Category Archives: Equality, Diversity And Inclusion
Where Were The People When They Did The Planning?
There are housing estates designed in such a way that it’s almost to find a route in and out of them without a car. Many people on the edge of urban areas live in such places, cut off from others, in their own constrained ‘comfort’ zones. Whatever were the planners thinking of? And what can be done now to raise horizons and expectations?
I’ve recently been visiting a number of ‘disadvantaged’ communities, walking and driving around housing estates and out-of-town areas which many of us who don’t live in them rarely see.
It’s often quite a pleasant job. Most folk anywhere will make you feel welcome and at home. People in these areas as much as anywhere else will of course do their best to help, advise and engage with those who visit them, and there’s always lots to learn.
But… but… whatever were the planners thinking of when they permitted these estates to be devised? Where are the centres, where are the decent shops, where’s the clinic / surgery, where’s the (secondary) school, where are the meeting places? And, oh so importantly, where on earth are the quick, safe links between the various localities?
For many of these areas, there are in effect only one or at best two roads in and out; plus, the linking footpaths, if they, are grim in every sense – not at all routes that most of us would care to take.
All this means that many more people than we might imagine live in ‘closed’ communities. Public transport is poor, cars few and far between; there is precious little chance of going outside one’s immediate vicinity.
Here, then, is planned ‘comfort zoning’ of the worst sort. The big wide world may be out there, but it’s almost inaccessible; and the small zone of personal experience which is easily navigable becomes far more enclosing than it decently should.
It must also be said, on the basis of my recent experience, that even when planners have included facilities within given areas, these facilities have sometimes been allowed to transmute from ‘community’ facilities to yet more housing – the shop or centre wasn’t doing well; it closed; then it was acquired for private developers…. and now it’s flats. So now there are even fewer ‘facilities’. How do ‘they’ allow this to happen?
If the next generation is to see the world through more open eyes, the current one has to be able to take youngsters out and about. If adults in a community are to raise their expectations and amibitions, they have to be able to meet others and see things beyond their immdeiate experience.
Nowhere (except pubs?) to meet, and no way out of the estate, are not the best encouragements to the necessary wider agenda for progress. There’s a job of work for infrastructure designers – get in there and open up the passages between areas; and there’s an opportunity for entrepreneurs, public and private – start to add value to communities with meeting / leisure and proper retail facilities.
The enterprise is to some small extent beginning to happen, but how can it take off when communities remain isolated and the chances of increasing market size in an area are contrained quite simply by almost no ways in and out?
Where Are Liverpool’s Parks And Open Spaces?
Liverpool has a number of fascinating green spaces, including Calderstones, Croxteth, Dovecot, Everton, Greenbank, Norris Green, Otterspool, Princes, Reynolds, St James’, Sefton, Stanley and Wavertree Parks, as well as other Gardens and Churchyards…. The contribution which follows is a direct invitation to readers to comment on these vital ‘lungs’ in this historic city.
Liverpool has a number of fascinating green spaces, including Calderstones, Croxteth, Dovecot, Everton, Greenbank, Newsham, Norris Green, Otterspool, Princes, Reynolds, St James’, Sefton, Stanley and Wavertree Parks, as well as other Gardens and Churchyards…. and no doubt others can add comment about, and more information immediately to, this list.
The City Council now has a draft strategy for developing some of these spaces, but there’s still a place for people to befriend their favourite parks.
So please do let us know about your Parks and their Friends.* Let’s make a list of the contacts for all these wonderful green spaces in our city.. Our parks and green spaces are important and people’s views and ideas need to be shared. You can add your information and comments below, or, as others have done, in for instance the Sefton Park ‘slot..
Friends’ Groups so far of which I am aware are:
Croxteth Hall & Park
St James’ Cemetery & Park
Newsham Park
Princes Park
Sefton Park
[*Note to contributors: You don’t need to display any more of your details than you wish when you give your name. This website only asks for your email address, privately, so that we can ban spammers, not you!!]
