I decided to include this post on the hierarchy of helping people as I am not that enthusiastic about hierarchy and if I observe too much of it I tend to have a reaction!
Some years ago I was at a conference on desistance (that is, as I explained already, stopping young people getting involved in crime) and the principal speaker was a professor from a University outside Ireland.
During her longish address she talked about a thing she called a TSO.
The professor obviously assumed that everyone in the room knew what a TSO was – I didn’t. However, after a while I became aware that it stood for Third Sector Organisation – that is, a community and/or voluntary organisation.
After another while I copped on (I’m generally fairly slow to cop-on) that the First Sector (which, strangely, wasn’t called an FSO), was the statutory sector (public and civil service) and, unbelievably, the Second Sector (not referred to as an SSO) was private enterprise!
Her principal argument was that a TSO (relegated to the bronze medal, like the Third World used to be) did the easy work in criminal justice intervention, (as she called it), were well-meaning but not really accountable, and had poorer outcomes than the 1st and 2nd Sectors.
Now I think that it was the context in which she placed Third that got me thinking. (After all, a Third Level education is more esteemed than a First Level or Second Level. But it was obvious from the way her talk proceeded that the professor associated Third with lesser importance)!
I know – I’m being a bit provocative here to make a point. Such terminology doesn’t seem to have caught on in Ireland and I haven’t seen much of it in publications, websites etc. emanating from foreign lands in recent years – so maybe the term is dying out. And some might say that I’m being very picky, or petty.
But I really do believe that language is important.
In a very subtle way it forms our opinions and influences how we think about things. After all, that is why the term Developing World (instead of Third World) came into usage. (Actually this term is now also falling into disuse).
Getting back to the conference, the professor proposed that Government needed to pay by results, that the voluntary sector was wasteful, and finally, horror of horrors, that the statutory sector might find it difficult to control the community and voluntary sector!
Walking to the station in the rain (it was a very wet day) I was thinking about her talk and I found myself disagreeing with her assertion that the community/voluntary sector are not involved in the difficult end – in fact, in my experience, who she referred to as the First Sector are champions at putting up barriers to insulate their practitioners from difficult or uncomfortable emotional messiness. (I will expand on this a little in the next post).
(Now, many practitioners working in the statutory sector do get involved in the emotional messiness end, but, mostly, it is their individual choice).
And I’m not sure if I was right, but the suspicious part of my brain kicked in when she spoke about payment by results – was this a softening up for privatisation of services —— including prisons?
And the many years’ experience part of my brain kicked in when she talked about waste. To state that the voluntary sector is more wasteful than the statutory sector, was, I felt, very wrong. And in respect of control, in my opinion private companies (the Second Sector – silver medallists) are far more difficult to control than voluntary organisations.
Of course, you will say, this is some years ago and maybe we’ve moved on.
Unfortunately – not a lot! While I chose this example because it was at the more explicit end, I have listened (and listen) to lectures/talks right up to the time of writing this website that were/are not much different.
For example, I attended an interesting seminar very recently by an academic on how vulnerable or marginalised communities might protect children/young people growing up in them.
While it was indeed interesting, almost all the content was concerned with problems, and viewed through the lens of policing, anti-social behaviour, profiles of offenders etc. A tiny segment was given to solutions. One of the solutions was intensive family support but there was no reference at all as to what this would look like on the ground.
The norm in such talks/lectures/seminars is that reference is made to all the other research that is being done, or has been done that leads to the findings in the research which is the subject of the talk. Generally, leading academics, policy providers, justice professionals are those who have written the research, the content of which is – almost always – based on information supplied by staff working in the community/voluntary sector or families in the Focus Group.
Such talks are invariably well delivered, interesting and informative – and in each one I learn something.
But there is rarely if ever any mention of the power of inspiration, love, human potential, the positive effects of genuine warm relationship, or tapping into the wisdom of families themselves in encouraging young people who are hurt and distressed to make positive and life affirming choices.
It’s as if such things are inconsequential and irrelevant. Or on a different planet, or in a parallel universe as I hear people saying nowadays!
And when listening I often find myself wondering what outcomes would emerge if it was the other way around.
Suppose a group of concerned family members, disadvantaged people, people who are or have been in prison, victims of crime, homeless people, and similar had a chat over a cup of tea about the effectiveness of the statutory criminal justice interventions, (that is, the best and worst of justice, health and education professionals).
Would their findings be the same?