Joining forces: unequal alliances
The topic was ‘Where there are big differences between organisations, in size, resources, status, for example, what are the best ways to join forces?’
The first speaker was Cate Newness Smith, CEO of Surrey Youth Focus, who drew on her experience of setting up Time for Kids, an alliance across sectors which aims to make Surrey a better place for children and young people.
The second speaker was Steve Wyler, co-convenor of the Better Way network, who reflected on his experience in the 1990s when running Homeless Network, a coalition of charities tackling rough sleeping in central London. The charities were very unequal in terms of size, profile, and influence, but nevertheless various strategies were used to encourage collaborative working, including for example a requirement that members would share their development plans at an early stage.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
Unequal alliances should be celebrated – good things can come from bringing large and small, included and excluded, into a common collaborative space. And it helps to be honest about the imbalances, to call them into the room.
Most can be achieved when starting with a blank sheet of paper, rather than addressing the detail of an agenda that has already been set. Therefore, it is important to seek out places where influence is possible, operating outside the formal established structures if necessary, and go where the energy is.
Those who work in small organisations may need to change their mental model, and build confidence in their own voice when engaging with those who have senior roles in large institutions - remembering that small organisations have real strengths, not least that they can be fleet of foot.
There is always a tussle between self-interest and mutual interest. People may be willing to set aside organisational rivalries and jealousies, in favour of pursing a common goal. But pressure and stress can close down creativity and reduce mental capacity to join forces with others. So, this often needs skilful management, and the presence of an independent and trusted convenor can be very helpful.
Removing the roadblocks: what can we learn from the last crisis?
This event on 11 October 2022 is one of a series looking at how we can unblock the roadblocks, where we’ve heard that many people at every level can play a part in driving change by:
Challenging and changing whatever stands in the way, including the deep-seated assumptions that can prevent us from being our best selves.
Calling out inequalities and abuses of power, and making sure everyone can participate on their own terms.
Assuming the best in others and seeing difference, conflict and division as an opportunity to pause, seek to understand, and find a fresh way.
But we’ve also heard that resistance to change is widespread, whether through culture, systems or practices. So how can we get better at overcoming the resistance and removing the roadblocks?
On this occasion, the specific question we explored was what can we learn from the last crisis to help us tackle the next. Our thought leader for this topic, Neil Denton - a community mediator and Professor in Practice at Durham University’s After Disasters Network - explained Britain is facing crisis after crisis, lurching from the pandemic to the cost-of-living crisis and a recession, without having healed from the last, and the effects are deepening divisions. Finding space for that healing is important and there are also lessons to be learnt from the last crisis to help us tackle the next, as set out in A Sense of Connection, a report by the Relationships Project. He was joined as opening speakers by Christine Frazer from Age UK Gateshead, who gave moving examples of how that community had supported each other during the Covid crisis - ‘the light than shone during the pandemic’, and Grace Sodzi-Smith from the Social Change Agency, who spoke about the valuable support they were giving to mutual aid groups to enable them to flourish.
Here are some of the key points made by the speakers and participants in the breakout groups and plenary discussion:
‘In our darkest days we saw the brightest version of ourselves’ - not volunteering but helping each other, and we still have that memory and can rekindle that spirit.
Many people want to move on from the pandemic but we cannot move forward if we ignore the pain and distress that some people are still experiencing. Christine told us about the people who were still angry and upset by what they’d experienced - including a man who hadn’t been able to be present as his wife gave birth to their stillborn child, a woman who hadn’t been able to attend her best friend’s funeral and another who depends on a foodbank that is now closing. Professionals who are helping people in these situations are also experiencing mental health difficulties. What she’d found through her work in supporting and listening to people in Gateshead is that it helps to gather people together to find common cause - in the case of the individuals she described, they were brought together in a mental health support workshop, learning about mental health in order to help themselves and support others.
Many deprived communities are suffering from deep-seated trauma that goes back much further than Covid.
You need to keep fighting the fire as well as working for a brighter future with a sense of hope.
Burn out and compassion fatigue is common especially amongst first responders and organisations need to be much more aware of this - training can help professionals recognise the signs and techniques for managing stress. ‘Unless you put your oxygen mask on first you can’t help others’.
Larger organisations have the capacity to provide vital support to small-scale mutual aid groups. Grace told us about how the Social Change Agency was providing such groups with banking services, to make it easier for them to raise money transparently, and other tools, including listening and creating a space to have conversations and give advice and support. We heard that this was kind of support was also happening in other places and could be a model that could be adopted more widely.
Time is needed to allow for healing, with permission to be sad and negative. Just as we come together as a nation in exciting times, for example, the London Olympics, so we should also be able to do in times of grief.
Strong communities are critical - those who stick together recover best. Relationships are the foundation of communities and need to be nurtured in order to build resilience at a time of crisis. Relationship building needs to happen in the good times so that they are there in times of crisis.
We need to design stronger services, not keep on repairing them.
Leadership: does strategy still matter in times of crisis?
The question we addressed in this meeting was as follows: ‘In these turbulent times are we shifting away from a conventional planning approach? What does this mean for how leaders operate?’
The first speaker was Nick Sinclair, from Community Catalysts, who runs the Local Area Co-ordination network, and the New Social Leaders network. Nick shared a recording of an interview he conducted on this topic with Professor Donna Hall, architect of the Wigan Deal.
The second speaker was Kate McKenzie, from Power to Change, who manages the Leading the Way learning and grants programme for community business leaders in the North East and Yorkshire.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
Strategy does matter in times of crisis. It is not enough to address the immediate presenting problems, important though that is, if we are also wanting to bring about a wider and deeper social change.
But we need a different approach to planning:
When it is difficult to foresee very much beyond the next six months (if that), the plan needs to make more allowance for emergence.
Rather than a set of objectives or targets, the plan should provide an overall vision (a ‘North Star’), and a set of relationships or principles which can guide decision-making and behaviour.
It also needs to allow maximum operational autonomy. (It was noted that Mencap, for example, is working towards a model where people at the front end of the organisation can set the strategy for their own work, within an overall framework. In a large organisation this requires a big culture shift).
The key elements of the plan should be developed with the community affected by the plan.
The plan should be set out with simplicity and clarity.
