We’ve met a lot of inspirational people since we first got involved in co-production. Nick Andrews is definitely one of them – a permanent source of joy in our firmament and a member of Co-production Wales’ Board of Directors. Formerly Planning Officer for Older People’s Services in Swansea, now seconded to Swansea University’s Older People and Ageing Research Network (OPAN), Nick is co-production personified. His work in residential care homes with My Life Cymru provides a moving affirmation of Dame Cicely Saunders’ pledge:
You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.
In a piece for our We need to talk about love series, Nick talks about the dangers of the term co-production being misused to ‘cover up what is essentially a cost-cutting exercise’. Instead he argues for co-production as an ‘opportunity to restore warm humanity as the driving force for public services, rather than compliance with increasingly centralised and de-personalised processes and systems.’
An extract from Nick’s article is below – the full text is on our Media & Publications‘ page.
Who’s helping who? Challenging professional boundaries in social care services.
One of my favourite quotes by the theologian Martin Buber is ‘all real living is meeting’. Please note that Buber’s understanding of the term ‘meeting’ is much richer than the idea of putting a group of people together in a room or placing nurses and social workers in the same office, which is commonly assumed to result in integrated practice. I’m sure many people will share my experience of being in meetings where no one actually met, where each person had their own agenda and the purpose of the meeting was to get this across – to win the argument.
For Buber, ‘meeting’ is about genuinely connecting with other people and being changed in some way by the process. In order to explain this, he talks about two ways of relating to people and the world which he calls I-It and I-Thou. In I-it relationships, the person is detached and unaffected. In I-Thou relationships, the person is attached and vulnerable.
In his seminal book ‘Dementia Reconsidered – The Person Comes First’ Tom Kitwood talks about his experience of seeing how people living with dementia were dehumanised through receiving emotionally detached task based I-it care:
‘A man or woman could be given the most accurate diagnosis, subjected to the most thorough assessment, provided with a highly detailed care plan and given a place in the most pleasant of surroundings – without any meeting of the I-Thou kind ever having taken place.’ (Kitwood, 1997)
In contrast, genuine co-production facilitates and nurtures the development of I-Thou relationships between all parties and thus begins to challenge the prevailing understanding of professionalism and professional boundaries. [I-Thou relationships are at the heart of a project] I am currently co-ordinating in Wales, underpinned by evidence from Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s programme A Better Life – for older people with high support needs.
A Better Life has identified seven key challenges for social care services:
- We all need positive images and balanced narratives to challenge ageist assumptions. Old age is not about ‘them’, it is about all of us.
- We all need to make the effort to see and hear the individual behind the label or diagnosis, taking into account the increasing diversity of older people as a demographic group.
- We must ensure that all support is founded in, and reflects, meaningful and rewarding relationships. Connecting with others is a fundamental human need, whatever our age or support needs.
- We need to use the many assets, strengths and resources of older people with high support needs through recognising and creating opportunities for them to both give and receive support.
- We must all be treated as citizens: equal stakeholders with both rights and responsibilities, not only as passive recipients of care. We must also have clarity on what we can reasonably expect from publicly-funded services and what we will need to take responsibility for ourselves.
- The individual and collective voices of older people with high support needs should be heard and given power. We must use a much wider range of approaches to enable this.
- We need to be open to radical and innovative approaches; but we also need to consider how, often simple, changes can improve lives within existing models.
These challenges are not always about the big things: ‘often it is the simple things that bring the most pleasure (and the lack of them can bring a sense of sadness and loss) and services do not always seem to be very good at delivering ‘the ordinary’’. (Blood, 2013 p13) Most significantly, the challenges call for a different way of working, fundamentally different from the world of emotionally detached and compliance-focused task based care. This world and its impact is summed up nicely by Edgar Cahn:
‘The world of helping others in need is now built around one-way transactions… and with the best of intentions, one-way transactions often send two messages unintentionally. They say: “We have something you need – but you have nothing we need or want or value.” And they also say: “The way to get more help is by coming back with more problems.”’ (Cahn, 2004)
In contrast, a study of what people living with life-limiting conditions value in a social worker highlighted the important of humanity, friendship and reciprocity. And in a series of recent learning events involving older people, carers and front-line staff, I have been struck how many people feel that current regulation and guidance is risk averse, restrictive, and at worst destructive of human relationships.
For example, workforce regulation states ‘the inappropriate use of touch is not permissible’, rather than ‘the appropriate use of touch is fabulous and to be encouraged’. This is a particular issue for people living with dementia, who often have to express themselves and connect with others through feelings and emotions. Front-line staff talk have talked about feeling guilty when they do little kind things that are not written in the Care Plan, or receive small gifts of appreciation; older people have been ‘told off’ (in the name of health and safety) for pouring tea for others in day services, and carers have been made to feel that they no longer have a role when the person they love goes into a care home.
At the heart of co-production, is an understanding that everyone has something to contribute and that exchanging these contributions is enriching for everyone concerned.
I am reminded of the work of Jean Vanier, who established the L’Arche Communities in learning disability services. Vanier did not see his role as caring for people with learning difficulties, but rather sharing his life with them and being open to receive and learn from them as much as to offer them support: ‘I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes’.
This is an important message for social care practitioners and agencies.
We need to open our ears, our eyes and our hearts to the people we work with, which might involve sharing our vulnerabilities and concerns and allowing ourselves to be changed by genuinely ‘meeting’ with them in truly co-productive relationships.
Co-production Wales 