Systems change: an emotional endeavour
For the past four months I’ve been part of the Lankelly Chase Systems Changers Programme. This has been timely as I’ve recently taken on the role of National Programme Manager for The Children’s Society’s Disrupting Exploitation Programme working in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The Disrupting Exploitation Programme is really exciting as it is trying to both work one to one with young people, and on changing the systems and contexts that put children at risk of exploitation.
Each participant on the Systems Changers programme is being asked to examine a system, in the case of The Children’s Society from the perspective of young people. I’m examining the system of policing vulnerability and specifically the moment a young person is arrested to see if we can change the system to put vulnerability at the centre of this moment to enable child victims of exploitation to be treated differently by the system. After all a ‘drug dealer’ charged with possession with intent to supply is — and understandably so — treated differently to a child victim of exploitation who has been groomed into illegal activity and often can see no way out, or sometimes doesn’t even know they are trapped. I’ll write more on this later!
What strikes me more at the half way point of the programme is the emotional journey I have been on over the past four months, that is what I feel compelled to write about, so that’s where I should start, as after all my first reflection is this:
1. Be honest
To embark on true systems change we (individuals, organisations and systems) need to be given — and to give ourselves — the freedom, permission and confidence to share what we don’t know. Too often we are trapped in the pretence of the impossible, saying we understand the whole system when we can only ever be a small part of it. For example, I will never truly know the drivers, motivations and feelings of the young person that is arrested, the police officer, Youth Offending Team worker or custody sergeant involved in that moment of arrest. I can never know as I play a different role — that of a manager of exploitation services, supporting our practitioners who stand alongside these young people. This stepping out, admitting honestly and humbly this system limitation is a vital ingredient to truly understanding not just the system on paper, the written down rules and regulations but how the systems and its participants truly behave in any given moment. Staff at all levels need to feel the confidence and be given the permission to be honest.
2. Prepare for the system to raise their eyebrows
Systems change is certainly ‘of the moment’, the next generation of ‘wicked issues’ but it is fair to say it is still not common parlance in the police stations, children’s charities and youth offending services that are the frontline of the system. That’s why programmes like the Lankelly Chase Systems Changers are so necessary as they are for frontline practitioners — and that is why it is brave for organisations like The Children’s Society to embark on them. It changes — or at the very least should adapt — the traditional hierarchy of a system.
So what happens when you do go out there? When you start talking about systems change outside with others, be prepared for a few eyebrows raises. Systems what? Changing what? Is that even possible? These questions will and have been coming, and I’m learning, slowly but surely, to hold them. These questions are reflective of how impenetrable the system can feel, I see it as the system fighting back, it doesn’t always want to change!
Finally,
3. Find your allies
It takes some resilience to create systems change. No one really told me this, although perhaps implicitly I understood, but systems change work is hard. It requires you to move to the grey matter between rules, regulations, policies and how the system really interprets them. It requires you to understand how the system truly behaves, to understand why, and place yourself in amongst it. It is ultimately about people and that requires more emotional energy than I was anticipating. That is why your allies are so important. Gathering allies from inside your own organisation is a starting springboard — they provide a platform to encourage you to build more trusting, honest allies across the system. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. My allies — some who know who they are and some who don’t — have given me the courage to know that systems can be changed and at the very least it is worth the energy to try.
Over the next few months I want to investigate my part of the system more, and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more about myself along the way. I am going to try and embody all these feelings, emotions and own my nervousness in stepping out and I’m going to try and capture them as I want to add to the body of literature on how it actually FEELS to change systems.
So here’s my first step. Are you a police officer or custody sergeant interested in the moment of arrest as a potential opportunity for systems change? Get in touch — help me understand the system more and shape how the point of arrest could be different for exploited children and young people.