And it should place significant weight on the process for review, reflection and adaption. A ‘discover, design, test’ method, capable of being applied quickly to aspects of an organisation’s work may be preferable to an ‘epic’ effort to design a single all-encompassing strategy. The Human, Learning, Systems approach developed by Toby Lowe and others is felt by many to be very helpful in this respect.
In summary, a good strategy in turbulent times should be much more about establishing the right culture, to help people ‘do the right thing’ and reflect and adapt, and much less about imposing a rigid work plan.
Listening well in a digital age
The topic was ‘What are the digital methods that can build good conversations, including with those that are often left out, and allow people to develop solutions together?’
The first speaker was Karin Woodley, from Cambridge House in Southwark, London. She is the ‘thought leader’ for the Better Way on the theme of radical listening – not least listening beyond the surface level, and framing conversations in ways that challenge the prevailing top-down methods.
The second speaker was Paul White, from eCulture Solutions. Paul has a background in local government and is now developing a digital platform so that those engaged in social action in Devon can more easily discover each other and combine their efforts.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
We should not remain stuck in old ways. Digital methods can have positive and liberating effects – not least opening up access to events for people who would not be able to afford the cost of travel, or who are time poor. Moreover, digital conversations can have an equalizing effect, with contributions given more equal weight, and no ‘top table’.
There are of course negative aspects. A significant minority experience severe digital exclusion. Digital communications can be shallow, with less opportunity for informal encounters, and less ability to explore ideas together. And because digital meetings operate according to a similar template there is little that distinguishes one digital discussion from another – they all blur into each other, and are easily forgotten.
But these are not good reasons to turn our backs on digital methods – all forms of communication have limitations and can produce exclusionary effects. We shouldn’t become over-protective or paternalistic, it was suggested.
And some of the negative effects can be reduced by the design of online meetings – allowing more time for meaningful engagement, with more space for introductions, and for post-event reflection.
In order to ‘animate the quiet voice’ it can be helpful to start with an in-person connection, then make digital tools available which can add further value.
And what can matter most, whether in the online or in-person world, is learning to listen without an agenda, and learning to listen to those who are raising a concern with you to understand, not to respond. And people need to have confidence that they can manage their story, and that it will not be exploited for the benefit of others (including by social sector organisations).
Where the means of communication is shaped by the users themselves (with assistant from professionals when needed) a digital platform is more likely to be widely used. Karin Woodley gave an example where young people concerned about relationships with the police gathered data via social media channels which they designed - 4,500 young people across the country took part.
Looking to the future, things will continue to change with Virtual Reality, and Avatars opening up new ways to interact online. We should embrace such change positively, some felt.
Putting relationships first: ‘liberating the method’
The topic for this meeting of our relationships cell on 22 September 2022 was freeing up staff to build relationships. Against a backdrop of ingrained command and control cultures and contacting practices in many organisations, we considered how can we ‘liberate the method’ to do things differently, a phrase used by Mark Smith in this essay from Building a Bigger We about how they are trying to achieve this in Gateshead council. Mark has identified four operating principles:
· Front-line authority to make decisions. No assessments.
· Instead, they should ask people ‘what can we do for you?’ and try to discover what a good life looks like to them.
· No referrals – because we know that this just leads to people going round and round in circles.
· Measure only to learn and improve, not to keep scores or to make a point. If we learn something’s working, that’s great, and if it isn’t, we adapt.
The topic was introduced by David Robinson from the Relationship Project, our thought leader for this cell, and by Mark Smith. Key points made by speakers and participants include:
good relationships at work lead to higher productivity, less burnout and staff are less likely to leave - ‘high performing teams don’t leave relationships to chance’ (attributed to the Harvard Business School).
At Community Links, David Robinson had chaired a Council on Social Action which promoted ‘deep value relationships’ in services, and Community Links had recently commissioned a report on deep value to update an earlier literature review. David said that the evidence showed that people using public services put great importance on the quality of relationships, and where these are effective it brings a range of valuable benefits.
Mark Smith described the transformation that had been achieved in Gateshead’s Council Tax Department by giving front-line staff autonomy and delegated authority to solve the problems of people who cannot pay their council tax . As an experiment, they set up a team, including people from the benefits agency and Citizen’s Advice and experts on housing, with its own budget to spend as they chose. They had only two rules - do no harm and don’t break the law - and a number of guiding principles - focus on what matters to the individual, rather than assess them, seek to understand what matters to them, build relationships, and don’t refer any case to others (which often leads to a revolving door) and if additional expertise is required bring it to the individual. Measurement of performance was used only to learn what works so they could adapt. Staff were given the gift of time to talk to people in depth, Mark explained. Teams had purchasing cards which enabled them, for example, to take a client for a coffee. Benefits claims could be resolved in an hour, not the typical 6 weeks.
Freeing up staff in this way worked, Mark told us. Of the first 40 people held, 32 ended up living a better life having spent years in difficulty, 7 had profound mental health difficulties and had a longer journey and 1 didn’t engage. Having tried this in one Department, they then did the same thing in homelessness which was successful and were now trying it in other areas, including adults with complex needs.
It requires a different relationship to risk - managers must create an environment in which staff have the license to get it wrong. Mark told us that he had to make it clear to staff that ‘I’ve got your back’ and that not everything works, and when that happens it’s an opportunity to learn. Moving to becoming a generalist, with no clear protocols, pathways and procedures was difficult for some. Some embraced freedom, some felt exposed if things didn’t work. But most involved felt purposeful and no-one in the original pilot wanted to go back to the old way of working.
The job of a manager is to remove the barriers so can staff can do what they want and need to do - help people, but it is a big cultural change. It involves ‘unlearning’ the old way of doing things and liberating the creativity and sense of purpose that everyone has.
New models of working are required that are tailored to people. The system defaults to specialists when the most important thing is being able to forge good relationships and have a person centred approach. The challenge is to make that normal and it starts with leadership.
Longer term funding is important for this approach, with commissioning that allows for the complexity of lives and for learning as you go along.
Principles are better than targets, one of our Better Way principles.
This approach requires continuity of staff and, most importantly, time.
Start anywhere - and you will see that this approach works.
We need to build the story of change, to give more people confidence to do this.
Joining Forces for Levelling Up
In this meeting we explored the following questions: ‘What types of local or regional collaboration are most likely to generate the shared purpose, determination and energy needed to drive the Levelling-Up agenda. What should a community covenant (as proposed by Government) look like?’
