Light in the darkness
We can change poor working cultures in social care if we can start talking about them openly with each other
One of my most popular posts has been The Six Types of Support Worker, in which I crudely characterise support workers as one of six archetypes.
In this post, I’m going to look more at that and, in the process, will look at quantum physics and ancient history. I don’t know much about these two things, but please bear with me.
I described the sixth type of support worker as being like dark matter. Scientists can’t see it but theoretically suggest the universe is 85% made up of dark matter. They think they know it’s there but can’t see it. Otherwise, everything we can see wouldn’t be able to exist.
I described the sixth type as like ‘dark matter’ because we know they exist because they are employed to support people with learning disabilities in their lives. However, they don’t make themselves known; they are in the shadows supporting people to live a life but not to really LIVE.
They don’t see themselves as part of the problem, and so don’t see they have any role in trying to fix things. This magically absolves them of all accountability and carry on their work in this way because that’s how it’s always done.
They seem satisfied with working in a culture where people’s right to a good life is not respected. Instead, they create a small world of limited opportunities where rules, such as inflexible rotas, are the systems they religiously work to without question.
There is no lateral thinking or flexible behaviour. It is strictly work, and the people being supported are living in their workplace and living to their rules.
Imagine living in a place like that. A lot of people do.
Changing cultures at the grassroots
CEOs of providers will often talk about the wonderful values of their organisation, as will their website, but it means nothing if there is a poor culture at a grassroots level. I’ve seen organisations where there are fantastic values at the top and where grassroots managers are phenomenal. In the same organisations, I’ve also seen really crap support led by crap managers. We need to change these poor work cultures.
The way to change things for the better is to engage with those working in poor cultures and talk about new ways of doing things.
Years ago, I was touring with Heavy Load in Scotland and gave a talk to council staff and support providers in Motherwell. We spoke about the aims of the Stay Up Late campaign and what we were trying to change. Everyone clapped, but then a middle-aged support worker in the front row spoke up and said, “that’s all very well, but I’m not working late”. They sat there with their arms folded as they said it. It was clear that they were not going to budge in their views at all.
I’ve often thought about this moment because it’s not often that I get heckled when I do talks, but it does happen. (Once, I did a talk in Cardiff where the ‘heckler’ actually ‘supported’ the man she was supporting to leave before I’d finished. It was almost brazenly brilliant of her, or she didn’t get the point of her job at all).
Whilst it’s never pleasant being heckled, it enables debate. We will only be able to change things for the better if we can engage with the quiet multitude of support workers working in poor cultures.
Of course, we need those allies who show the way and shine a light on how things can be, but we also need staff to question the cultures they work in and be part of changing things themselves.
I know from my experience that strong personalities in a team can either lead to creating great cultures or creating poor cultures. In poor cultures, you can have those people who say, “that’s all very well, but I’m not working late”, but there is a real danger that this can lead to darker ways of working. The people who will do nothing sit at one end of the spectrum, but on the other end of that spectrum, you have staff who view the people they support as sub-human, and we all know how that created horrors such as Winterbourne View and others.
It seems every day there’s a new report of the Care Quality Commission finding somewhere, someone’s ‘home’, is inadequate. There’s poor leadership and uncaring support from staff who aren’t supported themselves. Often these places are run by providers who have glossy websites shouting about their outstanding care and brilliant person-centred values. The CEOs think they’re doing a great job.
So what’s the answer?
We could start with some of these.
Reframing the way we talk about the role of support workers
We need a change of culture and a change in the way we view support work.
The role of staff in social care generally gets talked about nowadays in terms of how little they get paid and how you can earn more working in a supermarket.
It’s not a well-paid job, but it’s a valuable job. And there’s nothing wrong with working in a supermarket, either. CEOs of providers need to frame how they talk about the role of support workers. Otherwise, they are responsible for devaluing the role. On the other hand, they will also lament that they can’t recruit suitable staff, is it any wonder?
Every support worker would appreciate a pay rise, and that’s worth fighting for, but while that campaign wages on, other things need to be done.
It’s a brilliant job.
We can reflect on what a brilliant job it can be. What a responsibility and a joy it can be to be part of someone’s life and support them in living it.
Recruiting the right staff
We need to look at the way we recruit support staff. As a registered manager, I didn’t want a staff team who were good at cleaning, could operate hoists or had all their moving and handling training. I wanted patient people, who had attention to detail, were kind and brought their personality to their work. In short, I wanted people who were nice.
You can train people to learn many things, but you can’t teach people to be nice.
Additionally, we need to be recruiting people with shared interests with those of the people being supported. This brings value to everyone’s lives.
Enabling support workers to be leaders
Support workers themselves also need to step up and show leadership. I look back in shame on times when I didn’t do this as a young support worker, but I learned to question practice and work in a way that supported colleagues to work in a positive culture. It must be safe and acceptable to call out the bullies and people who wield their power in negative ways.
Reframing the role of support work as being as much about being community connectors
We also need to change the perception of the purpose of the role of support workers. Often their job is seen as transactional, supporting people to go out and do something and then come back.
Instead, they need to be ‘community connectors’, viewing the activity as connecting people to their community. Going out for a cup of tea shouldn’t be about the cup of tea. It’s about everything that goes with that experience; meeting people in the café, being part of the community, and being known.
Certitude brought out a brilliant recruitment video a few years ago, all about the relationships that people facilitate and develop. Relationships should be at the heart of the support worker’s role.
“It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there” (Bob Dylan)
This year, as we near the Winter Solstice, it feels like things are getting darker than usual; workers are on strike calling for better conditions, people can’t afford to turn the heating on, food prices and rent are increasing, and interest rates are also on the rise. On top of that, elements of the media are seeking to blame people fleeing war and persecution in other countries as threatening our way of life. These are dark times.
However, there is hope. Archaeologists now believe that Stonehenge was not built as a temple for the Summer Solstice. Its alignment suggests it was, in fact, a temple to the setting sun in the winter. A temple of hope that things will get better as darkness approaches and the weather gets cold. Light will return.
At Stay Up Late, we live in hope, and there is light. We see it all the time, those support workers who work brilliantly and bring joy to the lives of the people they support and their own lives in the process.
We need more support workers who can lead by example and speak up to show what is possible and challenge poor cultures. We need CEOs of providers to shine a light on these brilliant people too. They are the people who are showing the way and what’s possible.
Light and heat
What we don’t need is more virtue signalling. It’s easy to post a platitude, a meme or an inspirational post on social media. We can all do that, but it’s bollocks if we don’t back that up with action.
I used to follow someone on Twitter who regularly posted how they were constantly trying to change things for the better and the odd inspirational meme or platitude. What they were actually doing in their relentlessness wasn’t at all clear. They never said, it would sound profound but was generally vague. It felt like it was all about making themselves look good but they lacked any integrity.
People like this aren’t shining a light. They’re aimlessly wafting a battery-powered torch in the vain hope it makes them look like they’re helping.
With real light comes heat, and that’s what we need to help us all through these darker days and really change things for the better.
We need to commit to making heat and be part of the change that needs to happen.
Feel free to heckle!
I would, of course, welcome anyone who wants to ‘heckle’ this post because then we can discuss what’s going on and find out more instead of the status quo, which is people with learning disabilities not being able to lead good lives.