What Now For Liverpool’s Sefton Park? (A Monday Women Debate)
Plans for Sefton Park are taking shape rapidly – as are ideas for several of Liverpool’s other Parks. Monday Women decided to have a debate; points from our discussion follow. Your contributions on how Liverpool’s Parks should be developed are also most welcome.
Meeting up with other Monday Women this evening, one very hotly discussed topic of conversation was the merits or otherwise of plans for Sefton, Otterspool and Newsham Parks. Amongst the issues considered, of course, was the fate of the cherry trees by the middle lake.
It’s actually very heartening that so many people wanted to talk about these plans in detail, and to continue the discussion elsewhere. We therefore came up with the idea of making this topic a ‘main’ item on my website…. so here it is!
I’ll kick off with a few thoughts on plans for Sefton Park, in my own locality (years ago, this would have been Newsham Park, so I have something of a ‘compare and contrast’ perspective on developments).
The main issues in contention for Sefton Park currently seem to include:
* Do we want lighting, or bats? (Maybe we want both; how about ground-level lighting of the southern, presently non-lit, paths.. which would also remove any concerns about strollers being well-lit, and supposed potential assailants lurking invisibly in bushes ‘behind’ the lights) How will we ensure that the vibrant wild and bird life of the park is nurtured?
* Why are the only toilets in the Park in the Central Kiosk? (The Palm House has some, of course, but they are not open to the public.)
* Do people realise that the Park is far from ‘natural’? (Conservation is a managed process; many trees, bushes and supplings have just grown as they will, and some of these probably do need to be removed.)
* How will the intended new waterways be designed? And how will they be kept clean and clear?
* Has anyone realised that, if the attached allotments (apparently controlled not by Parks & Gardens, but by Recreation & Leisure…) are drained to remove waterlogging, there is a fear that the water will cascade across the Park?
* What sorts of performance space/s are intended for the Park? Will these be all-weather, and who will manage them?
* Is there any scope for a pleasant meeting place / restaurant at the south end of the Park, and what will become of the Central Kiosk? Will there be any public art?
* Where will young people be able safely to congregate in the evening and at weekends, whilst younger children, families and older people can continue to enjoy the quieter aspects of the facility?
There are lots of questions, some of them quite fundamental, in the issues being raised, so it’s good to be able to report that we can expect a Public Exhibition and Consultation on the Sefton Park proposals, cum December. Watch this space for details!
And, in the meantime, please do carry on the debate right here. (NB You don’t have to publish your details; the only check we make on this website is that you are not a spammer!) We all look forward to hearing your views, below…
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
Cherry Picking Liverpool’s Sefton Park Agenda
Liverpool’s Sefton Park Trees Under Threat – Unnecessarily?
Solar Lighting Could Solve The Parks Problem
Friends Of Sefton Park
Technology & Enterprise: The Good News For UK plc
A very high global ranking in use of ICT, plus a report that Britain now has the best financial environment for entrepreneurs in the world, will be welcomed by many, but might seem more of a mixed blessing to a few. Combine this however with a UK Government paper showing how ICT can support even the most excluded, and perhaps everyone could agree that maybe we’re on to something really promising?
The Economist doesn’t always carry the cheeriest of good news for us Brits, but this week’s edition does provide some interesting information.
The Milken Institute, a think-tank in California, has reported that Britain now has the best financial environment for entrepreneurs of the 121 countries (92% of the global market) it has ranked every year since 1998. The Institute looks at the breadth, depth and vitality of each country’s capital markets – and has concluded that we are ahead even of Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA for the first time.
Then, also in the 5th November edition, the Economist tells us that the World Bank has rated Britain below only our competitors above, plus Denmark, in capacity to exploit information and communication technology (ICT). This index is based on the availability, quality, affordability, efficiency and adoption of ICT.