(The community covenant idea is described as follows in the Government’s 2021 Levelling Up White Paper: ‘A Covenant approach would see local authorities and communities work together to take a holistic look at the health of local civic and community life, set out a driving ambition for their area, and share power and resources to achieve this.’)
The first speaker was Cate Newnes-Smith, CEO of Surrey Youth Focus and ‘thought-leader’ for the Joining Forces strand of our work. She was followed by Sally Young, former CEO of the Newcastle Council for Voluntary Service.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
From on high, it can appear that Levelling-Up requires first and foremost a set of structural solutions (combined authorities, powerful Mayors, investment plans), with tangible outcomes (new rail links, for example). But Levelling-Up requires more focus on community development, and less on physical infrastructure, it was suggested.
This implies an appreciative inquiry approach by national and local government, not ‘This is what we are planning to do, what do you think of it’, but rather ‘What matters to you, what do you want to see happen?’
Where possible, there should an asset-based approach, building on existing and potential community strengths, along the lines of the Community Catalysts model for example.
Action should take place wherever possible in small places, because the wider the geographic scope, the more likely that significant local characteristics will be overlooked. The concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods is a good starting point (everything people need should be within 20 minutes travel time).
The conditions should be set so that many brave leaders can come forward (not a single person for a region) to drive the necessary changes.
Collaborative efforts can be encouraged in various ways, e.g. though Community Improvement Districts, or local tech platforms. Investment in community anchor organisations is one way to ensure long term coordinated community-led effort on the ground.
There is a need for better methods to help people operating at local level to make common cause with each other, and with those at regional and national levels. The principles of ‘sociocracy’ – decision making by consent rather than majority voting - may be useful.
We must not repeat the mistakes of previous regeneration programmes or the Big Society initiative. In England there may be positive things to learn from efforts elsewhere, including the Community Empowerment Act in Scotland.
A sustained effort will be needed over many years. Short term initiatives by themselves will not bring about Levelling-Up.
Putting relationships first: working relationally with communities
The topic dicussed in this meeting of the relationships cell on 13 July 2022 was working relationally with communities. As public bodies seek to plug into community power, how can they do this in a ‘relational’ rather than an ‘extractive’ way? The risk for public bodies, as they try to help communities build connection and strengthen relationships, is that they try to turn voluntary organisations and community groups into instruments, rather than letting them do what they do best, or that they are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of relationships they have to build.
Our opening speakers were David Robinson from the Relationships Project, who is our thought leader for this group, Lara Rufus-Fayemi, the Strategic Partnerships and Engagement Manager at Newham Council, and Paul White, from e-culture solutions. David told the group about the work from the Relationships Project’s Relational Councils Network, a peer learning space for anyone working in or with local authorities seeking to make relationships the central operating principle. Lara talked about the work Newham Council is doing to create people powered places. Paul, who is a former Chief Technology Officer at Devon County Council, is now working with the voluntary sector in Devon to help transform the relationship with the public sector and unlock community power. He talked about the untapped (and undervalued) potential of the sector and lessons from what is happening in Integrated Care Systems now in Devon.
Key points made by the speakers and in discussion include:
Relational councils are drawing on this Relationships Framework, which includes good advice about how to build strong relationships with the community. Relationships need to be nurtured at many levels, from relationships with colleagues to communities to the places and spaces in which people meet, as shown in this slide.
There are many cultural and other barriers which need to be addressed by the public sector, from institutional language which is not centred in real lives and prevents good communication, lack of the time needed to build trust with communities, too much bureaucracy, to turnover of staff just when good relationships are formed, to underfunding of the voluntary and community sector to do the important role that they play.
There’s a need to develop a more relational language, listening, focusing on people’s lives, not jargon, and allowing local people to tell and celebrate their stories. It can help to engage champions within the community to deliver messages.
Newham Council has set up a permanent, ground-breaking Citizens Assembly to learn about what matters to local people, and is also trying to establish people-powered communities by setting up local community assemblies which engage in decision-making about how funds should be spent in their area. They are also working with UCL to train up local people as ‘citizen scientists’ to research their own communities. They remunerate citizens who take part in these exercises and provide technical support to help them participate.
Lara set out a series of principles for how to work with communities, which are set out in her blog about creating people-powered places here, including focusing on the people first and finding common cause, taking calculated risks, being open, investing in funding and time and really listening.
Place has to be considered holistically and a conscious effort made to engage everyone, not just the groups that are first to come forward. It’s important to look at the collective resources in a community but often knowledge of local groups is sketchy at best, Paul told us. He said that there were 6,500 registered voluntary organisations in his area, including social enterprises, with considerable potential to help the public sector to meet the high levels of unmet demand that exist. He is setting up a local directory to help in this. Local businesses are part of the community and should be engaged too.
Lack of resources in the voluntary sector to engage is an issue, they are already very stretched and their capacity to take part is often taken for granted by public bodies. Grants to help them engage in the Integrated Care System, for example, are essential. Too much paperwork should be avoided.
Time has to be invested to truly understand the community and what motivates them, and it is very unlikely to work if responsibilities are contracted out to consultants from outside the community, as trust is key.
Training can help to ensure local people have the skills to engage.
You have to take all of your team with you on this journey.
It’s important to be honest about power imbalances and find ways of ‘holding the space differently’ which allow local people to be the vehicle for change, not an instrument.
Accessing community power, when it is done well, has the potential for the public sector to address deep-seated issues such as poverty much more effectively and to address needs which are currently unmet.
From Listening to Action
The topic for this meeting was ‘How to turn listening into action, balancing the urgency of what we hear with the complexities of achieving it? ‘
The first speaker was Nick Gardham from Community Organisers, who drew on Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals as well as the Operation WiFi campaign led by Community Organisers.
He was followed by Tony McKenzie, who is leading the Re-Connection Tour for Engage Britain, who spoke about the responses to the Hebden Bridge floods, as well as insights from the Experts by Experience panel at the charity Crisis.
We also heard from Emma Sandrey, from Co-Production Wales, who shared lessons from the practice of co-production.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
Good listening is first and foremost listening to understand, not to respond.
Active listening is action, because it can bring about change in both the speaker and listener, and can open a doorway to a different future.
· As community organisers know, it is important to learn to work with self-interest. Not everyone will be driven by altruism, but self-interest (not selfishness) can lead to shared interest and action.
It is important to be honest and human in our interactions. Listening well builds relationships, and that can have lasting value.
