Collaboration collaboration collaboration

The more that I think about the problems that we face, big or small, the more that I believe that collaboration is the answer. Get, say, five very different people in a room and you get not only five different brains, but also the different perspectives, knowledge, connections, energy and resources that they all have access to. 

An example for me is the issue of protecting our environment in Surrey whilst providing reasonably priced homes for our young people. I am very keen to see both achieved and believe that the focus should be on “win-win.” This can only be done by getting a range of people together to look at these issues. I am therefore very pleased to have been invited to represent young people in Surrey on the Surrey Nature Partnership Board (SyNP) and I attended my first meeting last week. SyNP has a strategic remit for “sustainable land management use, supporting the economy and promoting health and wellbeing” and works in conjunction with the Local Economic Partnerships. It is very much seeking to work with different groups, including developers, to achieve win-win outcomes for the environment and the economy.

Collaboration was the key solution listed for another social problem this week – ensuring all children learn to read well by age 11. Thanks to Beccy Bowden at Satro for passing me an interesting report entitled “Reading England’s future: Mapping how well the poorest children read.” This is available on the Save the Children Website. 

In some areas, many children have already fallen behind with the groundwork needed for literacy by the time they go to school. In other areas, they enter school with a reasonable level, but then fall behind. Surprisingly to me, children from low-income families in smaller towns and rural areas are particularly likely to fall behind in reading. Cities are doing okay – in fact London is top performer in the country. London’s success was previously thought to be due to improvements at secondary school level, but this study has shown that it is London’s primary schools that are making the difference.

The conclusion of the report was that we need local action - “schools, parents, early years services and the wider community to unite and to own the goal of all children reading well.”  There couldn’t be a more perfect cue for me to mention again that Communilab will be our online forum enabling online collaboration to solve issues facing young people in Surrey. We will be launching in the new year. I am very excited, we have a lot of people and organisations interested in the project from a wide variety of areas – businesses, Surrey County Council, universities, third sector organisations, schools and colleges, health organisations, local councils. Our main Sponsor is Barclays and we also have Community Champions including Penningtons Manches, Surrey County Council, Pfizer and Exxon Mobil. I believe that it will make a significant difference to young people in Surrey. If you want to be kept informed click here.  

Honesty, dishonesty and too much disclosure?

The subject of honesty has come up in several different guises of late. Most people would, if asked, say that they are not dishonest. However, with the British stiff upper lip and “mustn’t grumble” approach we often hide feelings and thoughts, especially in the workplace. At a recent workshop on leadership, we were encouraged to be more honest in our dealings with partner organisations. As money gets tight, the “elephant in the room” with a group of statutory bodies and/or third sector organisations can often be money, where all organisations play a defensive game to protect their own staff. One leader of a public sector organisation said that she wanted to be more honest in meetings with partners.  

It is well known that many young people are now choosing to reveal large portions of their lives in great detail for the world to read. Is this too much disclosure? Many feel that it is. However, some may give a very censored view of the world – talking about all the great parties that they have been to, the friends they have made, but not the anguish they are feeling. When some young people look at the social media of others, they believe that everyone else is having a good time but them.

I have chosen not to regularly use Facebook or other social media to share my private life. Instead, to keep up with various friends around the world, I prefer the very outmoded Christmas Letter. Various people have expressed different opinions on how to write a letter. One person didn’t want to put in that his mother had dementia – people want to hear good news at Christmas, he believes. Another acquaintance said the opposite - he didn’t like letters full of happy events only - news about expensive holidays, house extensions and achieving children – since it left him feeling inadequate. 

When it comes to children, people often write about all the positive things about their children, sounding like they are bragging, but on the other hand, if one of your children is having difficulties, it may not be a good service to the child to tell the world about their problems, especially given that the child may read it themselves.