Perhaps for some these reports raise alarm rather than cheer, but there’s another interesting piece of news too – the UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has just released a report, Digital Solutions to Social Exclusion, which suggests ICT may be of benefit even to the most excluded of our citizens. It is now being used to help homeless people to get jobs, maintain medical support, and much else.
Nobody’s suggesting that everything in the garden is rosy; it never is. But here is evidence indeed that science and technology can, with the right push, work hand in hand with the market to enhance life chances for a whole lot of people.
Managing Change And Programmes: Beginning A New Adventure
Social policy implementation ‘on the ground’ is challenging – though it may also be exciting and certainly well worthwhile. We can all learn from comparing our expectations with the reality which follows……
I start a new assignment today. It involves working with a public service multi-disciplinary team in a socio-economically ‘challenged’ environment, as they take forward a programme of services to meet local need. And, whilst they do this, the team have been told they must adapt and develop the nature of the programme itself so that, in accordance with new government policy, it becomes a more integrated and seamless provision.
That’s the way with nationally led programmes these days; and probably all for the better. But it does give rise to questions:
* How much development against how much change?
* How much adaptation of actual practice against just presentational adjustment to ensure that the service is used more effectively?
* How well equipped and resourced (professionally and materially) are those who must take forward the change?
* And…. will the intended recipients of the new, developed service find it helpful? How will we know if we’re providing the best we can?
I’m really looking forward to joining the team. They’re experienced and committed and will I know do everything they can to help me settle in and make progress. Agreeing what ‘making progress’ really means will I hope be an adventure in which we can all move forward together.
I shall in all probabality return on this website to specific policy issues at some point in the future, but for now I will make a few very cautious predictions about how I will learn from (and hopefully contribute to) the work in hand……
The first element of joining a team is the mapping – I’ll spend a while finding out in a bit more detail who’s who and what they do. Usually this begins to happen quite naturally in the course of actually finding out where things (the various venues? a desk? a phone?) are located. The practicals seem to take one also to the people.
Then there’s the analysis phase; are we all agreed that we have what we need? Who or what can plug the gaps – and to what extent? I know the team manager has already sorted the programme as it stands in considerable detail, but it will be interesting to swap notes with him and our colleagues about outstanding requirements for the anticipated changes ahead.
I’d guess the next stage after this will be consulting with others outside the immediate team; local authority decision-makers, other service providers, and of course with those who will be at the receiving end of the service. This is all so inter-related that it’s very difficult to predict how it will end up. But the main thing is to be clear about agreed objectives. Problems can usually be overcome if people know and are comfortable with what they’re aiming at.
And finally there’s implementation. At the moment details of what will be required of us all are still very outline; hopefully the government will give us rather more specific information and guidelines very shortly. It’s difficult for colleagues when they aren’t sure what’s expected, so that needs to be sorted a.s.a.p. (I’m never really certain those at the very top appreciate how difficult uncertainty can be for workers at the delivery face. Challenge is fine; destabilisation and all that follows from it may not be, from anyone’s persepctive.)
So there we go. A few predictions and comments for starters. I will of course steer quite clear of talking about details – that’s just for us as a team – but I’ll maybe return some time to say whether my expectations of process were on the ball….. Change is the order of the day, but it’s a relatively uncharted course in the practical sense for many who have to adapt to, and indeed deliver, it.
One of the best ways to learn is to test reality and the art of the possible against the expectational theory.
But whatever the shape of what we eventually come up with, I know that everyone on the project I’m joining for a while wants the best; and that’s a very good start.
Is Art Good For Your Health?
Why is commissioned art in hospitals such a problem for some? The evidence suggests that, just as much as in other public and work places, art can help people to be comfortable and positive.
There they are, the arbiters of ‘value’, getting very upset about money which has been spent in one or two hospitals on ‘art’. It’s a waste, they declare. We could be buying more drugs or equipment, but we’re squandering the readies on something that you just…. look at!
