Ratio Talks

Christine Little is part of major experiment in the way services for the most disadvantaged are commissioned or purchased in Plymouth. The work focuses on people challenged by addictions, mental ill-health and homelessness. Christine picks up some of the themes introduced by Pat McArdle from Mayday Trust in the previous edition of R-Talks, explaining how social reform thought to be impossible pre-pandemic was realised in a matter of days post-pandemic.

https://theplymouthalliance.co.uk

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Pat McArdle led the transformation of Mayday Trust from service provider to a connector of people pushed to the edges of society. Pat explores what the chaos of the pandemic means for people who live complicated lives. Complexity is an opportunity to act, not a disincentive to act. In the case of Mayday the pandemic has pushed them to be more human, bolder, braver, more honest and reflective.

https://maydaytrust.org.uk

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Mick Ashton is a graduate of and now works at Transforming Choice, a new way of responding to alcohol addiction. The approach is determinedly relational. That means there is no virtual alternative, no Zoom to fall back on. Mick talks here about keeping the show on the road with a full house of people looking to turn their lives around.

https://transformingchoice.co.uk

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With the help of our partners On Our Radar here is an an unmediated conversation recorded across continents in trying times between Suzanne Jacob, Chief Executive of the UK charity SafeLives, and Elsa D'Silva, Founder of SafeCity in India.The quality of sound varies. But the conversation is important. The pandemic has locked people down in their homes, sometimes in homes full of tension and risk.

https://safelives.org.uk
https://www.safecity.in

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

In a previous contribution to the R-Word, Maff Potts talked about the work of the Association of Camerados in experimenting with new ways of creating friends and purpose in life. Public living rooms in libraries. Magical spaces in hospital foyers. All of this has been put on ice during the lockdowns of the pandemic but new innovation has taken its place. From underneath his son’s bed, Maff reflects on how the crisis creates opportunities for and gets in the way of friends and purpose, the mission of the Association of Camerados.

Maff under his son’s bed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Lg7R5RMmM&t=49s

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Tom Neumark is Director of the Peel Institute, serving the Clerkenwell community in Islington, London since 1898. In normal times Peel’s focus is bringing people together who would not otherwise meet. In Covid Times meeting is forbidden. Early on the first lockdown, Tom reflects on how he felt the work will adapt.

The Cripplegate Foundation A Life Not A Service
https://www.cripplegate.org/sites/default/files/field/attachment/7434_Supporting%20Islington%20Families%20Report_WEB.pdf
https://www.peelinstitute.org.uk

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David Anderson is the creator of Safe Families for Children, introduced to R-Talks in by Keith Danby who brought the programme from the U.S. to the U.K. Safe Families finds volunteers from the community to give resources, offer friendship to hard pressed mums and take in their children for short periods of respite from a stressed home life. They work with families whose children are on the edge of foster care systems. In the early stages of the pandemic foster care systems in the U.S. were frozen into inaction but the Safe Families work expanded to take up the strain. David talks here about how volunteers are now doing what paid foster parents cannot.

https://safe-families.org

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Ratio collaborator, the Australian paediatrician Frank Oberklaid wrote to us in the early stages of the Covid pandemic about his and his wife’s clinical work. “We have been working from home now for over a month. I run my two clinics from home via telehealth - 70% of the hospital clinics are now run this way – and Fay sees her clients in the same way. It’s not too bad for old patients, but very difficult establishing a relationship with new patients. All staff of the research institute are now working from home, and all the hospitals in Melbourne including RCH are preparing for the tsunami that we all hope will not come. I am on zoom all day, and it is tiring in a different sort of way, more so than long days at the hospital. I am supposed to be working 0.8 but it seems busier than that”. Social innovator and psychologist Charlie Howard reflects on Frank’s words and her own experience of supporting her patients.

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Civil Society Futures was an independent inquiry led by Julia Unwin. In place of recommendations to government it concludes with a set of principles to re-shape public policy; shifting power; changing accountability; deepening connection and investing in the core currency of trust. Julia discusses the findings of the commission in the London Borough of Islington as it brings policy makers, practitioners and citizens together to formulate a relational social policy known as Fairer Together.

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Steve Wyler leads A Better Way, a collective of people with a shared vision for better services and stronger communities in the U.K. Here he talks about the implications of the networks shared views -shared power, changing practice, collaborative leadership and organisational change- for relational social policy in the London Borough of Islington known as Fairer Together.

https://www.betterway.network

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