Overall, I think the world could do with more honesty, more honesty about thoughts and feelings, both concerns and also positive feelings when things go right. This is particularly true in face to face meetings, which are, perhaps, different from our broadcast communication from the world. I have had two "honest" conversations recently where I considered which route to take and chose in the end to be direct. The scenarios are still working themselves through, so I cannot say whether my path has worked yet, but I certainly felt better afterwards for having been honest with the person rather than hiding my opinions and feelings. 

So, my challenge to you this week is to reflect on your own honesty. Are you putting up a front with someone, when underneath your thoughts and feelings are very different? Would honesty be the best policy? How do you want to shape the moral compass of young people in your life when it comes to honesty?

Mental Health

What a difference a week makes. If you read my blog last week you will have seen that I was feeling rather delicate following the sudden illness of a close family member. I am so relieved to say that he has progressed as well as can be expected and we are starting to wonder when he may be ready to come out of hospital.

You will also have read last week that I gave myself permission not to be at peak performance, to work a little slower, to prioritise the most important tasks and to give time to those in my life who needed it. I now feel back on form, ready for the brain to engage and solve issues, ready for the fingers to fly over the keyboard. However, hopefully by giving myself permission last week not to be at peak performance, I will have given myself time to process difficult emotions, to deal with the situation and to maintain my mental health going forward.

Mental health issues are frequently in the news these days. I was particularly sad to hear the story of the 16 year old girl in the West Country who had been sectioned but was held in a police cell for two days whilst the police tried to find a more suitable place for her.  Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are due to be recommissioned soon in Surrey. I very much hope that we can find a way to give support to every young person who needs it in Surrey. I believe that the third sector can play an important role in this and am talking to people involved to encourage collaboration between all the appropriate parties.

My question to you this week is this: when times get tough emotionally do you give yourself permission to stop, to rest, to reflect and deal with the issue? Or do you carry on life at your normal pace, determined to push on and get things done, regardless of your own emotions and those of people around you?  Similarly, are you teaching the young people in your life how to pause and take the time to look after their mental health when life gets tough?

Positivity

I am feeling a little delicate today as a close family member was taken ill and underwent emergency surgery at the weekend. He is making good progress but not out of the woods yet. It is times like this, though, that remind me to focus on the important things in life. I am giving myself permission to not be at peak performance, to work a little slower, to prioritise the most important tasks and to give time to those in my life who need it today. So this blog will be short and sweet.

On the positive side we are making great progress on Communilab, the online forum that will bring together third sector organisations, universities, colleges, schools, local authorities, other statutory bodies and businesses to share perspectives and generate action both to help solve issues affecting young people and to create new opportunities for young people in Surrey. We have some exciting announcements to make soon about new funding partners and we hope to have the forum ready in Q1 2015.  

Self-harming and trolling

I was very disturbed to hear the opinions of a GP this week who said how common self-harming is these days. Among some young people it is like a badge, proving that you really are upset. If you haven’t self-harmed, your issues really aren’t that significant. In other words, if you want to get attention from your friends for something going on in your life, best that you get find yourself a knife and start cutting.  

I was also disturbed to read more about internet trolling. It is, of course, devastating to the lives of those on the receiving end and we all want to help them. However, it is also worrying how it can have a bad effect on the trolls themselves. Why should they get our sympathy, I hear you ask? Well the problem is that it is just too easy for anybody to get on the internet and start making comments. 

Isabella Sorley, age 24, is a case in point. According to the BBC Website, Isabella was convicted of trolling feminist Caroline Criado-Perez, sending tweets including "go kill yourself" - after a heavy night of drinking. Isabella has now talked about the incident, warning pupils not to do the same - she said that she had never done anything like this before and will never do it again. However, she knows that she will permanently be labelled as a troll. Isabella may not fit your stereotypical idea of a troll – she has a degree and 13 GCSEs.

