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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
26 June 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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This blog introduces Athol Halle's full provocation piece which he developed as part of his Clore Social Leadership 2016 Fellowship.
Are we in denial about homelessness? The facts are out there - homelessness kills you. The average of death of a rough sleeper in England is 47, with one person dying whilst sleeping on the streets of London every two weeks.
Homelessness is growing. The number of people sleeping on our streets more than doubling since 2010.
Services are shrinking. Despite the rise in rough sleeping, there has been 20% reduction in the number of homeless hostel beds since 2010.
A lack of empathy – do we have a Personality Disorder? As a society, we know of the serious harms that homelessness causes to people, and yet we lack compassion and allow it to grow, before our eyes, under our feet. ‘An impairment in empathy: lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others.’ This diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder fits us well.
We waste our precious resources – is this self-harm? People are society’s most precious resource. Take Jimmy Carlson, whose Memorial Service was recently held at St Martins-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. Jimmy spent over 20 years as homeless. He then spent the next 20 years as an inspirational advocate for the rights of homeless people, contributing to national policy, setting up client involvement groups and creating social clubs for people in recovery from alcohol and drug problems. On receiving his OBE in 2012 Jimmy said 'You would have walked over me in the street 15 years ago and thought I was a lost cause, just another drunk. However, I picked myself up and turned my life around and I have gone on to make a decent contribution to my community. Rough sleepers you see on the street today – with the right support they have a lot to offer too. Never give up on anyone.'
When we allow people to rot away on the margins of society, we all suffer from the lack of contribution people have to offer. A 2012 government study estimated up to £1 billion was spent as a result of homelessness across all government departments. We waste our money on dealing with the consequences rather than addressing the causes of homelessness. ‘Deliberate injury to oneself, typically as a manifestation of a psychological or psychiatric disorder.’ This dictionary definition for ‘Self-Harm’ fits us well.
There is a complex relationship between homelessness and mental health, on an individual level, both cause and consequence. Heriot Watt University’s in-depth research showed that for the majority of people, mental health problems preceded homelessness; whilst the experience of homelessness is clearly damaging - Homeless Link show that 80% of people in homelessness services had some form of mental health issue, diagnosed or undiagnosed. However, the stark truth is that if you are homeless you are nine times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
Denial? Lack of empathy? Self-harm? As a society, when it comes to homelessness, we have a mental health problem. Acknowledging we have a problem is the first step to solving it.
Athol Hallé is Chief Executive of Groundswell - this piece is also published on their website.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
12 April 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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In the last blog, Born leaders – you need to regress to progress, I explored the quality of curiosity and how we could benefit from learning to value this quality as we face increased leadership challenges in our sector. Now, I'd like to think about another child-like quality: courage.
When I was nine years old, my brother and salvaged four large pram wheels from the local tip. I was so excited – after what felt like months of searching we had finally found the only missing elements to our home-made go kart.
We fixed the axles to the old wooden door, secured an old blue rope as a steering device to the front axle and headed for the hill. The hill was notorious, it’s where anybody who was anybody went when it snowed. They took it on with bin lids, dinner trays, rubber rings, and the occasional sledge. But this was the height of the summer holidays, so we were going to set a new standard of bravery by tackling the hill on a homemade go kart. When we got back at school, we'd be heroes! I sat at the top of the hill, gripping the steering rope so tight it was sore. Wearing nothing more than my shell suit to protect me, I gave the nod to my brother to push me over the precipice. My heart was racing so fast, like it knew something that I didn’t…
I’m told that I made it to the bottom; I don’t remember it as well my brother. The last I recall he was shouting at me to use the soles of my plimsolls as brakes. Ah yes, brakes! Perhaps the pram wheels weren’t the only thing missing…
This might not be the most inspiring story to demonstrate my point but thinking back, I can't help but be a bit envious of my own courage. Coming on for thirty years later I wouldn’t dream of returning to the hill with a homemade Go Kart. I have learned to be cautious, to assess risk and make informed decisions based on the information that’s available to me.
Have I become too cautious? Does this same risk assessment prevent me from being brave, from speaking my truth in situations where I may be a lone voice, and from making unpopular decisions even though I know with confidence that they’re the right decision for the organisation?