Often an agile, iterative approach is needed, to generate a virtuous cycle of listening–action–listening. It is important to move fast when needed, and not become encumbered by bureaucratic rules.
Every organisation should be willing to say to those they work with, ‘You are allowed to drop the ball and pick it up again’.
Local authorities and other government bodies should sometimes be willing to step back and say, ‘What can we do to support you to bring about the change you want to see?’. There are usually people in a local authority who want to work in that way, and others who have very different entrenched ideas.
There is a great deal of frustration when things don’t change. We need to get better at recognising and channelling the anger in ways that can drive change.
For those confronted with institutions that find it hard to really listen, it is necessary to keep the pressure on, and to remember that ‘a good tactic is one that your people enjoy’ (Alinsky).
Energy and enjoyment can come in various ways, e.g. from being part of a group with a common cause, from being heard, from a realistic sense of hope (not false optimism), from a sense of humour. High energy and enjoyable activities will encourage far more people to take part, and amplify the power of the message.
Putting relationships first: building connection in a place
This meeting, which took place on 28 April 2022, is one of a series looking at putting relationships first. The topic considered on this occasion was how to build connection, inclusion and social capital in a place. After some reflections by our thought leader for this cell, David Robinson from the Relationships Project, we heard from Nicola Baker from Social Life, which specialises in research and community projects exploring how people are affected by changes in the built environment, and Olu Alake from the Peel, a charity that has been building a connected community in Clerkenwell since 1898.
Key points made by the speakers and participants in the subsequent discussion include:
Many businesses, from the local corner shop to supermarkets are natural ‘bumping places’ where people who would otherwise not meet rub shoulders and, although some people want quick transactions others want a chat. We need to design relationships in, not out of these places, said David Robinson.
Social infrastructure needs to be defined widely, including the formal and informal spaces in which people meet, if we want to understand and make good places. Social Life had worked with Hawkins Brown for the GLA to look at how social infrastructure, including businesses, helps social integration in London, with this final report, Social Connection by Design: How London’s Social Spaces and Networks Help Us Live Well Together.
They had identified a ‘social structure eco-system’, studying three areas where they asked people what they valued and where they liked to meet people like themselves and where they go to meet people who are different. Formal spaces, for example schools or a hairdressers, are where they meet the latter. Informal spaces, for example coffee bars and restaurants, are where they spend time with people like themselves. Food networks, such as Pembroke House and Homerton food network, are important not just for people who may be food poor but also those who may be relationship poor, Nicola told us.
It’s important to map what’s there and understand the eco-system of social infrastructure, really listening to people, finding out what people value, and then to nurture it. Rural areas may be very different from urban ones, having very few corporate organisations but lots of small businesses and a lack of physical assets. Big businesses, like supermarkets, can also be very local.
Local authorities can be important connectors between different groups and have a role in improving local social infrastructure. The GLA now have a Good Growth by Design programme, for example.
Often places consist of different communities who do not mix at all and a conscious effort needs to be made to bring them together. In Clerkenwell, for example, Olu pointed out, there is a very high concentration of creative industries alongside housing estates with a high child poverty rate, and they never mix.
Community hubs don’t just deliver services, they can also be a facilitator within the community to make lives better and promote well-being. This is the new strategy being adopted by the Peel, Olu told us, based on the view that ‘resources are the people, not in us’. They developed a community newspaper, with wide circulation, facilitated activities such as a street party and a basketball team that were led by the community and were what local people said they wanted to do, recruited community organisers and worked with the local businesses community, approaching them with clear asks. All their community led projects are sponsored by local business.
It can be the connections that are made, not the service, that matter. Olu told a story of a single mother who popped into their centre and seemed to enjoy it, staying for hours, but she never came back. When he met her in the street he asked why. She said that she had met so many people at the centre with whom she had since maintained a connection that she didn’t need come back.
This is a very different way of operating for many charities and it is important to celebrate and share the stories and find the right partners at the right time and ask them to do the right thing.
Not all relationships are constructive and some may be cursory - it’s important to focus on creating positive connection that makes a difference in people’s lives.
Joining Forces: learning from campaigns
The topic for this meeting was: ‘What can we learn from tenacious and well-supported campaigns about joining forces for the long term?’
The speaker was Ollie Hilbery, Director of the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) coalition. This is a coalition of national charities, Clinks, Homeless Link, Mind and Collective Voice, representing over 1,300 frontline organisations across England. They are working together to bring about systems change in local services for people facing multiple disadvantage.
Here are some of the key points made by Ollie and by others in the discussion:
Resources. To manage and sustain a partnership requires resources. This includes money (ideally core funding) but also leadership commitment from all partners, and continuity of key individuals.
Strategic recommitment. It is a good idea to periodically ask the question ‘Are we still up for this?’ and to have an honest discussion about that.
Managing the ebb and flow. There can be risks when the partners drift too far apart, but also when they come too close. The partnership needs to be alert to these risks, and take action if necessary.
Unwritten rules. There may be a partnership agreement, but some things which may not be written down must be observed. For example: no bidding against each other, no surprises.
Size of the partnership. A small number is best suited for intense co-operation over a long period. When the campaign requires a much larger alliance to be successful, there might be a core group and a wider membership, with a clear purpose and a strong and respected brand to hold it all together.
Inequalities within the partnership. Larger organisations need to behave with humility, not claiming power they don’t deserve – the small organisation may be able to offer insights or specialisms which are larger partners don’t have. In a good partnership all have equal weight, regardless of size.
Disagreements. Relationship need to be strong enough to have a falling out and get back together again.
The inherent value of partnership. For some the partnership is a good in itself, for others it is a necessary means to an end - many sit on a spectrum somewhere between the two.
Further reading: See this blog by Cate Newnes-Smith.
Sharing and building power: community power
This event, which took place on 29 March 2022, is one of a series under the theme of sharing and building power. It considered the question: what is community power and how can we make it happen? The main opening speaker was Hugh Rolo, from Locality, the national membership network supporting local community organisations. There were also some opening from Steve Wyler, our co-convenor, based on his research on community power in the past. Our thought leaders for the cell, Sue Tibballs and Sarah Thomas from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, also reminded us of SMK’s practical guide to power, It’s All About Power, reflecting learning from their Power Project.
