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Highland Community Care Forum is the voice of its network and its members. To use that voice to express the many stories that people have to tell we must continually relate to people in ways which are appropriate to their particular experiences. No matter what the issues are, people are the starting point. This is crucial when setting direction, building active citizenship, gathering feedback, or working with new ideas. What people have to say is as important for those who tell it as it is for those who hear it. Often a professional starting point is defined by work: an issue, a project’s definition, a funding model, the profile of beneficiaries, outcomes or outputs. How often does this miss the point of people’s actual experiences: the things which really require a response? Only when we put people first can we work out what to do, and which tools and techniques will help us. Keeping
Fit for Purpose Using appropriate tools is what really matters. Technical wizardry alone is a distraction; gratuitous use can be a waste of time. People are so often discouraged by learning something new for its own sake. It hinders the telling of their story. However, when a new method or technology is relevant to their goal and actively helps achieve it, learning is not an obstacle. For instance, video is a technology which people readily accept, and it is especially appropriate to personal testimony. HCCF has made ten videos in the last two years: short pieces taking network members’ experiences to meetings and committees, issue-based videos about care, assessment and medication, as well as training videos. In each, people’s enthusiasm and willingness to try something new has been remarkable. Out
of Our Box Increasingly, community organisations are having to expand their thinking and embrace new ways of working and new technologies. This is because communities are diverse and constantly changing. Our work is about real people and real experience, not just labels or issues. The ways we speak out have to reflect that; our new ideas too. Innovation
and Enterprise There is perhaps a danger that voluntary sector funding creates a spiral of dependency around which resources support progress but never exit. Such resources are tools whose use is limited. Some resources, our use of video, for example, can produce real, marketable products, which also provide learning and employment opportunities. If only we had a way sometimes to step outside grant-dependent funding models. Here is an opportunity to go beyond the dependency spiral. We are already inventive in our use of funding. More than that, some resources have the potential to be economically viable. Some provide opportunities for individuals to learn skills and become net contributors to the economy. Others could shift the social economy into the mainstream and merge social objectives with conventional economics. Maybe it’s time that the handout culture that dispenses finance for community good moved on. Maybe it’s time to find a place for the concept of investment in social economic activity, where appropriate. This is not an argument against conventional funding. Without core funding and the kind of relationships we have with Highland Council and NHS Highland, we could not even pose the question. These already provide financial leverage on behalf of our communities. But, if the freedom to invest in our own enterprise could be recognised as another means to help us to pay our way, think how much that would mean for ideals like independent living and empowerment. Then they’d be more than words. They really would mean something.
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Annual
Review 2004
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©
Highland Community Care Forum.
Tel: 01463 718817 — Fax: 01463 718818 — Email: hccf@hccf.org.uk
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Starting
with People