Well, perhaps these joyless folk haven’t grasped the concept of added value. Perhaps the evidence, from a variety of sources, that being happy (or at least, happier than before) helps you to get better has passed them by. If you can see green vistas, or pleasant pictures and images, you will relax more easily, and you may even be able to leave hospital a day or so earlier than if you’re stuck in a grey and souless place.
There are not that many ways in which service providers can actually save on overall budget and, at the same time, increase effectiveness and make people happier – but this is indeed one of them!
No-one seems to be saying that art is going to replace medical treatments. Proper consideration of clinical diagnosis and treatment must always be absolutely paramount. Medicine will however always be an art as well as a science.
If people in hospital have pleasant things to see and think about, if they can look at artefacts which help them to feel they are still connected with their wider comminuties and interests, if there are nice things to talk about with fellow patients, that makes a difference.
But ‘nice things to look at’ don’t just appear; they have to be created. I remember Adrian Henri, who painted murals for the operating theatre suite at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, recounting how much research he was obliged to do before he so much as lifted a brush. He had to ensure his images gave no unwitting offence or alarm to patients from many different faiths and cultures as they entered a place none of volunters to visit.
Perhaps those who choose to take such a high-handed and cold view of what’s appropriate for people in hospitals should remember that the evidence also points compellingly to the idea that pleasant workplaces are good… and that applies whether you work in a commercial office or a medical context. We all benefit from environments which make us comfortable and positive. And the evidence is there to show this benefit can be measured in outcomes even accountants would acknowledge.
Within sensible reason, let’s agree that there’s always a place, when were thinking about real people, for soul as well as science. Who knows when any of us might be in hospital and glad of a little visual cheer?
The 5+ Cs of Chairing
Control and Command, or Communicate, Consult and Collaborate? There are other ‘Cs of Chairing’ too, but what do all these terms tell us about how modern organisations and people see the world?
It used to be quite easy. If you were Chair(man – most of them were male) of a meeting or organisation, you sat there and issued directions and edicts as prescribed.
That role of course still exists, especially in legal some other formal contexts. But these days there tends to be a lot more to it than that.
People in general are not so willing to go along with being told what to do. They question things. As a Chair you have to establish your authority in more ways than simply being appointed or elected: you have to show others that you know what you’re doing, and why.
This applies particularly in political and community contexts. Chairs may well need to use a Command and Control style in the military or a legal situation, but they will need to show leadership of another kind if they want to take things forward successfully in situations where those involved are not obliged to be there.
Communicate, Consult and Collaborate may well be a more effective method than Command and Control to make progress, when individuals in a group can opt out at least as easily as they opt in.
There are of course snags in this newer approach: how can you be sure to get things done? But on the whole Command and Control probably in reality also produced only a fraction of the effect that ideally orders might have – if people want to be difficult, they will always find ways to be so.
I suspect nonetheless that the issue of what people actually expect from a Chair has become more critical in relatively recent times, having particular impact for, say, voluntary organisations or political parties. ‘The troops’ still need, from the organisation’s perspective, to be put in place at strategic points in time, and they need to be marshalled in sufficient numbers to have impact. In order to achieve this, should the Contemporary Chair issue Orders, or would it be better to Coax and Cajole?
Resolution of this dilemma can present a challenge, unless sufficient preparatory work has been done. A Chair (whether of a small voluntary group or of a massive national organisation) who understands that individual members need consistently to be valued and informed, is more likely when the crunch comes to be effective than one who has forgotten these fundamentals.
There’s a whole lot of difference between Telling someone and Engaging them; but folk will generally accept the the former if the latter happened first. (Of course there are also exceptional issues around every individual’s responsibility for their own actions, regardless of if and when they receive encouragement – voting, for instance, ‘should’ be a civic duty, not an action predicated on being ‘asked’ to vote.)
A rule of thumb for Contemporary Chairs could be: Lead from the front, but Listen at the back. Communicate before you Command.
I don’t think people have abandoned the idea of organisational leadership. Sometimes, especially when the stakes are high, they positively demand it. But they also expect those who direct them to acknowledge, very actively, that the prerogative of Command has to be given, accorded by Collective Consent, and not imposed.