Key points made by speakers and participants included:
Community power happens at all levels, is not finite and has driven social change for centuries. It can be expressed through individuals, for example Marcus Rashford on free school meals, or groups. Sometimes it is directed at seeking national change, sometimes local. Sometimes it is targeted around a single idea or sometimes it about place or focused on specific resources, such as community buildings, land or energy. It happens in every community.
‘Community power is a dandelion that grows in the cracks of other power structures’ though sometimes it is co-opted by by charities. It is incredibly difficult not to corrupt the ‘dandelion’ when this happens and charities need to work in a different way to avoid this.
Public bodies and voluntary organisations need to be enablers of community power, not blockers, acting as facilitators and servant-leaders.
Community power often comes alive in crises, most recently during the Covid pandemic but it has also been important in previous pandemics. History shows it is almost always suppressed because of wariness about community attempts at self-organisation.
Community shares are a really good way to invest in social causes, and community ownership of assets including land is valuable too.
Participatory grant-making is being used creatively to develop and harness community power.
Sharing power is very difficult, it takes time and patience and investment in capacity building and developing leadership. Relationships are important.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the national dimension of community power. Governments are far more interested in harnessing local community power while nationally it is closing down opportunities for campaigning and dialogue.
There’s a need for a deep reimagining of community power and of charity.
Listening to Each Other: Inclusive Practice
The topic for this meeting was: ‘Why is it that some groups of people don’t get listened to properly, and what can be done about it?‘
The first speaker was Karin Woodley, CEO of Cambridge House in Southwark, London. She is the ‘thought leader’ for the Better Way on the theme of radical listening.
Our second speaker was Helen Phoenix, Head of Co-Design & Improvement at the South Yorkshire Housing Association.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
Many organisations are structurally resistant to sharing power and control. The philanthropic tradition may be well intentioned but is often paternalistic in its practice and can stigmatise groups of people. We should guard against a ‘saviour’ mentality.
There can be a lack of cultural competence – poor diversity, at the front line of a service, as well as in management and governance, contributes to this. We need to employ different people.
We should be ‘person-led’ not ‘person-centred’ - inviting those who are outside to step in and take charge.
We need to shift our efforts from an equality agenda to an equity agenda, it was suggested. This means, for example, understanding the circumstances that enable or constrain people’s lives, and taking action accordingly. And wherever possible taking a strengths-based approach, not focusing only on the problems.
We need to invest in small locally-rooted neighbourhood organisation, and be willing to reach out more widely, including beyond ‘professional lived experience’.
When listening we should be aware of power dynamics. Where there is an agenda we should consider whose agenda this is, and be willing to discard it in order to listen properly.
We should ask rather than presume. We recognise that many organisations suffer from ‘fear of what we are going to hear’ – being challenged to do something they feel they cannot do. Rather than closing down the conversation there may be things they can do, for example acting as a bridge to those who can respond.
We need to practice ‘conversational leadership’ it was suggested, hosting discussions that can scale up from the personal to the system. Those in positions of power need to become a ‘river’ allowing the ideas of others to flow.
Removing the roadblocks: bridging the divides
This event on 15 March 2022 is one of a series looking at how we can unblock the roadblocks, where we’ve heard that many people at every level can play a part in driving change by:
Challenging and changing whatever stands in the way, including the deep-seated assumptions that can prevent us from being our best selves.
Calling out inequalities and abuses of power, and making sure everyone can participate on their own terms.
Assuming the best in others and seeing difference, conflict and division as an opportunity to pause, seek to understand, and find a fresh way.
But we’ve also heard that resistance to change is widespread, whether through culture, systems or practices. So how can we get better at overcoming the resistance and removing the roadblocks?
The specific question we considered at this event is how to bridge the divides. Our thought leader for removing the roadblocks, Neil Denton - a community mediator and Professor in Practice at Durham University’s After Disasters Network - kicked off the discussion by talking about the Bridge Builders Handbook, which he had compiled for the Relationships Project, focusing on this slide.
Key points made by the speaker and participants included:
It’s important to avoid ‘enemy thinking’ and ‘othering’ and encourage instead curiosity and kindness. People on the receiving end of violence often see no choice and use words like ‘I can’t, I have to, I must’ and ‘I know what they’re thinking and what will happen’ and difference and division becomes destructive.
Building bridges is not about starting in the middle with talk about similarity and points of connection. That way, the bridge falls down. It should begin with understanding the foundation stones of different communities - what’s really important to them, their values, needs and activities.
Bridge builders need to listen with their eyes and their hearts, working out underlying motivations and needs and building a story that makes sense to that community. By working in this way differences then stop becoming deal breakers and become areas of curiousity. You then can identify the basic needs and values and activities on both sides and find common ground. An example of a shared activity that might result is moving away from ‘keeping out a group in order to feel safe’ toward ‘making a space safer for all our children.’ The keystone that leads to bonding must include goals that do not harm the other group.
Community mediation is hard, exhausting work and sometimes it can feel like a ‘bucket in a drought’ but at best it can lead to ‘a million little drops that can make a difference if you carefully place them.’ It’s a messy process, working with a compass not a map - an uncertain journey which takes time and can be a cyclical process.
Labels and language matter. For example it’s odd that people of colour are labled as a minority in this country, when they are the global majority.
Building bridges is also building the social fabric, creating bridging as well as bonding social capital.
Community spaces can really help build bridges, for example allotments.
Understanding differences can unlock real power and potential.
Leadership as facilitation
In this session we focused on how leaders can operate as facilitators, rather than managers. What are the benefits, what are the difficulties?
The first speaker was Nick Sinclair from Community Catalysts. Nick runs the Local Area Co-ordination network, and the New Social Leaders network. He is also the ‘thought leader’ for the leadership strand of Better Way’s work.
Nick introduced our second speaker, Shelley McBride, who set up the Derby Community Parent Programme.
The final speaker was Helen Goulden, CEO of the Young Foundation. Her presentation drew on Young Foundation’s research, and the experience of its Leadership Academy, as well as her own personal experience as a leader.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
A core role of established leaders can and should be to grow leadership in others. To act in this way challenges the traditional ‘command-and-control’ leadership model, and opens up space for more people.
We should remember that leaders are not all a good thing – some set out to promote vested interests or sow division. Our efforts should be directed towards leaders who are willing to work for the common good and who value inclusion.
