Bulletin #15, June 2021
Over recent weeks we have been bringing our members together in on-line events to explore in some depth various aspects of the model set out in our recent document Time for a Change:
Many people tell us that they are finding this model stimulating and useful.
Indeed in many cases, we are hearing, they are taking it back to their organisation or partnership, sharing the model with colleagues, and using it to re-think their post-Covid plans.
If you are already one of those people, do keep us in touch with how you are getting on.
If you are intrigued, but not yet engaged with the network discussions, you would of course be very welcome to join any of the events listed below.
And if you’d like to contribute a blog for a Better Way about what you are doing or thinking, we’d be delighted to hear from you.
Caroline Slocock and Steve Wyler
National co-convenors
P.S. If you haven’t visited our refreshed website recently, please do take a look. And if you like what you see, maybe you could encourage others to take a look too?
Better way national events – would you like to join?
If you would like to join any of the following events or to find out more please go to our forthcoming events page, or click on the individual links below, or contact Alison@carnegieuk.org. New participants are always very welcome.
Time for a Change events
Over the coming weeks we will be holding a third round of on-line meetings on each of the four themes of Time for a Change, to share experience, insights and tactics.
How can we listen together? Where leaders from different organisations listen to those they serve, and work with them in a positive and motivating way to bring about changes.
Imbalances and inequalities: How can we recognise the imbalances and inequalities that exist in collaborations and agree standards for behaviour that enable participation by all?
Building Communities of Practice and Interest: how can we create truly inclusive and equitable coalitions and networks that value and benefit from diverse knowledge and experience? What is the role of civil society infrastructure and resources?
Seeing people as the solution, not the problem: how to act more as enablers, seeing people not as ‘consumers’ or ‘beneficiaries’ or ‘vulnerable’ but as citizens who help create the changes they need and can often lead the way, and present those we help as having agency and potential, rather than as problems.
Fortnightly Wednesday "Drop in" meetings
Every two weeks we hold an informal Zoom event for people in our network ‘family’ who would like to say hello, share news, exchange ideas, get something off your chest, and just check in with each other. It’s also a good way for people new to the network to get to know us and explore what we can offer. All meetings are Wednesday mornings from 9am to 10am. Forthcoming dates are:
Other national events – what would you like?
If there is a topic you would like to explore with members of our network and our allies, or perhaps an initiative or experience you would like to share, please let us know.
Do check us out on twitter@betterwaynetwrk, where you can also see video clips from some of the discussions we have been holding. We have a forthcoming events page on our website which is kept up-to-date. And meeting notes are also on our website.
Better Way in the North of England – roundtable on 14th July
Laura Seebohm is our Better Way convenor for the North of England. If you have ideas about how to apply Better Way thinking in any part of the North of England she would love to hear from you – please contact her at Laura.Seebohm@changing-lives.org.uk.
You would be very welcome to join the following roundtable (please click on the link to find out more and to register your place):
· Doing things differently in the North, Wednesday 14th July, 10.00-12.00.
There are many places across the North of England where people and communities are doing ground-breaking things. This is patchy and diverse, but momentum is building. We will be exploring what is distinctive about this and whether there are some common threads.
Common cause – some links to what network members and others are saying and doing
Social Care
In May 2021 Social Care Future published Whose Social Care is it Anyway? This was an inquiry led by people who draw on social care to lead their lives or who support loved ones to do so. It concluded that a better system of social care required five things:
Communities where everyone belongs
Living in the place we call home
Leading the lives we want to live
More resources, better used
Sharing power as equals
Community
The Centre for Social Justice has published Pillars of Community, which sets out findings from a poll of 5,000 people, and which concludes that security, connection and belonging are the three things that matter most.
Unleashing the ‘full connecting power of our high streets and urban centres’ is a crucial part of the Covid recovery, as set out in Rekindling Lost Connections, a report of a local business summit held in Coventry and hosted by Grapevine.
In May 2021 Caroline Slocock and the Early Action Task Force published Making a Good Place: how to invest in social infrastructure. This draws on examples already underway in Bristol and Barking & Dagenham, as well as two examples in the planning phase, Exeter and Feltham.
Community Organisers has published a one-page Roots to Recovery roadmap. As Nick Gardham says, ‘Communities cannot always resolve the issues for themselves but the “roots to recovery” lie within our communities. We need to find effective ways of bringing local people together with systems and structures to bring about enduring change.’
Young people
A recent report by NPC and the Centre for Youth Impact has found that open access youth provision can ‘significantly improve the social and emotional learning skills of young people’ and play an ‘important role in supporting families’.
Universal Basic Income
Several of our discussions over the last year have touched on the idea of Universal Basic Income. There are strongly held views on this important question, for and against, within our network and beyond. Here are a few articles which illustrate this:
Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, explains here why she sees a basic income as a ‘pathway to a fairer, more equitable society free from the shackles of discrimination and means testing.’
In an article here, Jon Cruddas sets out some of the arguments for and against UBI, noting that these come from the left and right of politics, but concludes that arguments in favour should be rejected because of the indignities of life without purposeful work.
Anna Coote and the New Economics Foundation argue here that we need a ‘new social guarantee’ - both universal basic services and a guaranteed level of income.
A case study about the Better Way
We are learning all the time about how to operate well as a network, and continually adapting as we learn. The Carnegie UK Trust has published a case study about the Better Way by Ilona Haselwood. A summary is available here.
And finally…
In March 2021 the Local Area Co-ordination Network published a brilliant collection of talks, under the title Building Blocks of “Better”. It’s well worth a read. In answer to the question ‘How do we collectively tackle a challenging 2021?’ this is what one of the contributors, Clare Wightman from Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire, said:
In the challenges ahead we know that the biggest resource lies untapped and outside of formalised support. It lies in our people. It lies in what can be achieved when they organise together around the people and issues they care about. It lies in community.
Caroline Slocock and Steve Wyler
Co-convenors
A Better Way
to improve services, build community and create a fairer society
carolineslocock@civilexchange.org.uk
stevewyler@betterway.network
www.betterway.network
Twitter: @betterwaynetwrk
About a Better Way: We are a network of people across society exploring how to improve services, build community and create a fairer society. Together we have drawn up eight principles for a Better Way and published a collection of Insights for a Better Way, A Call to Action for a Better Way and now Time for a Change. The network is hosted by Civil Exchange, in partnership with Carnegie UK Trust and is also supported by the John Ellerman Foundation, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and (for our work in the North of England) Power to Change. You can find out more and also contact us and indeed join us, via our website here: http://www.betterway.network/. If you don’t want to receive future bulletins, simply send an email to let us know.