I know that I said a few times that I wish to focus on the positive – and that I’d mention the negative only to give weight to the opposite – and also to point out some realities!
Here is one such example.
In the Chapter on Research and Evaluation I referred to some research which a small organisation in which I was employed did off our own bat (or, off our own back, as is sometimes said in Limerick) on homelessness among teenagers in a housing estate where we were doing streetwork at night.
All that happened as a result of that research was that we were criticised as being unprofessional, unscientific etc., and the issue regarding the protection of vulnerable children that our findings threw up was totally ignored.
Obviously, we were threatening something that was already there. (The fact that what we were threatening wasn’t working well – if at all – was irrelevant).
At that time I could have gone to one of the Pillars (the media) and gave them a juicy story that would have been (at the least) embarrassing for another Pillar (the then Health Board and even the Department of Health), pointing out the hypocrisy of expounding about protecting children while at the same time ignoring information that showed that teenagers were sleeping rough.
I could have given names of people in top positions of authority on the Health Board (some of whom were politicians, another Pillar), in the hope that it would embarrass them into doing something.
However, much as I was tempted, I didn’t do that. I am sure if I had done it I would have got a short term tactical gain (including some notoriety for myself – if I was that way inclined) but it would, in the long term have been disadvantageous to the young people who were suffering.
The reason for this is that the powers-that-be at that time would have considered me and our organisation to be an unsafe pair of hands and distrusted us into the future. We would also have, potentially, alienated good people working within the system.
I believe that it was far better to use the incident as a learning experience for myself (i.e. identifying the difference between the myth of the intention and the reality of what happens, and within that, the limitations of the system).
Other people may disagree with me here – which is fine – but I really don’t believe (based on my experience in observing campaigns and media exposure over many decades) that anything would have really changed – long term – if I had got all bolshie and used the example as a stick to beat the Pillars with.
I may be repeating myself here – but I can’t say it often enough. Virtually all change that comes about as a result of media exposure, and subsequent embarrassment of the Pillars – in matters to do with the Focus Group – is short lived.
A major challenge for us community workers is to be aware of the world of the Pillars, and get the balance right between being rolled over and being equal partners.
Without detailed knowledge of our complex area and the skills to apply the knowledge, we almost certainly will be rolled over.
Knowledge and skill (including a felt sense of what complex means) will give us the confidence to use all that is best within the Pillars but equally to spot something that isn’t helpful.
We need to be able to think independently, make an independent decision, rationalise the decision, and then take full responsibility for it.
By and large, I believe that the well-meaning Pillars (and many well-meaning corporate funding sources also) have yet to be educated in the complexities involved in the work described in the Sub-Chapter on Complex Variables and the Chapter on Trauma and Related Topics in general.
And on the subject of being independent and knowledgeable, in the early part of the book I referenced Paulo Friere’s warning about community workers taking on the values of the oppressor (or in our case the mainstream).
Our exposure to mainstream education and conditioning, and subsequent mainstream thinking is probably the reason why Pillars’ opinions influence us so much when we wrestle with social problems.
We all carry some of the values of the mainstream – many corporate-type values seep unknowingly into our consciousness.