There is far too little investment in leadership development in the informal community sector, compared to other sectors, even though community leaders are so fundamental to social change. Many community leaders feel anxiety and unworthiness in their role, and we need to build a better system of support around them.
We need to distinguish between management and leadership, and place more emphasis on the latter. Most organisations, it was suggested, are ‘over-managed and under-led’.
The term leader is an uneasy one. It implies that someone is ‘in charge’. Perhaps we need a different word.
A switch is needed, from efforts to support ‘leaders’ to support for ‘leadership’ – for example ‘how not to be a leader’ training, encouraging people to think of leadership as a group dynamic, not just about the individual.
We don’t need to start from scratch. Over the last 30 years or more there have been excellent examples of leadership training, that place high value in qualities such as curiosity, collaboration, enabling others, humility, empathy, emotional intelligence.
Listening to each other - learning from Scotland’s Community Empowerment Act
The meeting considered Scotland’s Community Empowerment Act which places a responsibility on central and local government to listen, and asked ‘What can we learn from the experience so far?’
The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 was designed to empower community bodies through the ownership or control of land and buildings, and by strengthening their voices in decisions about public services. Provisions include:
A set of national outcomes drawn up by government.
Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) for each local authority area, to produce a local outcomes improvement plan (LOIP) with 'locality plans' at a more local level for places experiencing particular disadvantage.
CPPs are required to support community bodies to participate in all parts of the process, ‘in the development, design and delivery of plans and in review, revision and reporting of progress.’
Participation requests: where a community body believes it could help to improve an outcome which is delivered by a public service, it is able to request to take part in a process with the public service authority to improve that outcome.
Measures to achieve more community ownership of land and buildings, including the right to request asset transfer from the public sector to communities.
The Community Empowerment Act is part of a longer story in Scotland, including the earlier Community Right to Buy legislation, the Christie Commission, etc, all broadly pushing in a similar direction, i.e. a shift in the role of the state towards an enabling function, empowering local communities and citizens to do more, and to encourage partnership working.
The speaker was Maddy Halliday, CEO of Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
The Act is regarded as successful in several respects. It has been widely implemented, and has produced some improvements. For example, it has led to somewhat greater investment in capacity-building at local level, and it has produced a more nuanced balancing of interests in local planning activities, with more community influence in decision-making, and a growth in participatory structures (e.g. participatory budgeting for small grants schemes).
However, as a Caledonian University assessment found, there has been some public sector resistance, and progress has been strongest in rural areas, and less so in some urban areas. Moreover, the impact in areas experiencing disadvantage has not been as great as hoped for.
Overall, participants in our meeting felt that this type of legislation does not necessarily advance the practice of ‘radical’ listening. A key test is what happens when those in positions of authority hear something they don’t like, or which doesn’t fit.
For radical listening to flourish, a formal set of structures or practices, as set out in the Act, may be necessary but is not sufficient, when what is also required is a shift in culture and behaviour that allows relationships to flourish, including among people who may disagree.]
Critically, public bodies need to signal an intention to really listen, not just to confirm or negate a hypothesis.
A shift in culture and behaviour may require a significant and sustained investment of effort, including training in new skills.
Putting relationships first: mutual aid
The topic under discussion on 23rd February 2022 in our putting relationships first cell was mutual aid: how can we do more to support it?
David Robinson from the Relationships Project, who is our thought leader for the cell, opened the discussion by reflecting on the context and what we had learnt from the pandemic, which had demonstrated particularly in its early stages the value of mutual aid and the positivity it can bring. In the repeated cycle of lockdowns some of this had partially faded, and for some there was a feeling of exhaustion and fears about the economy had led to a sense of helplessness. But there was still learning and potential on which to build.
We then heard about the We-volution model of self-reliant groups (SRGs) from its founder Noel Mathias and Deborah Murdoch from one its groups in Greenock.
Debs explained that 7 years ago she had joined the SRG as a young mother to meet new people and was introduced to the philosophy of ‘meet-save-create’. The group built mutual trust and through these connnections she and others had learnt that they had skills which they can share and transfer, sometimes leading to the creation of new businesses or to people taking on leadership roles, helping to train other women. She had started working with Ratio, collecting data on how connections helps their groups and creates power. For her, the SRG and We-volution were ‘a movement and a family’, not an organisation.
Noel told us how the idea of SRGs had come from the practice of self-help groups in India. Their key impact is to put people, primarily women, in control of their lives, often in places or amongst people who are stigmatised in the way others, incorrectly, see them. We-volution see individuals as entrepreneurs rather than consumers - everyone is an entrepreneur, not least in the ‘enterprise of being human’. It is a relational model, he explained, where people learn to empower themselves and find their own agency, and a major shift in thinking away from ‘fixing to connecting’.
We-volution helps set up these groups but also creates peer groups from across the individual SRGs who become friends within the wider SRG family and learn from each other, with wisdom percolating through connnection. We-volution see their role as movement building, enabling access to financial support and capacity, mobilising participations and creating learning.
They’ve found SRGs and the wider movement can have huge impact in terms of systemic change - growing social capital, improving mental health and positively impacting the lives of children, he concluded. You can read a blog by Noel for a Better Way about We-volution’s work here.
We then heard from Richard Harries from the Institute for Community Studies, formerly from Power to Change. He has written a blog for a Better Way in which he invented the word ‘takepowerment’, which he said might capture the We-volution philosophy. Richard explained that the Institute for Community Studies would shortly be publishing research looking at mutual aid at home and abroad. He highlighted some lessons, including:
they found that there was a correlation between community wealth, community owned assets and well-being.
The location of community assets, including places to meet, and the level of grants mutual aid groups received, made all the difference.
Levels of trust, access to digital tools, support from local authorities and the existence of faith based groups were also important.
Working with mutual aid groups can be scary for local authorities because of the level of risk but in the pandemic they were forced to do so, with good results.
Other points made in the break out groups and plenary discussion included:
charity and mutual aid are very different models. ‘When we do change to people , they can experience it as violence, when we allow people to do change for themselves they experience it as a liberation.’ As Mother Theresa said, ‘the poor will never forgive you for the charity you do to them.’
Mutual aid is a relational model, one of ‘takepowerment’, with potentially huge social impact, unleashing the ‘enterprise of being human’.
The pandemic had challenged local authorities to do things differently, and conquer their normal risk aversion, and their support for mutual aid was important.
