Paces

On sharing data. Lessons for conductive education centres maybe?

Just a link, really. The article speaks for itself.

"Data for Promotion. Engagement and Reporting" source Stanford Social Innovation Review.

"Many organizations use selected statistics, data, or other information in press releases and calls to action, but we may not look at those numbers or statistics as stories that compel us to share, respond, and take action."

Why Eton fives and Westminster School matter to Conductive Education

If I were to tell you that Giles Coren, the Sunday Times columnist and food critic, may no longer be able to play Eton fives at Westminster School, you might well wonder what the sporting pastime of a former pupil of one of the UK's top private schools has to do with conductive education.

If I suggested that you should be concerned, you might well suspect that I had, as has often been rumoured, finally flipped. But you would be wrong.

You see, the fives courts at Winchester School, which are behind the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, are accessed through the school. And there's the rub. Coren and his fellow players have now been told that they must undergo Criminal Record Bureau checks in line with safeguarding legislation because of the possibility that players going to the fives courts might "come into 'unsupervised contact' with the pupils". The school, Coren says, has done its best "but there appears to be no way round the problem." Coren's fives team is likely to cease playing.

Now, this post is not a rant about some of the idiocies of safeguarding.

When, in 1994, we first conceived of Paces Campus as an inclusive environment for the conductive education of children and adults with cerebral palsy and their families, we had no notion of 'safeguarding' and its eventual reach into our Vision and practice. Back then, as parents who were already beginning to experience the isolation that can come with having a severely disabled child, we did not wish to set up a segragated special school to isolate our children and ourselves further. However, we did recognise that the group-based model of conducive education did need children to come together. How did we attempt to square this circle of being separate but not separated? Our answer was to co-locate our services within an ordinary local community centre, where there would be a range of inclusive activities for our children and families.  Like a small village, as someone described it, our children would be able to go safely about their business, sharing many of the same spaces as other people, including the public spaces.  Ours is a collaborative and inclusive model. But the reality today is that we have been required (or, like self-censorship, we have required of ourselves), gradually to increase the barriers around our children and 'vulnerable adults'.

My interest just at the moment is not to debate the rights and wrongs of this but to search out what others do in similar mixed-use settings. The Government wants school buildings to be more available for community use; they and we want our facilities to be more available for others in the community. How are we to do this and comply with safeguarding regulation? I'd be glad to hear.

Perhaps an answer lies with Extended Schools and Children's Centres - both later developments under New Labour than Paces Campus. How do they manage the co-location of activities? How do they draft safeguarding and other policies whilst at the same time being an open and welcoming community? And what does that say about our Values?

The well-worn saying "It takes a whole village to raise a child" may be apocryphal but the grain of truth it contains resonates across the world - but not if we segregate our children behind numeric key pads, fences and locked doors.  Giles Coren and his team of fives players might be more important than we care to admit.

 

 

 

"Appreciating Assets"

"Contributors to this publication share a ‘people-centred’ approach that insists that everyone is unique, and has a unique contribution to make to their organisation or community: an appreciative approach that recognises the intrinsic worth in people and places."  Appreciating Assets, Carnegie UK Trust

Fascinating read if you are into working with communities. Stuff here underpinned foundation of Paces Campus in 1997. We are still on the journey, not having yet arrived!

Has The Time Come For Holistic Business Strategy in Conductive Education?

Some people I know (you don't need names) don't like "holistic" as a applied to conductive education. Indulge me a moment. SAHK have sought to apply conductive education to and embed it within their business model holistically, one might say, if by that we mean, the whole.

"The Time Has Come For Holistic Business Strategy" says Brian Solis - now what could that possibly mean? You'll have to check the link yourself, as I'm not quite sure. 

I quite like this though which certainly applies to Paces:

"What’s the biggest problem in business today? .... I contend the biggest problem is that each business has too few people looking after the whole of the business. .... What’s the solution? I believe ... it is time to for organizations large and small to adopt a holistic business strategy that empowers more employees to think about the whole of the business...."