Facilitation & Leadership
Leaders offer direction; Facilitors generally should not. But how fluid is this distinction, and to what effect?
Do Leaders emerge or are they made? Are some Facilitators also Leaders? Or is the role of a Faciltator to bring about change through the agency of others – perhaps those who already have the mantle of Leadership, or perhaps others who will come to the fore via the process being facilitated?
The answer is probably that both these models apply in different circumstances.
A professional Facilitator (whether paid or not) is someone whose task is to bring forward responses from a group which has already asked for this to happen, maybe via an already established Leader.
On the other hand an informal Facilitator (usually a volunteer) may be someone who wants to get a group or interest established as an entity in itself. Such a person may well emerge from that group as a Leader.
And why are these distinctions important?
Again, the answers vary. Sometimes for instance informal facilitation is a route to significant developments which can be harnessed by, say, regeneration or other ‘official’ bodies to bring forward spokespeople for given interests. Conversely, on occasion it has been known for formal Facilitators to take upon themselves a leadership role acceptable by those who engaged them, but perhaps not by those whom they are facilitating.
The more the variables are considered, the more likely it is that the role claimed, Facilitator or Leader?, is that which is in fact being enacted.
Why Change Management can’t be perfect (as if you didn’t know)
Different communities and groups frequently have different understandings of why ‘change’ occurs and how ‘progress’ is achieved. Leadership and initiatives in such circumstances can be very challenging. Nobody’s interested in Policy Pilots. They want Results.
It’s always puzzled me, and the more I think about it, the more so…..
We all know that
(a) we live in times of rapid change,
(b) the variables in the changes are uncountable, and
(c) to whatever extent, change has to be eternally managed.
In other words, we are solidly aware that the whole process is unpredictable and subject to serendipity at every stage of the game. Plus, there’s never an end. Change is a dialectic as compelling as Time itself.
Why is ‘change’ a worry?
So why do so many people spend so much time criticising ‘Change’, and apparently so little time in general public discourse considering ‘Since Something Is Going To Happen Anyway, What Shall We All Do To Make It A Bit Better?’
Clearly, the myriad of forces which impel change as such also apply to the motivators and causal factors behind any individual’s reaction to that change. There are psychological ones, socio-political ones, geo-economic ones… The list could go on.
There is also however a general cultural factor which probably applies diffierently at different times and in different places, whether we are thinking about huge historical eras or micro-contexts like single workplaces.
Here are some possible scenarios to which one might be able to apply specific examples.. just fill in with your own!
The cultural backdrop
In some cultural understandings – and again these may be micro as well as macro – there is a sense simply that Things Happen. This probably includes amongst other ‘Things’ people who are outside the group, who are perceived with whatever degree of acceptance or resistance to be the agents of the change…. No good communicating with them, because ‘We’ won’t make any impact, so just wait and see, and then judge the outcome.
Then there are other cultural understandings which may suggest that, whilst ‘We’ are aware of what’s going on, the option of complaint later is preferable to taking early responsibility for what arises. The Comfort Zone is visible, but is safer than expending the time and energy which a pro-active response would require.
And finally there are cultural understandings which just fail to appreciate the fluid nature of the process of developing ideas. In this case, people do know how to interrogate proposals and they may well have strong views, but they see every decision and outcome as cast in stone.
This last is a particularly difficult position to address, but one familiar to many of us who attempt to initiate Managed Change.
Vague ideas which leave things hanging…
You perhaps go into a situation with a remit to support constructive developments, and you ask those concerned what they think. Their response is, ‘Well, what do you want?’……
But you know that, come the time when plans crystallise into actions, there will be plenty of advice on What You Should Have Done.
The dialectic of such development is challenging. Not everyone sees any difference between Change and ‘Consensual Progress’; nor does everyone want to. If you as an initiator emphasise the plasticity of outcomes, you are accused of not knowing your stuff; but if you offer directional leadership (is there any other sort?) you are of course autocratic.
