to need to be so cosy; but I don’t think it reasonable, given the claustrophobic and stultifying circumstances in which they survived until quite recently, to expect everyone in Merseyside who owns a business to want to go Big Time.
Before we see too much progress here I suspect we shall have to shake things up a bit – and one way might, dare I say it, be to bring in business ‘advisers’ from other parts of the country… and invite our home grown ones to work in differently-challenged business environments elsewhere, for the experience this would bring of other ways of doing things.
Then we’d all get a view of how green the grass is (or, depending, isn’t) on the other side of the fence. And that might really make some of us take ownership of pushing our local economy forward.
Where Are All The Physicists?
A new report says Physics is at risk of dying out in schools. However can this be, when Physics is one of the most intrguing and exciting stories on the block?
I have a real Thing about how invisible Science and Technology are. It’s everywhere around us; yet most people seem simply not to see it.
Hw do we transact our communications? How do we take ourselves from A to B? How do we keep our food fresh and our homes warm… You get the picture.
But there’s no Big Take on science. We imagine those who actually do it are ‘Boffins’ (whatever that may mean). And anyway it’s all too hard with too many sums, so who cares?
The Missing Physicists
In the light of this general view (correct me if it’s wrong), I’m hardly surprised to read today that there is a severe deficit of Physicists. Again, So what?, you may ask.
Well, it’s like this: Physicists and those in closely related disciplines are the people who lead much of the high-spend and high-impact knowledge economy. They take our understanding of the world and how it is made to places people in previous generations never even dreamt of; and with their engineering colleagues they also lead much of our industrial innovation.
Plus, they are the people who teach the next generation about the nature of what at the most fundamental levels makes the world go round. Taught properly, this is one of the most exciting things anyone can ever learn…. I studied A-level Physics many years ago, and although I shall never make a Physicist, it hooked me. You see things in a very different, and quite amazing, light when you begin to learn what sub-atomic particles are all (or even a bit) about!
Why aren’t there enough Physics teachers?
I’d guess there are a number of answers to the question of where all the Physics teachers have gone.
Firstly, good Physicists get snapped up in industry and finance, for large amounts of money. Not many others can manipulate and analyse figures like they can. Teachers’ salaries are no match for what the city and the biggest industrial companies can offer.
Then there’s the prospect of teaching itself. Teaching is difficult, it can be draining, a lot of children are – and always have been – resistant to the sort of complex studies required by well defined disciplines (in any academic field).
And finally, in my books, there’s the question of ‘relevance’. Because we hardly ‘see’ Science and Technology, we don’t understand why it’s relevant.. and you try teaching youngsters things which they believe have no relevance…
The excitement of Physics
But it’s not even just that there are now fewer Physics teachers than before. A news story this week also tells us that the number of Physics teachers who are actually well qualified has dropped dramatically.
Would it be reasonable to suggest that some of this is because Science, and especially the hard physical sciences, are so invisible that we don’t value it? If we did, of course, people would want to teach Physics, and even more importantly students would want to study it.
There’s a big challenge here for the scientists themselves: Tell people, loudly and clearly, why Physics excites you! Show them why it’s ‘relevant’… and even maybe tell them that the best Physicists earn lots of money….
In other words, please try to understand that even the most challenging and abstract ideas in disciplines such as Physics can become interesting, when people know these ideas exist and perceive them as integral to our society and how it is moving forward, in so many ways.
There’s a massive PR job to be done here. Investigating the very nature of matter is about as exciting as it gets. We all need to share in the excitement; but that can only happen when someone takes action to ensure we know about it.
Friends Of Sefton Park
The Friends of Sefton Park (in Liverpool) have been making excellent progress in taking forward their work for the city….
The initative to promote Sefton Park seems to be going on apace.
The Friends of Sefton Park now have a new e-group which people associated with the Friends can join; and the plans for the future of the Park are developing and being debated quite rapidly. (Anyone who wants to join the Friends of Sefton Park Group could contact me directly via ‘Email Hilary’ on my home page, and I will send the expression of interest on to the Group.)
One thing which I find fascinating is how many of us with serious involvement in the environment are also e-contactable and so forth. Obviously, e-technology is a low-energy activity, once it’s all set up – and we don’t have to use petrol and paper to be in touch!
See also: Sefton Park’s Grebes And Swans
Liverpool’s Sefton Park, Swans, Herons And Grebes
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Cherry Blossom For May Day In Sefton Park, Liverpool
What Now For Liverpool’s Sefton Park?
Cherry Picking Liverpool’s Sefton Park Agenda
Liverpool’s Sefton Park Trees Under Threat – Unnecessarily?
Solar Lighting Could Solve The Parks Problem
The Eco-Community is All of Us
Building sustainability into community life will take a real shift in how we do things; but, just like weight-loss diets, it will only work for most of us if it’s something we find enjoyable and actually want to do.
It’s been very interesting to see how everyone has responded (on- and off-line) to recent postings here on Eco issues.
I started with a piece on ‘allotments for all’, wandered through some thoughts on Tesco and the other superstores, and have so far ended up with ideas around building communities in which sustainable living becomes part of the common, shared experience. (All these postings are listed below, if you want to have another look.)
The theme which is emerging for me is that we (literally) can’t afford to make sustainability into a ‘do it because it’s good for you’ exercise. It’s too important for that. And evidence elsewhere (e.g. with weight-loss diets) shows that people simply won’t carry on doing what they should unless they really believe it’s for the best and, critically, it fits into their pattern/s of living.
So, we can get a little way with house-to-house collections (Liverpool does these too; and it still has almost the lowest recycling turnover of any place around), and we can indeed troop up to Tesco or wherever with our recycle bags, when we go shopping (one lot of petrol, two missions). But some people don’t have cars, though they may have babies, or no job, or boring, isolated days…..
Fitting the practice to the people
This is why the ‘little but often’ approach might work for certain folk. It’s nice to have places to go, especially if in a good cause (i.e. recycling and community-building, in this case); and it’s nice to have things to grow, as people would if they had back-yard allotments – which is of course also where the green waste would be composted.
I strongly suspect – though we’d need much more evidence to be sure – that giving people reasons to get out and about, even if only to recycle stuff and meet up with neighbours (see Eco-Inclusion), would help to develop local relationships, and thus the community as a whole. In some ways, it’s like parents waiting at the school gates – but in this case it can be everyone, not just carers of small children.
And, if previous experience serves me right, meeting up informally but for a purpose also gives everyone in a locality reason to become more invoved in their community, and to make this more of a reality in terms of common interests and ambitions for the future.
A new sort of community?
Get people to relax and talk to each other, and you never know where it will take them (or you). Giving them an excellent reason to do this (recycling) adds impetus to the process.
I’m trying to think out new ways to connect, which also take account of eco-considerations – without adding further rules and constraints to people’s everyday lives.
It would be impossible to persuade everyone to give up cars and all the other things we’ve grown to think of as essential for our lives; but adding a bit of community spirit might ‘include in’ more, and more varied, people of all kinds to the very necessary task of tryng to sustain the eco-communities in which we, everyone of us, have to live.
Dreaming Realist 