We tried that a year or so ago. Without much success, it has to be said. There was too much opposition to setting up a Ning social network, which was the plan. Maybe the time will come again?  (Andrew Sutton felt similarly the that SAHK's Pre-Congress social network initiative was a disappointment. I was encouraged that it had happened at all. Brian Solis is more of Andrew's view, if I read the blog post right.)

Why stop at employees? Why not include all those people the charity exists to servce?  Starting with our parents.

Then poking around the links from Brian Solis's posting, I stumbled across this, which seems to take the holistic business beyond our beneficiaries:

Michael Porter’s publishing of this great article on “Creating Shared Value” has really inspired me to put my nose to the grindstone and invest in advancing this big idea – that we must think about not only the whole of the business, but also the whole of society and the impacts every member of the broader ecosystem has on the other players and the ecosystem itself. (My Focus on Holistic Business Strategy - Chris Heuer).

Well, that might be over-cooking it just a bit. Nevertheless, aiming for more employees and parents in thinking about and giving direction to the whole business rather than just their bit of it is quite a challenge.

Anyone for an orthofunctional organisation? Now for another glass of red wine.

DfE: More flexibility & freedom - and the 'duty to cooperate'

You can read the full report on the Department for Education news website. An extract:

"All evidence and experience suggests stronger partnerships, greater integration of services and a shared purpose for all those working with and for children and families lead to better services for children, young people and families – especially the most vulnerable. The core principle of a shared commitment to improve the lives of children, young people and families – enshrined in the ‘duty to cooperate’ on local strategic bodies – remains as important as it ever was.

But the current system needs urgent reform."

"The forthcoming Education Bill will, subject to the will of Parliament, remove the ‘duty to cooperate’ from

• maintained schools
• FE and sixth-form colleges
• non-maintained special schools
• academies, city technology colleges and city colleges for the technology of arts.

"These bodies will no longer have to be represented on Children’s Trust Boards, and schools and colleges will be free to form partnership arrangements in the way that best meets local circumstances."

 

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Partnerships? Don't! - On the contrary ...

Partnership. Don't. The title of a blog post by Andrew Sutton. Alluding to the 'first principle' in a book on collaborations that he's been 'dipping into' by Chris Huxham and Siv Vangen, called Managing to collaborate: the theory and practice of collaborative advantage.

Actually, I'm with Rony Schenker on this one, who I hope will not mind me quoting the Comment she added to Andrew's post:

"My experience with partnerships is totally different, and partnerships are my default option as I truly believe in its advantages. Tsad Kadima is based on a partnership between parents and professionals, and this partnership is the essence of its existence and the secret of its success. Neither parties could be as effective as the fusion between the two. The reciprocity of influences within and between became the general cause for TK's development."

I like Rony's phrase "my default option". Mine too. 

The reason I didn't just add this as a Comment to Andrew's post, was to bring attention to a piece of writing that in the early days of setting up Paces Campus simultaneously influenced my own thinking and expressed my own thoughts about collaborations and setting up new ventures. That piece of writing was "Just Do It - Letter from a US Networker" by Steve Snow.

Steve Snow was the Director of the award-winning Charlotte's Web in North Carolina. In 1997, he wrote "Just Do It" as an open letter to UK Networkers. Steve Snow died on 27 December 2008. In a reflection on his life and work a few days afterwards, David Wilcox, who himself is a highly respected 'social reporter' wrote that "Steve’s interest was always people and communities, rather than technology .... More than anything he was an enthusiast for trying stuff ..." 

I didn't meet Steve Snow except through his letter from a US Networker. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing that in his interest in "people and communities" and his "enthusiasm for trying stuff", collaboration was his "default option".

In their first principle, Huxham and Vangen recognise that "Joint working with other organisations is inherently difficult and resource-consuming". Indeed it is. That is my experience at Paces.  But no-one said collaboration would be easy. Why should it be? Indeed, I believe I read somewhere, seems a long time ago, that a collaboration between Charlotte's Web and the local Charlotte municipal authority went badly wrong and resulted in the near closure of Charlotte's Web - but I cannot find confirmation though a quick Google search.

