Claire Robinson is a social worker (by trade) who now works supporting organisations to create conditions for learning and authentic conversations.

Claire has worked in the voluntary and public sector for the last twenty years where she has trained social workers, led organisations supporting people whose families are affected by substance misuse, campaigned for better recognition of neurodiversity and supported organisations to use storytelling for change.

Claire is a certified Warm Data Host, a Daring Way, Dare to Lead Facilitator and is currently supporting organisations on the ground to explore a Human Learning systems approach to management.

You can find out more about Claire and her work:

Links from the podcast conversation: 

Hosted by Mark Smith, this second podcast with Toby revisits the theme of Human Learning Systems to understand the latest developments in the field of designing, commissioning, delivering, managing and improving public services for the real world.

Toby is Visiting Professor of Public Management at the Centre for Public Impact and the main face, voice and agitator for the Human Learning Systems movement; an approach to public services which supports human freedom and flourishing by responding to the unique context of each and every person it supports - and in so doing creates better outcomes for less money.

Find out more and connect with Toby via:

Mark is the Director for Public Service Reform at Gateshead Council in the North East of England (UK). This is Mark's second podcast with Next Stage Radicals, revisiting the theme of bespoke-by-default public services and the ways in which these are radically different and cheaper than the conventional 'one size fits few' approach.

Mark read physics and geography at university before training as a meteorologist, latterly realising that wasn’t for him. He used his research and statistical skills as a researcher at Cheshire County Council to get a sense of the scale of inequality of opportunity and has been working ever since in a number of councils to design public services and partnerships that manifestly address this. He spent a few years as a management consultant working to explore approaches to systems thinking before coming back into the public sector to continue his work on services that understand and can help people each and every time.

His work on holistically supporting those with debt, who are homeless or who are generally going through tough times goes hand in hand with developing a more flexible and purpose driven workforce. He has previously worked in policing, health and the charity sector to develop his approach to saving money by doing the right thing.

His focus more recently has been on the mindset and values that are responsible for many of the obstacles to bespoke working. This means working with government in England and Scotland to take a Human Learning Systems approach to exploring the cultural and systemic issues that bar progress and create waste and suffering. He is currently the Senior Responsible Officer for Changing Futures Northumbria, a regional partnership focussing on adults who are having a hard time in life and for whom services do not work and have never worked.

You can find out more about Mark by:

- Reading his blogs on nextstageradicals.net.

- Getting hold of him on Twitter via @MarkAdamSmith.

Iain Caldwell has developed a career around creating new visions for organisations, practices and people that can enable them to work in more effective, innovative and insightful ways. This work began with himself, creating a better version that could overcome difficulties and challenging circumstances.

This personal change has inspired Iain to explore new ideas and connect with innovators from around the world.  This personal & professional learning has been developed into practices that can be used to transform charities, social enterprises, psychological therapy practices and community approaches to social injustices.

Iain is CEO of Let's Connect, and director of the CIC Starfish Health and Wellbeing.  He is director of APBA (Association of Practice Based Apprpoach), an organisation that delivers Practice-based Performance Coaching. He is also trainer and consultant.

Iain's current projects include LARCH (an initiative supporting the development of Social Enterprises) and Making Sense of.....  an initiative that is working to establish a new paradigm of  "mental health" and wellbeing.  Iain has a Professional Doctorate, MA in Management, PGCE and BSc (hons) in Applied Psychology.

You can contact Ian on twitter via @iain_caldwell.

Joy MacKeith has a background in the voluntary sector, in service delivery, research and consultancy. Twenty years ago her work on outcome measurement led to the co-creation of the Outcomes Star, now a suite of fifty tailored tools for supporting and measuring individual change.

She is author of the report ‘Enabling Help’ which draws on twenty years of working with the Outcomes Stars to present a critique of the system of social provision and a vision of how it could work better for the people it serves.

In this podcast she shares her radical idea that social provision today is based on ideas borrowed from other fields. They don’t fit the work of human services and are driving provision off course.  Instead of borrowing from elsewhere, we need to base services on what we know about human beings and what we all need to thrive.

To find out more about Joy and her work:

Jenny Rose Smith lives in West Wales and has committed her life to training both herself and other people to listen more deeply.

She’s passionate about centering deep listening as a powerful act of service, with its inherent fruit of present moment, attuned, honest and authentic connection with ourselves and each other.

Jenny has three decades of service management experience in the voluntary sector and 1-1 mentoring in educational support services. She now works in private practice offering therapeutic 1-1 and group listening sessions; and work-team based training.