In trying to find an example of where I have demonstrated courage recently, I asked some of my colleagues for examples of where I have led with courage. This feedback revealed the big differences that I have effected as a result of being willing to take appropriate risks, to challenge the status quo, and to make tough decisions. The feedback also revealed that courage manifests in small moments, like in being more open and vulnerable with my colleagues.
As our sector faces increasing challenges, both in number and complexity, it’s vital that we lead with the courage of our childhood, and true to our authentic selves.
In the next blog I’ll explore the quality of authenticity and how being true to our real self can enable us to be more courageous.
This blog was developed as part of Mark's 2016 Clore Social Fellowship Programme and originally published on Third Force News as part of a blog series.
Mark Kelvin is programme director at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland and a 2016 Clore Social Fellow.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
16 January 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Sophie Livingstone is Chief Executive of City Year UK, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of Generation Change, and a Trustee at Royal Voluntary Service.
Make no mistake, this country faces huge challenges. We have an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, a mental health crisis, girls growing up with extreme levels of anxiety about the pressure to conform, and a high rate of young male suicides. We are a world leader in educational inequality, social mobility is ever more entrenched, we have a social care crisis and a subsequent near NHS meltdown. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 13.5m do not earn enough to get by.
The people we rely on to manage the consequences of these challenges - doctors, nurses, care workers, teachers, social workers, prison officers - are generally underpaid, undervalued and facing severe staff shortages.
Additionally, those we need to lead us through to the other side - the politicians who have stepped up to contribute to our nation through their service - are increasingly trolled, threatened and abused as 'career politicians'. A sense of meaning and connection is missing from our public discourse amidst the value placed on sound bites and showbiz over experience and compassion.
My belief is that a lack of collective meaning and purpose is tearing us apart. We have gone too far in valuing the cognitive over the human and emotional. It’s certainly been my recent experience during interaction with a wide range of public services as a result of a family tragedy.
But there is an opportunity to do things differently. Whatever our personal views about Brexit, it does give us the opportunity to reconsider what defines our country in the 21st century, and what public service now means. Civil Society has a proud tradition of shaping public discourse and action, whether it be the settlement movements of the 19th century, or the creation of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS - now the RVS) during the Second World War to involve women in tackling the challenge of war at home.
The 2005 Make Poverty History campaign changed the game for international development. Tackling domestic poverty is complex and ongoing, and the issue is entwined with our national culture. But if our great sector is not able to step up and represent humanity, compassion, values and leadership, then all really is lost.
It still feels like a huge and daunting challenge - and it is, bigger than any one of us. But unless we all feel a sense of responsibility to go beyond hand wringing towards trying to turn the tide, we are as much a part of the problem. Civil society has been at the forefront of national movements for change before and we need it to do so again, urgently.
A few non exhaustive thoughts about what should change, and some glimmers of hope include:
- Expand National Citizen Service, which has made a great start over the last six years, to more age groups and models, using the power of the brand to show young people their contribution is valued.
- Build on the success of Teach First, Frontline and Police Now by creating more ways for young people to gain experience and entry into public and voluntary service, going beyond just the top graduates to all young people.
- Change the way we treat and value older people and their wisdom, growing and supporting those organisations and networks that create more connections, such as the Royal Voluntary Service and North and South London Cares.
- Accelerate and value emerging leaders in our sector through schemes such as Clore Social.
- Support initiatives which give a voice to those who often feel they have no say, such as Undivided; a youth led campaign giving young people aged 13 to 30 a way to input to the Brexit negotiations.
- Supporting the ‘Solve UK Poverty’ plan set out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in September.
The Founder of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, Lady Stella Reading believed that the strength of a nation 'lies not in her trading, nor in the multitude of her financial transactions. It’s not found in her banking operations nor in the acumen of her leaders. The ultimate strength of a nation lies in the character of the men and women who are that nation and voluntary service is an integral part of that character.'
We need to rediscover our national character and I believe that starts with each of us.
Please post your comments about Sophie’s blog below, or you can share your views with her on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 January 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Andreana Drencheva is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Sheffield where she helps social entrepreneurs to develop entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities.