Last word to Steve Snow:

"Make friends, forget enemies. Collaborate with any group that will have you and wants to work together. That will vary from community to community, so the model to copy is the process, not the organizations. Natural collaborations will surface. Make the most of them. Conversely, be nice to those who would undermine you but stay away from them; they will bring negative energy you can ill afford."

Collaborate against the cuts

Seeking out collaborations as a defence against the coming storm of cuts is perhaps not the best reason for collaborating but it might be an effective one.

Cuts? What cuts? This week the Independent Living Funds have sent out a letter warning clients that whilst current payments to individuals are secure "if you need more care or the cost of your care increases, we are not able to increase your award further".

A second example: Earlier this week the Digital Participation Fund was withdrawn: "As you will be aware, there is a major programme of reviewing public expenditure under way.  As part of this, the Government has decided to rescope the digital participation programme.... It is with regret therefore that I have to tell you that it is not possible to proceed with considering applications for funding." Don't ask me what this has to do with conductive education, look at the way the cut comes: "review ... rescope ...not possible to proceed." 

There was a sign-of-the-times NCVO "breakfast briefing" this week: "Corporate Community Involvement" I learned about it from a post "Hand in Hand into the Sunset" - a reflection on the briefing theme of mutual benefits from collaborations between charities and businesses. "Collaboration is often seen as a response to cuts, so if you view it that way, it should be on the top of your agenda anyway. But as this seminar showed, it is far more than that." There are several links to relevant material, one example of which is the NCVO's own "Collaborative Working" website. NCVO list the benefits of collaborations as the opportunity to:

• Deliver new, improved or more integrated services
• Make efficiency savings through sharing costs
• Develop a stronger, more united voice
• Share knowledge and information

What struck me about this list is that these are among the benefits that Paces foresaw and expected from collaborating with others groups at Paces Campus to set up High Green Development Trust to run the Campus.

The Collaborative working pages on the NCVO site have loads of information, tips and case studies on collaboration if you want to follow this up.

(Thanks to "Kathryn" at NCVO Third Sector Foresight for provoking this post).

Free Schools - a chance for conductive education?

Andrew Sutton has reported the DfE announcement of the opening of the process for making Free School applications, so I will not repeat it here.

The first step is little more than a relatively straightforward 'expression of interest': the completion of a "Proposal".

I have begun drafting a Proposal from Paces. 

If your conductive education centre is thinking of making an application - and now is the time - I'd be more than happy to help you do so.

Alternatively, I understand that applications proposing "groupings of schools" (definition not yet clear) would especially be welcomed. So if your conductive education centre might be interested in some sort of partnership application, I'd be happy to talk with you about that too.

Paces has successfully gone through Registration, Approved status and Non-Maintained Special School status with DfE and we have quite a lot of experience we are willing to share.

I can be contacted on PacesCEO@googlemail.com or 0114 284 4488.

Creative collaboration for innovation and survival

" Innovation comes from our capacity to collaborate creatively." 

(Charles Leadbetter. "State of Loneliness" The Guardian.)

I was in two important meetings this (long) morning which essentially might be said to have turned on whether each of those present believed that creatively collaborating was or was not the way forward to the innovation we seek to bring about at Paces Campus.

Observing that "Giving people a right to more services might not be the right starting point", Charles Leadbetter then proposes that "Radical public services innovation will only come from a markedly different starting point. The key will be to redesign services to enable more mutual self-help, so that people can create and sustain their own solutions. The best way to do more with less is to enable people to do more for themselves and not need an expensive, professionalised public service. Enabling people to come together to find their own, local solutions should become one of the main goals of public services. Services do a better job when they leave behind stronger, supportive relationships for people to draw on and so not need a service."

When Mike Chitty  (@mikechitty) tweeted today "Am I the only one thinking a National Care Service is a really bad idea. Care is an emotional relationship - not a professional service", he was clearly not alone in raising the question.

