3.3.6 Universal Theory Of Change - Conclusion

To journey for a long time with someone who is suffering – perhaps years or more – to effect healing, (trusting the root foundations to do their work at their own pace – rather than hurrying them along with a top-down, one-way knowledge flow solution) sounds very expensive, time consuming and, horror of horrors, uncertain.

So; I hear you say/ask:

That sounds almost an impossible task!

Where would we get the resources?

Who would do it?

Where would we get the time? 

I propose that it is only impossible if you think about child protection, community development and such matters from the paradigm of the Pillars, i.e. a kind of group-think that influences virtually all our actions in these important areas.

And I believe that one of the principal reasons why there isn’t a grand plan to eradicate crime like, for example, to put a man on Mars is down to what I stated in the Chapter on Important Descriptions, (in the Sub-Chapter on the Effects of The Dominance Of Pillars Thinking In Society).

That is, many planners, strategists, chief executives, boards of directors and other decision makers within the Pillars do not really know what to do that would be effective, but they don’t know that they don’t know.

And even if they do know that they don’t know, they don’t admit to it. (And the really harmful bit is the non-admittance).

So, they default to the paradigm currently dominant, and model all their new well-meaning interventions on theories prevalent in mainstream education and health.

In the previous post I mentioned the challenge of journeying with people – and also the opportunities that it might present. Now, as this Chapter on Universal Theories of Change is coming to an end I would like to state a troubling reality – and then have a look at how we may address it!

That is, in the areas of young people drifting into crime, early school leaving, imprisonment, homelessness, addiction, child protection, (as long as I can remember anyway) the need is always greater than the resource).

Because of this, there always seems to be more children to protect than social work staff to protect them, or there always seems to be more homeless people than hostel accommodation, or more young people involved in anti-social behaviour than youth workers to divert them.  (This was described briefly as the Traffic Jam in the Chapter on Important Descriptions in the previous Section).

The usual way of addressing this is to fill our existing agencies with more and more professionals, buy in (usually fairly expensive) new programmes and initiatives, and/or start-up brand new services – and, oh yeah, do more research.

This is what has been done since time immemorial and it doesn’t seem to be closing the gap – really.  So, obviously, smarter ways of dealing with the problem need to be explored. 

You will gather that I am of the opinion that throwing money at the problem by recruiting more professional practitioners and buying in more experts is not the smarter way.

I propose that a far more long-term and cost-effective solution than the mainstream solutions is to try and narrow the gap between the giver of help and the receiver of help.

In this way, we increase the number of people who have always been willing, and are now able to have a protective role in their own families, extended families and communities.

From our knowledge of Systems Theory we know that in using this method the propagation of desirable values such as responsibility, autonomy, democracy, etc. will be steadier and far more enduring.  (This solution is referred to again in the Chapter on Training in Section Four of the blog).

Support work with the Focus Group has characteristics that are quite unique.  These characteristics need to be honoured in, and fundamental to strategies that aim to make a significant impact.  To this end, further descriptions and unpacking of such Universal Theories of Change is what the remainder of this blog is about.

If you have read this blog from the start I sincerely thank you for sticking with it so far – I hope that it’s all making sense!