You will have gathered from this Chapter on Cultural Matching (and some earlier posts) that I think it is important to consider culture as a vital aspect of our work with our Focus Group.
Obviously, there are many aspects to the cultural norms that are customary in families affected by addiction, anti-social behaviour, and imprisonment that are harmful to the growing child – so we practitioners often feel that they need to change, and change quickly.
But changing culture is a very slow process.
And I don’t believe anyway that cultural change (like knowledge flow) should be one way.
Embracing two-way cultural change (of course) slows down progress considerably, but if cultural change is rushed and one-way, the resultant change almost always turns out either bland or short-lived, or both.
We have a lot to learn about ourselves, our culture of top down decision making, our patronising attitudes, our Pillars-influenced culture and our world in general from those who dissent or are oppositional.
Getting back to cultural matching within prison, I can remember lots of times when family members and those who were released both gave out about and praised prison officers. The giving out about and the praising points to the relationship that they have.
And our theories of change posit relationship as key in unearthing people’s innate potential, goodness and well-being, enabling their root foundations as they grow.
I will leave the last few words in this Chapter on Cultural Matching to the old Irish proverb:
“Is fearr beagán den ghaol ná mórán den charthanas’, which means ‘a little relationship is better than a lot of charity’.