Why we need to stop letting the privileged define value!
Person A is a university educated heterosexual white male. Person A experienced childhood trauma and years of substance abuse and mental health related issues, but was able to quickly pick up the language of local authourity commissioning and the design and management of public services. It is, after all, the language of his white middle class parents, who were head of student services at a local college and a mental health social worker respectively. Person A was quickly welcomed into the world of commissioners and managers in the work which was formerly known as service user involvement, now rebranded as coproduction.
Person A went through the school for social entrepreneurs and they have had the opportunity to work for a year for a large national charity in a consultancy role where he was, at times, paid to further develop his understanding of the evidence base and best practice in relation to terminology such as coproduction and community development. Person A knows how to package and brand their work in a way which will get them paid for their time on any project they work on, even if they are still somewhat uncomfortable with selling themselves. Person A was also fortunate enough to have been one of the original participants of the Lankelly Chase funded Systems Changers programme, which gave him a space to reflect on, and understand, his work from a systems perspective. This opportunity gave him the opportunity to form a very close working relationship with the Foundation.
Person B is a South Asian Muslim woman, they have made sure communities which have faced huge challenges throughout the pandemic have got the crucial practical support they need. Operating a halal foodbank and making sure people can understand and fill out the forms they need to claim benefits when they’ve experienced unemployment for the first time. Person B is so busy doing the practical work in an unpaid capacity that she struggles to keep up with all the latest piecemeal bits of funding which are available and to brand and package her work so it brings in enough income for her to carry out this role in a paid capacity.
Person C is a white woman with lived experience of mental health and domestic abuse who is in the relatively early stages of establishing a community support group for women which combines physical and mental wellbeing. Person C made the brave decision to leave a job in care which was completely draining her at the start of the pandemic. Person C is being paid for some of their time, but funding for projects such as hers is often scarce and precarious.
Regular readers will have guessed that person A is me by now. Person C is Judith, with whom I am working with on The Elephants Trail. On Thursday 27th May I spent an afternoon hearing how the space she has created using funding provided by GM systems changers, is impacting on the women who are accessing it. One of the women had produced an amazing piece of artwork and all of the women articulated how the project is helping them find their hope again after a period of losing it, and how it is helping them self-manage physical health conditions, substance abuse and mental health.
Person B is Ayesha from Bury Active Women’s Centre, and Judith has been out with her a few times as a community reporter, finding out just how vital her work has been for people within her community. If I had the time I could have very easily identified a person for every other letter of the alphabet for someone who has it worse than me. That is to say people who are less able to be paid fairly for their time but is invaluable to the people they are supporting.
The game is rigged
Through participating in the GM movement for community power, coordinated by Nick Dixon, I have learned that these kinds of dynamics exist in every borough and every system. The same barriers which make things difficult for Judith and Ayesha are present for so many other women, and even more so when you factor in class and race. At times it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that, when it comes to funding and commissioning, the game is rigged.
Recently I was reviewing some of the comments made by the Elephants Trail participants at the start of our work in Bury. There was clearly a suspicion that we would be just another short term project which sold people a dream, only to massively under-deliver. There has been a tension within me ever since that point in the project. I’ve got such an enhanced understanding of how the knowledge economy perpetuates inequality that, on an ethical level, I really couldn’t look myself in the mirror anymore if it was only white blokes from outside of Bury who financially benefitted from our work there. On a short term basis I can live with myself knowing that through various different pots of money from Sports England, GM Systems Changers, Bury Council’s social isolation fund and the GMCA the people we have been working with have been able to do paid work. But how do we start to think about legacy? How do I start to get out of the way in a helpful way which best ensures that everything we have built together is sustainable.
Assertiveness courses or a 101 in how not to be a Dickhead?
One of my favourite ever, and most referenced, quotes is from a woman who I met at a Jam and Justice event. She told me “Every time a man with power speaks over me and stops me contributing I get told to go on an assertiveness course. I don’t need it, they need to go on a how not to be a dickhead course”.
Similarly, almost everything I’ve done in the name of personal development has been aimed at communicating more effectively to the predominantly white middle class people who hold the power. How to speak their language, how to play their game. So there would be a school of thought which would suggest that I should try to spread those skills. They are definitely useful in some environments and some situations. But it can’t be denied in good faith that merely telling people that “it’s the same system for all of us and anyone can learn how to play the game” is much different to the ‘it’s the same distance’ cartoon above. It’s much easier for some people to assimilate in to that system than it is for others.
Now I’m not suggesting that any of the people in power I actively work with need to go on a ‘how not to be a dickhead’ course, far from it. They wouldn’t be working with me if they hadn’t already have some or all of the same realisations about who power and wealth currently benefits, and for the need to change things. However, I do think we need to talk about how we design and measure things so the community voice counts for much more. To un-rig the game we need to stop trying to teach our grassroots leaders how to prioritise being a business-person, a bid-writer and an academic over and above nurturing their communities. We need to build systems where we find out from those communities what their needs and preferences are and bring in the required resources. We can’t just tell the people who are so often keeping their communities alive that they have their priorities wrong and they need to instead focus on branding and packaging. We need to discover new ways of letting communities decide for themselves what matters most. I for one would be pretty amazed if any of them said they wanted the person supporting them to be better at pitching and powerpoint presentations.