Love, kindness and fear in public services

The Carnegie Trust have recently published a great report on the role of kindness in public policy (HT to John Wade for this). It’s fascinating stuff that’s well worth checking out. The report addresses the fallacy that public services should be based on nothing but cold hard emotion by pointing out the benefits of having kindness at the root of policy development.

This reminded me of some fantastic posts that Carl Haggerty has written (here and here) on the role of love in public service. Carl spoke at a Wales Audit Office event on the strategic role of digital, and his references to love were in stark contrast to what some people were expecting — shiny digital tools to deliver starkly rational public services. But Carl touched on some great stuff that we should bear in mind whether our services are provided in a digital sphere or otherwise.

How much waste is generated from operating in a space of fear? How much bureaucracy is used to protect services from any potential mishap? How many decisions are made on the basis of mitigating risk instead of enabling people? Good Practice WAO have done some fantastic work on the use of inappropriate risk models, and it’s well worth reading each of whatsthepont’s three posts on this:

• Well managed risks: Context is everything
• Is ‘common sense’ more useful than ‘process and the rule book’ for taking well managed risks?
• Does involving service users in decision making lead to better decisions?

This Guardian Long Read on compassion fatigue in the context of 24 hour news is chilling (also available as a podcast), but the consequences of operating from an approach steeped in fear is all too familiar for those that work in intensive support services. This is why staff support is so important:

“Compassion fatigue, in the medical sense, stems from a desire to help. There is no compassion fatigue without compassion: the caregivers at risk see somebody suffering, and they want to reduce that suffering. But they can’t always succeed. Compassion fatigue, then, is stymied compassion.”

Public service based on love involves compassion and empathy takes energy. We need supportive and helpful structures so that people are able to deliver services in the way that they would like. From my experience, this is what staff want to do. If you want to get decision makers on board, it’s worth reflecting on how much waste can we remove from our systems by understanding what people really want, and cutting what they don’t.

I strongly recommend watching the below video because it’s a great intro to the concepts behind the thinking. Carl clarifies this in the video — love doesn’t mean acting like an over-bearing parent. The Ego State Model is well worth checking out to understand the consequences of this approach, which I’ve previously looked at in the context of restorative practice.

Kindness and love has such an important place in public service. Yes we need to be fair, but we also need to make the distinction between equity and equality — being fair isn’t about treating everyone the same if everyone has different needs.

We shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about saying that things like kindness and love are core to effective public service. In fact there are horrible consequences when they aren’t. We need to be embracing them.

My colleague Katy Shorten has written a brilliant post on kindness that hits the nail on the head:

“I believe that kindness is part of social work’s history and future. Our regulatory frameworks and standards are fundamentally important in the practice of quality consistent services and outcomes, but the simple ‘quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate’ is important too. Everyone knows from personal experience — which is a kind of evidence too — the power of a smile or hug, or a kind word. As communities become more central to social care and fundamental to social work practice, exchanges of kindness between people who use services, communities, and professionals is, if not entirely measurable (yet), something that should not be underestimated.”

I’m with Katy.