We heard of community based organisations which were also a form of mutual aid and where people would not be able to tell who are staff, volunteers, or local people, as they work together mutually.
Mutual aid does not have to be small-scale and it is not new either: for example, in the 1790s it was widespread in relation to famine support and in Mumbai, when the mills closed, the women got together and set up a popadum business which was worth £250 million.
Mutual aid is not exclusive to any demographic and it works.
There is no one model, it’s important not to be prescriptive and it comes and goes. The use of IT, free access to community spaces, the ownership of community assets and capacity-building support are factors which can aid success.
The key to making it work is to create the conditions in which human beings can be human.
Joining forces for Integrated Health and Care
The advent of the Integrated Care Systems should be an opportunity for organisations across sectors to join forces in a way that was not possible before. But it all seems a bit daunting. ‘So how should this best be approached?’ was the question we explored in this meeting.
Our first speaker was Samira ben Omar, previously Head of System Change at the North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups, and now working independently.
Our second speaker was John Mortimer, previously at Vanguard Consulting, now also working independently.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
The formal health system cannot bring about good health by itself. 80% or more of the drivers of health are elsewhere. The NHS needs to join forces with others.
There are serious problems of health discrimination and inequality, made more evident during the pandemic. So when joining forces, it is always necessary to consider who is included, who needs to be reached, and what discriminatory policies or practices need to be tackled.
It is important to unlearn, in order to shift towards a more creative and relational set of practices. In particular, we need to move away from the proliferation of committees, which have often become a ‘place of performance’, rather than drivers of improvement or change.
Instead, we need to establish new spaces for people to come together to share power, from neighbourhood level upwards. The ‘Us & Them’ culture is toxic in the health system. We will only address that if we create more opportunities for people to discover their shared humanity.
It is important not to make assumptions about what people want. Instead, we need to shift the whole system towards person-centred design. This includes asking open questions, listening together, bringing back answers. It also means giving front line teams the freedom to organise their work differently: to understand at first hand the experiences of individual people in the system, then experiment, prototype, and make normal.
Public sector organisations need to ‘let go’ more. Communities do most when they can decide for themselves, it was said.
We need to remember that in partnership working the quick fix is never successful. Worthwhile change will take time, and commitment must therefore be long term.
We need to resist pressure from NHS England or elsewhere to meet immediate targets, and we should be wary of putting too much faith in new structures. It’s the shared purpose held by committed people connecting across organisations and sectors and hierarchies that will get the best results.
New Public Management, with its fixation on target-setting, cannot co-exist with Integrated Working, which needs the freedom to practice relational methods. The former has failed to drive down costs and improve health outcomes - the latter now needs to be given a chance.
Sharing and building power: participatory grant-making
The topic under discussion on 9 February 2022 in our Sharing and Building Power cell was how to make participatory grant-making work and become more widespread.
Our first opening speaker was Cameron Bray, from Barking and Dagenham Giving, who explained how an endowment fund of £1 million had been created from external fund-raising and income from social housing and half of this is being determined through participatory means, using various approaches in a ‘big DJ mixing deck approach’, as follows:
A panel model, with participants being representative in terms of geography and also community of identity. Members shape the priorities of the fund and take the final decisions.
A community steering group was being developed to design investment policy from scratch with the freedom to determine priorities.
a closed collective pilot run by a young people’s network, where they collectively make decisions and are sharing the power and accountability between themselves.
These approaches need a lot of resources, he said, including paying people for their time and induction, but they had found the process was valuable in itself as an investment in the community and its empowerment.
Lucy Gilbert, from the Quartet Community Foundation in Avon, then told us about her experience of participatory budgeting, explaining that they were part of Bristol City Funds, set up in collaboration with Bristol City Council and Bristol and Bath Regional Council, which was implementing a ‘One City Plan’ to deliver systemic change. They too had found that processes were almost more important than the money itself and they had been exploring different ways for shifting power:
setting up a grant panel for their health and well-being budget of £1.3 million, where 40% of the panel had lived experience and members are given both training and payment for their time.
a panel of 100% people with lived experience making decisions for the Bristol Local Food Fund, which is a £60K fund raised through crowd-funding specifically to go to local food organisations. Members will be trained and paid at Living Wage rates.
a pilot ‘City Lab’, with decisions for a fund of £14,000 over 6 months devolved to people with lived experience of mental health dificulties and local organisations and involving a community research exercise to come up with solutions, and committed to developing fundable projects.
Key points made in discussion in breakout groups and the plenary include:
participatory grant-making is not just be about bringing communities into decision-making about who receives resources, but is also about allowing them to shape the agenda and the priorities for new funds.
As well as improving decision-making, it brings other benefits, helping to empower and grow community and creating new collaborations. It can be life-changing for those involved and build capacity and confidence in the community.
The process itself is important, including training and payment for volunteers. Local authorities can sometimes help by recruiting stakeholders from the community. One approach that’s worked is to bring in previous recipients of grants into the decision-making process. It is not enough just to bring people into the room - true collaboration with the community is required.
There’s a lot of potential but current practice tends to be focused on relatively small budgets, so there is a need to grow confidence in the approach.
Barriers to getting this right include culture, risk aversion and ‘white saviourism’ and that is why there is a need to build capacity across all of those involved, including funders who are not always comfortable with sharing power in this way.
There’s a lot to learn from others, rather than just reinventing wheels, including from Scotland, where 1 % of local authority budgets have been earmarked for this approach, and internationally, for example in Brazil. It’s important that practice is shared.
Moral Imagination
This was a first meeting to address the question ‘How can we unlock our humanity and imagination?’
This time we were exploring the idea of Moral imagination - what is it and how can we use it increase our power?
We heard from Phoebe Tickell from Moral Imaginations who is working with civil society organisations, local authorities and communities to embed imagination into place and is working on an Imagination Lab to bring leaders together to strengthen the role of imagination in their work collectively and individually.
Imagination is an extremely powerful force for change, Phoebe says, and humanity can build bridges and power us to change. Imagining allows us not just to see a different future but to feel it. The problem is not that we lack imagination, but that we have often blocked it.
Here is Phoebe’s presentation, in three parts:
An introduction to moral imagination
An imagination lab in Watchet, Somerset
The Impossible Train Story - a must-watch four-minute video
Some key points coming out of the event include:
Imagination is a powerful force but there is a massive capacity that is not being used, rather like a muscle that has been atrophied.