It’s all a matter of perspective, as any politician or organisational head attempting to pilot his or her favourite policy will tell you.
Empowerment
Empowering people and communities to believe that things can usually change consensually for the better – that only very rarely is there no space for adjustment – is one of the most difficult aspects of community leadership, whatever the ‘community’.
Perhaps one of the first steps in this direction is the acknowledgement that we all, You, Me, Them, make mistakes; and that it IS possible to learn from and act on these, positively.
Angry Young Men in Bradford, Toxteth, Oldham, Salford, Lozells…
In every era of history young men have demonstrated hotheaded and sometimes unacceptable behaviour. Recent violence in our inner cities is nonetheless hugely worrying, especially in contemporary contexts of instant communications and global politics. Intervention to change this behaviour must come from many different angles. One way is collaboration between youth service and school professionals to help alientated and challenged young people develop skills to help themselves.
Groups of young men (and just occasionally now young women) who rove the streets perhaps not averse to a fight, or perhaps even a riot, are nothing new. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare wrote about the mediaeval tragedy of the Montagues and Capulets; and Mods and Rockers in the nineteen fifties were the basis of Graham Green’s novel Brighton Rock.
But that this happened in the past doesn’t in any way mean that it’s not of deep concern now. Indeed, with global communication many might argue that, when hotheaded youth meets fundamental conviction, the problem for us all is if anything more serious than before.
The issue in a generally tolerant society is obviously very testing. How can we tell young people meaningfully that we value them, and everyone else, as individuals, whilst also making it crystal clear that we do not, and cannot in any circumstance, tolerate the belief of a minority that violence is sometimes justifiable?
Starting early
The answer lies in part with how we provide for young people and children, in schools, youth groups, in their communities (howsoever defined – which can be a big question…). And we have to start early.
Quite recently I was the evaluator in a project which involved close collaboration between the youth service and two schools in a hugely disadvantaged part of a northern city.
Multiple challenges
The object of this pilot collaboration was to see how intervention by the youth service could support children in secondary education who faced multiple challenges. Some of them were
very low achievers, some had personal problems, some were asylum seekers (who often didn’t speak much English). The majority were boys.
What became very clear to us all, teachers, youth workers and others, was that these children needed to develop confidence and communication skills, and that was best done in very small groups using youth work techniques rather than the conventional classroom approach. However kind and caring the teachers, in their usual classes the children felt swamped and unable to contribute – with the inevitable consequences.
Managing anger in testing circumstances
What was also very clear was that for some children from ethnic minority communities racism was a daily experience; and one they often couldn’t cope with. Anger management for all the children, whatever their community background or colour of skin, was also therefore an essential element in their skills development.
The aim was to help all the children walk away from trouble, full stop.
Continuity is the key
On the whole, this approach was actually beginning to work by the time the pilot project came to an end. The lessons we as professionals learned from this pilot collaborative project were many, but one of the most striking was, you can’t start too early – and you can’t just cut off because a young person has a birthday.
Schools may be structured to impose enormous transitions at eleven and sixteen; but children sometimes remain children in their perspectives and behaviours in ways which may relate little to their chronological age – especially if they have had a pretty rough time of it to date.
A multi-disciplinary approach
Another lesson we learned was that multiply challenged children do indeed need multiple approaches to their problems – teachers, youth workers, health and social care professionals, all have a part to play; and they have to do this together, understanding what each professional approach has to offer the children.
Nobody is suggesting that youth service-school collaboration will bring an immediate end to very serious current concerns around the behaviours of some young people; but it does seem that investing in more of this work is also investing very positively in our futures.
Peer support
The more extreme and unacceptable beliefs of the small minority of angry young men are best challenged by their peers, as well as just by ‘outsiders’.
If we can somehow give some of these peers the support and skills they need to be able to stand up for good sense and our common humanity, we will have achieved something really worthwhile which offers hope for everyone.
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Dreaming Realist 