Charles Leadbetter goes on "There are good reasons for putting relationships at the core of effective public provision."  This essentially was the message too from a consultant, Ann Menzies-Blythe, who worked with Paces a couple of years ago: she stressed the importance of internal relationships and communication - of learning to talk supportively to ourselves first. 

And, in this socially networked world, I am prompted to imagine that mutual "creative collaborations" which put relationships and the building of relationships at the core of effective services and marketing are the way not only to deliver innovative services but maybe also be the way to survive the blizzard of public services cuts that are on their way. 

In which case, those who do not see the value of creative collaborations are doomed.

Pictures at an exhibition

Is forelock-tugging* still expected of the rude classes? 

Somehow, I never got the hang of it myself. No offense meant mind. Perhaps it's in my DNA, the long line of 18th and 19th century "Ag Labs*" that family history research has uncovered; or maybe it's a faulty socialisation at school; or just a character failing - always was a member of the "awkward squad", a contrarian, wouldn't be told.

There's a flip-side to this aversion I have to forelock-tugging. I value the freedom of having my own thoughts, of making choices about my life, of associating with whom I choose ... to collaborate with others on projects that concern and affect us .... like espousing conductive education, insisting that my disabled daughter is entitled to 'a good life', working with others to build Paces Campus ... valuing voting in general elections ...

I'm happy to work with anyone who will work with me. I'm happy to work with anyone who'd like me to work with them (provided it's not illegal, immoral or fattening). And that includes lords and ladies, politicians and the public sector. And the Sheriff of Nottingham if needs be. Just so long as I am not expected to be grateful. To touch my forelock. Then something starts to twitch.

Which brings me to a tweet on Twitter this morning that caught my attention:

"Nottingham. most ambitious plan we've seen for co-located neighbourhood services? .Funded by NHS".

It was the "co-located" that did it. Paces Campus is the co-location, to put it that way, of services for children with disabilities and their families (in the jargon, a "community of interest") with services for the local community (a "geographic community" in the same jargon), and ideally it would be a good cross-sector mix of service providers).

To save you the trouble of checking out the link above (or another link here for more detail if you really must), the £22m Bullwell Joint Service Centre funded by the NHS, it seems, will provide a "one-stop shop" for 

"Nottingham City Council services including a new play centre, youth club with indoor and outdoor sports facilities, Bulwell library and community centre and will be the base for the City Council's Bulwell Neighbourhood Management Team. The local Nottingham City Homes housing office will be situated there and there will also be a range of community health services run by NHS Nottingham City and two GP practices, with a total of eight GPs".   

No doubt the good people of Bulwell need better services; no doubt the Joint Service Centre will deliver them. And no doubt the Council and the NHS will be pleased and the good citizens ("customers") will be duly grateful. No doubt there will be opening ceremony. Speeches. Will the Sheriff of Nottingham be there? Forelocks touched.

Because search as you will these two articles about this "most ambitious project", you will find no mention of the "ambitious" partnership role played by the the local third sector, voluntary groups, charitable companies, social enterprises or community organisations.  True it is that local people have been "consulted", they were allowed to submit their photographs for an exhibition, "a community advisory group has been established to provide a link between the local community and the team responsible for the development of the centre",  the views of local people will be "taken into account". 

Yet in all the things that matter - the strategic planning, the governance and management arrangements, the decisions about how money is spent, the design of the building, the services to be included, who runs the youth club and the play-centre, it seems the role of local people and their organisations and associations and enterprises is to be merely "customers" - and grateful, of course, to the modern day Sheriff of Nottingham, provider of all good things. 

Two twitches of my DNA:

- we really ought to be moving beyond this 19th/20th century model of paternalism in the planning and delivery of local public services

- how should that thought be applied to the running of schools and local education policy?

Notes:

forelock-tugging: a sign of respect and obedience but of subservience - an acknowledgement of the forelock-toucher's humble place in the class structure.

ag labs: a short-hand used in UK censuses for "agricultural labourers"