Ratio Talks

A New Kind of Village: Reflections on the social challenge of loneliness

Ratio and The Law Family Commission on Civil Society supported by Pro Bono Economics, organised a podcast and an event to think afresh about loneliness, and the role civil society has to play in solving it. This note summarises the insights of our presenters – you can watch the full event or listen to the podcast by clicking the link above.

Download the note here.

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This episode is the result of a collaboration with the Law Family Commission on Civil Society, and Pro Bono Economics. It provides preparation for a seminar on developing a cross-sectoral approach to tackling loneliness at 1pm on the 30th of July (Register here) with contributions from Heather Fraser from IBM, Eric Klinenberg from New York University, and Mike Wilson from Pembroke House Settlement.

The podcast has contributions from Dan Perlman from the University of North Carolina, Adam Lent from New Local, Maff Potts from the Association of Camerados and Liz Slade from the Unitarians. Dan’s work with Anne Peplau is still the starting point for most academic work on loneliness. Adam refers to New Local’s Community Paradigm with great examples of communities taking the lead in reducing isolation. Maff Potts and Camerados is always open to visitors to its Spoon Rooms and Living Rooms. The impact of the Camerados teepee on altruism and mutual aid is summarised here. And here are the links to learn more about Liz’s work with The Unitarians and Sunday Assembly.

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John Hitchin is Chief Executive of Renaisi, an organisation dedicated to improving places. He has contributed to the How to be Wrong network since its inception. He talks here about the changing prospects for the relationship between evidence and policy.

In the conversation he refers to his essay You can’t get there from here and a short blog he wrote in response to the How to be Wrong report.

https://renaisi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/An-essay-on-the-concept-of-place-in-policy_by-John-Hitchin_2019.pdf

https://we.tl/t-MKrFtxWSWD

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisratio.substack.com

John Hitchin is Chief Executive of Renaisi, an organisation dedicated to improving places. He has contributed to the How to be Wrong network since its inception. He talks here about how some of the ideas in the interim report have derived from and inform the work of Renaisi, and the prospects for the relationship between evidence and policy.

In the conversation with John, Michael refers to his essay (https://renaisi.com/2019/05/13/concept-of-place-in-policy-essay/) You can’t get there from here and a short blog (https://renaisi.com/2020/02/03/what-do-people-mean-when-they-talk-about-place-based-change/) John wrote in response to the How to be Wrong report.

Banerjee and Duflo’s book Poor Economics Commentary by RATIO

Iain MacRitchie, philanthropist and founder of MCR Pathways, returns for Love in Covid Times to discuss how the pandemic has impacted young people in or on the edge of care.

MCR Pathways is changing the educational outcomes of disadvantaged young people through relationships with community volunteers.

Read more:

https://mcrpathways.org/put-relationships-at-the-heart-of-recovery-and-fuse-social-and-economic-policies/

https://mcrpathways.org/respectfully-disruptive-is-the-way-to-progress/

https://mcrpathways.org/re-floating-the-economy-is-a-health-and-wellbeing-emergency/

MCR Pathways is changing the educational outcomes of disadvantaged young people by building relationships in schools. Founder Iain MacRitchie has talked about the work in a previous podcast. Here he introduces new research on how young people are coping with the pandemic, on their desire for structure and preference for books over electronic devices! Iain is beginning to draw the broader lessons from the programme in a series of articles about the future of public policy in Scotland.

https://mcrpathways.org/put-relationships-at-the-heart-of-recovery-and-fuse-social-and-economic-policies/
https://mcrpathways.org/respectfully-disruptive-is-the-way-to-progress/
https://mcrpathways.org/re-floating-the-economy-is-a-health-and-wellbeing-emergency/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisratio.substack.com

Grapevine brings people together to help them solve problems in their communities. The pandemic means new problems and new ways of bringing people together. As Clare explains, it also means new opportunities. Among a host of innovations, Grapevine has been experimenting with ‘collaboration stations’, a space for conversation that appears to be engaging new actors and generating new ideas.

https://www.grapevinecovandwarks.org

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The settlement movement established to connect advantaged and disadvantaged communities in the 19th Century helped to forge the welfare state in the U.K., and underpinned the nursing and social work professions in the U.S. Mike Wilson and colleagues at the Pembroke House have been building a Settlement for the 21st Century. That work has both gone on hold and been significantly advanced by the need to respond to the pandemic. In this episode Mike talks about food insecurity, and how in classic settlement style, it has brought together people across the Walworth community in South London.

https://www.pembrokehouse.org.uk

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Local councils are prepared for disaster, for terrorist attacks, for major fires, and for health emergencies. Chief Executive of Bury Council Geoff Little talks about managing the response to the pandemic from the kitchen table, and how the learning from this period can help the Council build back better. In Bury the Chief Executive is the health commissioner, which in Covid times means providing leadership on sheltering, testing and vaccination. The balance between central and local government. The role of local council as enabler, creating the conditions for community to flourish and business to recover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury,_Greater_Manchester

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisisratio.substack.com