In the 1980’s New York’s legendary mayor Ed Koch was known for his phrase ‘How am I doin’?’. This phrase was not just his public slogan, but also a genuine request for feedback and a meaningful and authentic way to connect with constituents and stakeholders. While we usually think of leaders as the individuals who provide feedback to those they motivate, inspire, organise, and manage; leaders, particularly social leaders, are also in a unique position to benefit from feedback. Feedback can come from diverse individuals to focus on a variety of individual, team, organisational, and system topics. Ultimately, feedback answers two fundamental questions: ‘How am I doing?’ and ‘How can I do better?’.
Feedback enables effective social leadership in three main ways. We can see the benefits of feedback for social leaders by applying the Clore Social Leadership Framework. The framework focuses on helping leaders develop their personal qualities, understand their context, and work with and through others. Feedback underpins each one of these three areas of social leadership.
1. Feedback helps social leaders to know and look after themselves. As evaluative type of information (i.e. ‘How am I doing?’), feedback increases self-awareness and tells social leaders whether their skills and actions match their intentions, goals, and values. As suggestive type of information (i.e. ‘How can I do better?’), feedback also provides social leaders with ideas and solutions on how to look after themselves, how to maintain wellbeing, and how to prevent burnout. It can also offer them suggestions on how to lead authentically in a way that reflects their personal values and ideas while balancing others’ expectations of who a leader is, and what a leader does.
2. Feedback helps social leaders assess their current and potential context. While no one can predict the future of the complex and dynamic world we live in, feedback can give a meaningful voice to everyone involved in a system. Thus feedback from diverse perspectives can help social leaders to understand and assess the current position of their work. Feedback is also an essential element of how individuals and organisations learn, thus it can enable social leaders to adapt their work to meet the needs of their context. Feedback from diverse perspectives can also expose the challenges, options, and possible future directions of the system and give social leaders ideas for how to address or take advantage of them.
Feedback from diverse perspectives enables social leaders to set an inspiring vision that naturally brings others into the process of catalysing social change. Additionally, feedback gives voice to diverse individuals and communities, which allows social leaders to leverage the collective creativity in the system and address challenges and opportunities in a collaborative way. Therefore, feedback makes the social change process more social and collaborative, while also bringing additional resources and support from those who have a similar vision.
To maximise the benefits of feedback, social leaders need to address two main challenges. The first challenge for social leaders is to proactively seek feedback from diverse individuals in a way that makes others feel comfortable to share critical, honest, and objective feedback. The second challenge for leaders is to find the time and space to systematically reflect on the (hopefully) diverse feedback they receive, and decide how to use it to benefit their personal development and the development of their work.
Please share your views about this blog post below, or contact Andreana on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
09 December 2016
Updated: 07 December 2020
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OK, I was wrong, and it took a fellowship to Canada in 2015 to realise it.
I have been involved in the food movement for a decade, specialising in building good food communities. I continue to see many benefits to putting good food at the heart of a community, including increases in social capital and benefits to mental and physical health.
I became increasingly aware of the increase in the number of people visiting food banks and I thought that the sorts of programmes I worked on could reduce this number. I then went to Canada thanks to a Winston Churchill fellowship.
One of the reasons I went to Canada, a country where food banks have existed for almost 30 years longer than in the UK, was to learn how emergency food aid providers in Canada have gone beyond basic food provision to reduce people’s food bills and dependency on the state.
What I actually found was that food aid providers were increasingly disassociating themselves from the message that they were reducing food poverty. They realised that while people need feeding they must also raise awareness of the need to advocate for wider systemic change as, ultimately, that is what’s required to have the necessary impact.
Measurement of food poverty had helped greatly in bringing this to the fore. Whereas the UK government continues to reject calls to undertake national measurement, Canada has been doing so for many years. As a result they understand very clearly that the situation has only got worse despite an increase in food aid, and research from the likes of Valerie Tarasuk at the University of Toronto has provided evidence of the lack of impact that food aid provision has.
I’m not here to bash food banks though. People are hungry and hundreds of groups across the country, very often run by volunteers, are working tirelessly to feed them.
Instead, in my article I call for a need to change the narrative on food poverty and highlight the importance of all of us, including food aid providers, in getting behind this new narrative to prevent the further institutionalisation of food aid. I provide more evidence for why this new narrative is required, offer up suggestions for what we can all do to get behind this new narrative and highlight how in the UK we’re in danger of creating a segregated food system for the poor if we don’t take action now.
Please share your views and comments below, or start a conversation with Seb on Twitter.
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