There is often, of course, a link between the issues of being trolled and self-harm, with one sometimes leading to the other. As the mother of a son aged nine and a daughter aged three, I wonder what I need to be doing now and in the future to prepare my children to have the self-esteem and emotional strength to cope with being bullied or trolled and to resist the idea of self-harming. Also, what will I need to do to make sure that my children do not make the mistakes of Isabella and become trolls themselves?

I expect that you can guess my challenge to you this week: What are you doing to help guide the young people in your life through the difficulties of trolling/being trolled and self-harm?

Life’s journeys

Long-term readers of this blog will undoubtedly be interested to hear that my predecessor, Mike Abbott, has completed his 500 mile pilgrimage from St Jean Pieds des Ports in France, over the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. The trip took Mike 36 days (including three rest days), carrying his gear every step of the way. Mike said that he met people of all ages along the trip, from 82 down to 16 and that it was a very life-affirming experience among other things he observed  the inherent decency and kindness of ordinary people

Journeys are often seen as a metaphor for life. For those young people in Surrey who start their life’s journey surrounded by people who are violent, angry, taking drugs or even just working so hard that they have no time for the kids, how hard for these kids to get off on the right foot, to have any self-esteem, to believe that they are worth something.  And once they get used to having these types of people around them, how extra hard to make the necessary journey through life to surrounding themselves with people who will care and nurture and love them.

With respect to my own life journey, one of my strengths and weaknesses has always been wanting to get things sorted out now, today, this minute. If someone has an emotional problem, I want to help them solve it now. If I need to make a change at work, I want to make it now. On the positive side, this provides me with lots of energy to achieve things. On the negative side, some things just take longer to achieve. Over time I have had to learn to leave some issues alone, with a view to dealing with them later. Or maybe waiting and seeing when solutions or opportunities turn up – maybe next week, next month or next year.  I have learnt to involve other people’s brains and resources in solving the problems. Going forward at Surrey Youth Focus, we very much intend to try to solve  issues and create opportunities for young people in Surrey by collaborating with others as much as possible.

My challenge to you this week is this: If you have a problem or ambition, don’t go on the journey alone. Who can you find to help you solve it? Who will be life-affirming in supporting you? 

Cate Newnes-Smith

One door closes, another opens?

It’s easy to look at the charity sector and get depressed. Grant funding being cut left, right and centre. Big corporations being awarded contracts which charities feel they could deliver with much better results for the beneficiaries.  It’s becoming harder and harder to get core costs covered through traditional means. New regulations such as auto-enrolment on pensions increasing the costs.

However, on the other hand, there are always new opportunities coming along and for charities willing to be open-minded, flexible and ready to change their business models and ways of working, there are opportunities for them to reinvent themselves whilst still delivering services to their core beneficiaries.

Whilst local authorities have less money, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Local Enterprise Partnerships , the Big Lottery and other organisations have more money.

Many charities are successfully making the transition from grants to trading – selling their services, whether it be to statutory organisations, the private sector or private individuals. As mentioned in this blog a few weeks ago, the blurring of the sectors between businesses and charities is leading to various “shades of grey” business models which enable beneficiaries to be served from a more solid financial model. The newly launched All Saints Café in Leatherhead is a great example of an organisation helping young people into employment, funded by its' food sales to businesses and individuals in the local area.

Social media, gaming apps, big data, online forum - technology provides new ways of attracting supporters, spreading the word, gaining insights and communicating with the wider world. The rise of Social Investment - borrowing money to finance new projects - is another interesting development for the sector. 

Businesses have been increasing their Corporate Social Responsibility activities over the years. There has been scepticism about “greenwash” and cynical motives, but I strongly believe that I am meeting more and more businesses who genuinely want to make a difference and who can be a real help to the charity sector.

However, the brave new world requires vision, courage and a willingness to take bold steps. This needs to be true not only for the chief executive, but also for the board of trustees and other stakeholders. It is not for the faint-hearted.

My challenge to you this week is this: if you are involved in running a charity, do you have a bold vision for the future and are you ready to go for it? If not, why not?