In this podcast Jenny introduces her concept and model of 'Receptive Listening practice' ~ an exploration of the importance of how and where we listen from in ourselves to create a sustainable compliment to the more commonly taught active listening skills.

David Aula is the founder of Unfeasible. Unfeasible exists to create space in which people start to see that what they think of as ‘unfeasible’ can be done. Unfeasible combines insights and experience from personal, group and organisational development with the heart stopping potential of theatre to move from ’thinking’, through ‘feeling’, to ‘acting from who we really want to be as humans’. Unfeasible offers services at what David likes to call ‘All Quadrants, All levels”, borrowing from philosopher Ken Wilber. So they work with both individuals and collectives and from the inside, out as well as from the outside in.

In this podcast, David discusses his radical idea, that “art can be a beginning as well as an end in and of itself”, and that “peak experience can be harnessed to help to truly move us all”.

website: www.unfeasible.world

email: [email protected]

linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-aula-750b68227/

Andy Crosbie, Abby Taylor, and Anya Bonner run a community interest company called the Collective Impact Agency. The Collective Impact Agency exists primarily to help people and organisations deepen their impact through collaboration. They work on disrupting the systems that stand in the way of socially minded organisations and people doing what they’re there to do – make the world a fairer, more equal place.

They do this through building relationships between and within organisations, and asking big questions that challenge the status quo. They focus on supporting organisations to prioritise learning, running experiments in new ways of working with and relating to one another, and supporting others to do the same.

In this podcast, we explore the idea that ‘you can’t change systems without changing the organisations that make up those systems’ – and how the Collective Impact Agency is trying to operate in a fundamentally different way both internally and externally.

Connect with CIA via:

This month’s guest is Anna Whitehead. Anna is developing a portfolio career. As a qualified coach, with a Diploma in Executive coaching, she coaches individuals on work-related topics, while keeping a focus on the whole person.  She works as an Associate Coach for Genius Within, coaching neurodiverse adults to be the best they can be at work.

She is motivated to collaborate with others to improve things and also provides service improvement and change management consultancy grounded in systems thinking principles. She is keen to use her skills and expertise to help individuals, groups and organisations who aim to make a positive difference for others.

Anna has 15 years’ experience of working in local government, including roles where she worked closely with the NHS and charities. As a change management and service redesign specialist, Anna has facilitated managers and teams to design and deliver transformation projects. She has also held a role as Chair of Trustees and Director of a charity. This professional experience gives her in depth knowledge of how organisations work and different approaches to improvement, change and transformation. Anna is a member of the North West committee for The Association for Business Psychology.

In this podcast we explore where Anna’s curiosity has been taking her and the connections she is making in relation to some of the things she cares about; making society more inclusive for neurodiverse people, improving mental wellbeing at work and cultivating kindness.

Connect with Anna via:

Find out more about Anna via her website:

If you are reading this before 12:30pm on Friday 1st April 2022 then come and join Anna for her EXPLORING ALOUD workshop. It's free to join and a perfect opportunity to explore the ideas shared in this podcast live with Anna and others. The focus will be on exploring curiosity and connections with people:

The workshop will include  interactive exercises as well as opportunity for discussion.

EXPLORING ALOUD: 'Curiosity and Connection' with Anna Whitehead

This month’s guest is Dr Sarah Yardley. Sarah is a clinical academic, combining clinical practice as a Consultant in Palliative Medicine with a Honorary clinical senior lecturer position at UCL, where she holds a THIS Institute post-doctoral fellowship.

As a clinical academic, she’s interested in how people (patients, families, carers, and healthcare professionals) make sense of their experiences and how the meanings they create inform further actions, leading to a variety of consequences.

In this podcast we explore the importance of relationships in creating public services that work. Sarah introduces the concepts of 'relational reach' and 'relational glue' and we explore the challenging, real world situations that people find themselves in as they strive to do the right thing.

Connect with Sarah via:

Find out more about Sarah via:

If you are reading this before 12:30pm on Friday 11th February 2022 then come and join Sarah for her EXPLORING ALOUD workshop. It's free to join and a perfect opportunity to explore the ideas shared in this podcast live with Sarah and others.

EXPLORING ALOUD: 'Relational Reach and Relational Glue' with Sarah Yardley

NB In this podcast Sarah references the 'fictional contract'; Dieckmann P, Gaba D, Rall M. Deepening the theoretical foundations of patient simulation as social practice. Simul Healthc 2007;2:183–93.