Place-based working: reflections, week 1

Conversations amongst our partners and us during the COVID19 pandemic. Week 1, 14th April 2020

We asked ourselves the question: What are the activities now suspended that you wouldn’t like to see resumed? These are some of the things we identified in our open space call:

• Cold, rigid assessment of people and their need levels
• Overly stringent regulations of programmes
• Excessive restrictions on grant funding
• Rigid organisational boundaries
• Strict eligibility criteria from funders and commissioners
• Information hoarding
• Competition and turf wars
• Petty dramas and egos
• A lack of urgency to do something about extreme marginalisation
• Cycling around issues and not being agile enough to experiment, learn and iterate
• The illusion of control and the idea that one person is in charge
• Over prioritisation of some actors in the system — e.g. NHS over other health care providers including care homes and others providing clinical work
• Extractive capitalism, e.g. buying into a social care system that is split into thousands of tiny organisations
• Prejudice against private businesses
• Blame

Exploring the question led us to notice these emerging themes.

The illusion of certainty: What we’re experiencing right now has highlighted that messiness and not knowing about the future has always been the case. In the past, we’ve managed to create safety to act through structures, processes and ways of working that create an illusion of certainty. Even though they don’t really give it. However, despite this being an “illusion” people are still punished for failing to operate within these boundaries, especially within institutions?

Can David Rock’s SCARF model, based on neuroscience research help us all to minimise perceived threats, and to maximise the positive feelings generated through reward when working alongside others? The model recognises that people need different things, e.g. status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness to help them feel safe.

Geographical experience: all of our COVID-19 experiences are different, so what can we learn from this? There appear to be differences in experiences based on geographic location.

In some places, it seems like most phone calls/WhatsApp groups are calling for help yet in others, it is easier to pretend it isn’t happening as there are so little calls for support on channels like WhatsApp and via mutual aid groups. Does this mean people don’t need help or merely that they are already receiving the support they need?

Letting go: Many attributes in the system and within ourselves were/are unhelpful. It is also easy to go to a place of judgement of others and ourselves. Let’s become conscious of that along with asking what we can individually and collectively let go of so we can step into what we might be being called to do?

Safe uncertainty: what can we learn from different methodologies/sectors. If safe uncertainty feels and enables more “edgy & energetic, responsive awareness & learning, resilience & agility, confidence & creating hope” then what are the conditions that encourage me to step more into that space.

New narratives: there are a lot of emerging stories about different, more positive futures — how do we stay connected and contribute to them?

Innovation: Right now, no one knows what the response should be, and there is far greater openness to “we’re going to have to try this”. Now is the time to implement and test out different approaches to change because the resistance is much lower.

Who is valued?: there is a strong emphasis on the NHS right now, understandably and importantly so. However, some people who provide clinical roles, social care, and care homes aren’t being prioritised for recognition by the public or in the form of equipment.

Have we all been suffering from some kind of ‘regulation-enza? A sort of condition that has led to stringent regulations, rigid assessments of people and punishment to those who fail to operate within the illusion of certainty, that was filling our time. Now it has been suspended; we can become flexible and adapt and do things we didn’t think we were capable of.