6.2.1 Leap Of Faith

At the start I said that this website is a bit of a shot in the dark.

So, in deciding to do it, I had to make a bit of a leap of faith. It would not have been the first time in my life that I have hovered between the two (seemingly) contradictory proverbs look before you leap and he who hesitates is lost.

And contradiction inevitably produces dilemmas.

In this post I will describe some of these dilemmas. And they were – in some cases – quite challenging and hard to resolve.

In an early Sections I offered this description of the Focus Group, and I still remember – as I was writing it (and the characteristics) – wondering firstly was it respectful and secondly would it be in people’s best interests. When I added the good news, I felt a lot happier in that I was writing in a positive and hopeful manner.

I wondered would it improve matters for very hurt people if others were alerted to their life’s circumstances, how they and their children struggle, and how there is so much potential, hidden, waiting to be tapped into?

I began writing about the Pillars around the same time. I was making notes for years but didn’t cohere them into anything readable until I began the website – maybe they still don’t cohere – I don’t know – it’s up to others to decide.

And, as above, my dilemma was would it improve matters for very hurt people if the effects of the actions of those who are very influential in our society – on families affected by imprisonment – were unpacked and more fully understood?

When I was describing the theories and the concepts and propositions and linking them to the natural world I pondered on what fitted with what, and in what sequence should they be presented.

Organisations are many and varied, big and small, open and closed and all shades in between but they are entities where the essentials of systems theory are really important and where the practical applications of all the theories, concepts, propositions etc. will be implemented and/or actioned. It was a challenge to write this part – in particular in respect of what is doable and what is not.

And, indeed, would it improve support workers’ skills if they made the link between the phenomena that abound in natural world – including what I call the root foundations; that have high impact low noticeability – and their day-to-day work?

Fundamentally, will focusing on how organisations are structured, (and what is prioritised and what is not) improve the prospects of people who are hurt, largely misunderstood and, as I put it at the start, abandoned by those of influence in society?

Finally – the website promotes collective responsibility cooperation rather than them and us conflict. I feared that mentioning the Focus Group and the Pillars over and over again might inadvertently lead us into the them and us zone. This is actually the last thing I’d want!

I hope that exploring, investigating and pondering on the dilemmas added some value to the finished content.

I have said many times that this website, The Natural World Of Child Protection, as one of its central themes, makes a strong case for including people who are deeply affected by the issues thrown up by imprisonment in our overall efforts to protect very vulnerable children.

This can be challenging, and in my opinion needs to be done from the ground up; from first principles.

One of the challenges for our organisation if we aspire to offer people the skills to support the families in the Focus Group is to ensure that all the theoretical concepts are integrated into learning done on any training or courses – or on the job supervision – so that in turn the features, practices etc. described in the Section on Practical Applications will be adhered to by those who will work in the field as faithfully as is possible.

While it is not easy it is doable and with support and encouragement as well as a high degree of self-awareness it can be achieved over time.  The method by which it is done should always mirror the work that will be done with families.

And in integrating the learning there is a symmetric relationship between growth of the practitioners and the work done every day.

In the previous post I mentioned making a leap of faith and this is what I believe organisations need to do to include those most affected.

This leap of faith involves taking a risk in believing that goodness, kindness, compassion, idealism and humanity can have equal status in the organisation with boundaries, policies and professional work practices which will actually result in more efficient, cost-effective work in an environment of enhanced safety for all.

If I were to posit one major difference that a leap of faith might bring, it is that we will be doing a considerable amount of processing when accommodating, honouring and affirming anger that may be incoherent or irrational.

Much of this is like what happens in our family situations – but of course in our organisation it is tempered with common sense policies, protocols and procedures both written and unwritten.

What prevents, or at least slows down committing to a leap of faith, is, of course, the domination of fast processors that we wrote about already.

In society in general the well thought out neat explanation or the educated rational justification (see – once again, this post) will always trump the incoherent and irrational anger.

Yet both can be equally valid in many ways – and resultant courses of action (decisions) are often the result of an amalgam of the influence of both.

From the leadership point of view, constant negotiation can be very challenging – which is why inclusion of very hurt people in decision making is more the exception than the rule in society in general.

Tapping into strengths, recognising gifts and affirming all that is good is the topic of the next post.

As practitioners, we do this work for pay and hopefully the vast majority of us do it well, and we work every day to the best of our ability.

With family members within the Focus Group, the work, if we can call it that, is a labour of love.

In fact, in many cases, it’s a lot more than that – it’s a labour of survival.

Apart from the odd article, often either exploitative or patronising in nature, the mainstream media, reporting crime and criminality, mostly ignore 1): the acute pain and suffering that goes on in families for years and years – and in particular what children go through, and, 2): what people can do for themselves. If they didn’t, their reportage would be very different.

The public’s general level of awareness of both is therefore very low also.

If we are highly stressed-out parents trying our best to protect children living with the characteristics as described, our concern is not whether or not our child gets 400 points in the Leaving or goes to college or even gets a relatively humble job, it is often whether or not he goes to prison, or even whether or not he will live or die.

Very often the energy that goes into saving our child’s life is dissipated in well-meaning but counter-productive actions driven by crisis, fear, (sometimes anger), perhaps guilt, grasping at straws, or even panic.

Sometimes these actions achieve a tactical short-term victory to overcome an immediate problem, but might not be done in an atmosphere of a healthy boundary or with a strategic long term vision in mind.

But what we do have is an inbuilt early warning system that no formally educated practitioner will ever have.

Imagine if we could harness all that energy and cohere it so that it includes the early warning system along with the creativity and tactical good sense born of years of struggle and then graft on the professional boundaries needed for healthy and safe work.

It would then be a powerful, collaborative response which would not only protect children but also foster independence, confidence and autonomy among very hurt families.

This is what the leap of faith entails.