Developing imagination requires dedicated time, space and prompts, including tools and exercises (like the Imaginary Train one above) which remove the fear of performing and give permission to explore.
Phoebe had worked with a community in Watchet creating a portal for the community to go through to imagine a ‘dream economy’ for their community. We heard from Georgie Grant from the Onion Collective who were undertaking this work. She told us it had been a four day lab bringing together 20 very diverse people and that initially people were scared, thinking that this would be ‘too hippy’, but after 4 days they expressed real grief that it had ended, so they followed it up with regular zoom meetings. The process proved impactful for the community and transformative for some individuals.
This is about taking future thinking out of the boardroom and into communities.
Imagination at scale is something different to individual acts of imagination, and could be transformative. What kind of world do we want to live in and how can we make it happen?
Phoebe Tickell has written more about how to ‘rewild the imagination’ here; and Audrey Thompson has also penned an essay for our collection, Building a Bigger We about unlocking imagination and humanity in a community in the 1970s.
Roundtable on working in a place
Creating the conditions for a fairer system to emerge
Introduction – Laura Seebohm
Laura Seebohm, the Better Way Convenor for the North, gave a quick summary of A Better Way, explaining that the Better Way Network is a collection of leaders who are committed to changing the way things work for people across society for the better. We are not about leadership in the hierarchical sense. We come together within and across sectors, learn from each other, share common experiences and identify better ways to do things.
Laura noted that over the past 18 months we’ve seen certain ideas shine through, themes which seem to emerge and re-emerge in every conversation:
Four fundamental behaviours - putting relationships first, sharing and building power, joining forces and listening to each other, particularly those least heard.
And three cross-cutting questions, included one particularly pertinent to this event - how can we remove the road blocks?
These were all explored at our National Gathering on 24th November, she said. The note of that meeting is here.
Laura explained this roundtable had come about from conversations with people whose purpose ‘in the day job’ is to work in a place, who had said they would welcome a group where they could explore the challenges more deeply with others working in places, exploring how to help create the conditions to bring about change, recognising that it can be hard to unpick where barriers lie and wanting to share honest reflections about the complexities.
We had decided to make this an ‘invitation only’ meeting and to restrict the numbers, unlike most Better Way roundtables, she explained, in order to make it easier for open reflection, and to see if the group might want to work together, build up mutual trust and support each other after the first meeting.
We started with some opening contributions, moving to breakout groups and back to plenary.
Reflections from Kelly Cunningham, Changing Lives, working in York
· She wanted to talk about feelings and emotions, not processes, because she thought it was important to acknowledge these in system change work.
· We don’t acknowledge power dynamics enough.
· There is no blueprint for this kind of work, and you need to be very self-motivated because the work goes really slowly.
· There is always a pressure to see impact, but in fact there is no ‘big boom’ and sometimes it is hard to see the ripples of change.
· Importance of building legitimacy and allies is important, but this takes time.
· You need to change the conversation but in a way that you are not always seen as an ‘agitator’ – it can be a fine line between being radical and being irritating.
· Need to let go of some of your own views, ‘not do the do’ and step back. This is very hard – we need to model behaviours ourselves.
Reflections from Harriet Ballance, Lloyds Bank Foundation
· Set up phase takes time and it’s important to hold your nerve. This can be hard when there is pressure from colleagues within your organisation and within communities to show progress.
· Covid-19 forced us to slow down and to get to know each other, which has been helpful in establishing strong relationships for this work
· Capacity building is important– LBF try to identify people to work with them who have amazing networks locally.
· Sometimes it works well to have LBF neutrality, not being from a place and able to ask different questions – about things that may seem obvious to people in a place – and this can create a different conversation.
· Getting a shift in ‘the way we do things here’ is often difficult.
· Need to sit with discomfort and be very aware of how this work feels for people.
· How do we make this something that people actually want to do? – we are thinking about how to develop spaces that feel different and that people value
· Some of the tools adopted by LBF have been very useful in unblocking blockages, and providing a guide or framework in uncertainty eg training in restorative practice has provided a helpful framework. Service design led thinking has also been a tried and tested tool.
Reflections from Andy Crosbie, Collective Impact Agency, Gateshead
· Lots talked about ‘place-based’, ‘co-location’ – but what do we actually mean?
· The real test for place-based work is whether it engages communities, those people living in a place, non-specialist and non-institutional roles.
· Working a fine line between the old system – need to engage within it and find allies – and new ways of challenging orthodoxy and assumptions. This is difficult while you are trying to build relationships.
· Need to carve out a space free from assumptions and bureaucracy – a new space to grow
· This work can be lonely and exhausting, messy and slow. The old system loves clarity and efficiency, neither of which we can provide!
Some of the points made in discussion included:
· The issues raised by the opening speakers really resonated.
· It can be difficult to support systems change in a place when you are an outsider but it easy to slip into false assumptions.
· ‘Wisdom sits in a place’ and you really need to understand it, and take time to do so.
· People locally are often extremely pressed for time, and it’s important to use that time well, and make sure that it is funded. One key function to fund is a ‘systems facilitator’ who can bring different parties together and provide a convening space. Core, not project-based funding, is critical, otherwise local people are lurching from one funding crisis to another. Putting programme money into a community can be important but it can also be a curse because it distorts behaviour.
· Achieving change in a place takes time, you have to be patient and give yourself and others permission not to know the answers. It’s important to think hard about the starting point, as this determines what follows.
· Given the slow pace of change, some indicators of success would be helpful.
· Culture change may be the most important result that can be achieved, in order to free up the system. A theory of change is valuable.
Summing up, Bonnie Hewson from Power to Change said that it is ‘not what you do but how you do it’ that matters, and understanding your own power, and why you are using it. Being a funder can be uncomfortable, and there are huge challenges to working in a place and to create co-operation, and it’s important to share your power, which can be humbling. It’s critical to be led by the place and to ensure the process is fun, and very easy to constantly underestimate the wisdom of places whose main problem is often ‘not having capacity to build their own capacity.’
Caroline Slocock, a national co-convenor for a Better Way, ended with a reflection that perhaps the Better Way behaviours – putting relationships first, sharing and building power, listening to each other, particularly those least heard, and joining forces – might provide one guide for how to work in a place and deliver systems and culture change. Looking for evidence of these behaviours might be a way to measure progress, she added. She hoped the group might meet again, if that would be useful.