Part of my day job is taking Betty out for her daily constitutional, it offers me great opportunities to meet a varied selection of people of which I have frequently detailed on this blog. In the last month I have had the good fortune to meet up with two ex-colleagues from my days working at Liverpool Social Services. I was there about ten years, during which my work record was truncated with sickness-mainly not coping, depression, anxiety causing me to spend several years off all told-I was finally finished up on health grounds. Of all the people who supported me through very challenging times it is these two ex-colleagues who are stand outs.
So to these fine people; Lil had been my manager at a Domiciliary Support Service helping elderly clients with mental health conditions to stay at home. I had worked there three days a week, Friday to Sunday for about two years while Marnie was a toddling around; when I say working I had a good chunk of that off sick with anxiety and depression. Colin was working in a Day Service for adults with Learning difficulties and was one of the Officers there. That meant he was organising and delivering the sessions to the Service Users, music and sports were his specialities but he was very adaptable in most situations and I loved it when I was allotted to support his sessions. Between them they had put in sixty plus years of service. They had both impressed me with their calm under fire approach to the demands that I was ill equipped to cope with- they both led from the front and inspired colleagues around them. I was saddened to hear that both of them had since taken voluntary redundancy, that the demands and expectations of the job had driven them to an early departure from work that they had been so adept at. But even the most resilient of people can stay strong for so long when under fire-so what happened? I tentatively asked knowing that what I am to hear is not an easy tale to tell.
I have some idea of the content of these replies because of some of the voluntary work I have been doing of late with the Liverpool Mental health Consortium- a ‘Service User led’ organisation/charity, that tries to comment on the way that services are planned and delivered across the city for those struggling with their mental health. It sounds a bit dry and it can be, meeting with Commissioners of services as well as senior managers of multi million pound organisations can make for some cagey conversations; fortunately the majority of the work is less so and I have developed a good few relationships with people working in smaller organisations and those like myself who have directly accessed services. It is our collective demand that we talk in language that avoids the jargon and rhetoric of business that has grown to be the mantra of our public services in recent decades.
As both Lil and Colin worked for a part of public service which is has traditionally served the needy it has been seen as expensive for the public purse; workers have decent security and other work benefits. Meanwhile the newer suppliers have saved on costs by recruiting on short term contracts and lower wage rates. These services are increasingly attractive to commissioners for obvious reasons and the share of the market for council run organisations has shrunk massively of late. To work for such an organisation is akin to working in a place that is in managed decline-but no-one can ever say this openly- that would send out the wrong message. In the meantime this staff team with all it experience becomes stagnant as no new young workers enter the workforce. Also an Orwellian world of double speak evolves in such situations and to work every day within this setting can play with your head and eat away at your integral values. Reading between the lines of our discussions I get a sense of this from both of them and they are glad to be away from that world.
Colin was with his wife and grandson when I met him, we took a stroll for some time along the river front, Baby fell asleep and we were able to stop for a coffee for a good old catch-up, over ten years since our previous such discussion. Lil was out and about shopping so we were jangling about things outside the supermarket, hadn’t done that for fifteen years! She had recently acquired a dog herself that she had re-homed called Zeena, so was curious about the Pets and Pals events that I was organising to help work through some of the ‘issues’ Zeena had brought with her from her unsettled upbringing.
True to form both Lil and Colin asked how I was doing, I was glad to report that the fragile scared individual that they put so much time and energy getting through each day has become more resilient of late. I explain the connection between my life now and those instructive experiences I had in the eye of the storm of the caring business. I even hint it would be lovely to work with them again on my various projects as their knowledge and skills would be such an asset. They smile and thank me for my encouragement; I’m not holding my breath though- I know only too well the bruising that can come from the type of psychological battering that can be handed out in many working environments....but you never know!
So to these fine people; Lil had been my manager at a Domiciliary Support Service helping elderly clients with mental health conditions to stay at home. I had worked there three days a week, Friday to Sunday for about two years while Marnie was a toddling around; when I say working I had a good chunk of that off sick with anxiety and depression. Colin was working in a Day Service for adults with Learning difficulties and was one of the Officers there. That meant he was organising and delivering the sessions to the Service Users, music and sports were his specialities but he was very adaptable in most situations and I loved it when I was allotted to support his sessions. Between them they had put in sixty plus years of service. They had both impressed me with their calm under fire approach to the demands that I was ill equipped to cope with- they both led from the front and inspired colleagues around them. I was saddened to hear that both of them had since taken voluntary redundancy, that the demands and expectations of the job had driven them to an early departure from work that they had been so adept at. But even the most resilient of people can stay strong for so long when under fire-so what happened? I tentatively asked knowing that what I am to hear is not an easy tale to tell.
I have some idea of the content of these replies because of some of the voluntary work I have been doing of late with the Liverpool Mental health Consortium- a ‘Service User led’ organisation/charity, that tries to comment on the way that services are planned and delivered across the city for those struggling with their mental health. It sounds a bit dry and it can be, meeting with Commissioners of services as well as senior managers of multi million pound organisations can make for some cagey conversations; fortunately the majority of the work is less so and I have developed a good few relationships with people working in smaller organisations and those like myself who have directly accessed services. It is our collective demand that we talk in language that avoids the jargon and rhetoric of business that has grown to be the mantra of our public services in recent decades.
As both Lil and Colin worked for a part of public service which is has traditionally served the needy it has been seen as expensive for the public purse; workers have decent security and other work benefits. Meanwhile the newer suppliers have saved on costs by recruiting on short term contracts and lower wage rates. These services are increasingly attractive to commissioners for obvious reasons and the share of the market for council run organisations has shrunk massively of late. To work for such an organisation is akin to working in a place that is in managed decline-but no-one can ever say this openly- that would send out the wrong message. In the meantime this staff team with all it experience becomes stagnant as no new young workers enter the workforce. Also an Orwellian world of double speak evolves in such situations and to work every day within this setting can play with your head and eat away at your integral values. Reading between the lines of our discussions I get a sense of this from both of them and they are glad to be away from that world.
Colin was with his wife and grandson when I met him, we took a stroll for some time along the river front, Baby fell asleep and we were able to stop for a coffee for a good old catch-up, over ten years since our previous such discussion. Lil was out and about shopping so we were jangling about things outside the supermarket, hadn’t done that for fifteen years! She had recently acquired a dog herself that she had re-homed called Zeena, so was curious about the Pets and Pals events that I was organising to help work through some of the ‘issues’ Zeena had brought with her from her unsettled upbringing.
True to form both Lil and Colin asked how I was doing, I was glad to report that the fragile scared individual that they put so much time and energy getting through each day has become more resilient of late. I explain the connection between my life now and those instructive experiences I had in the eye of the storm of the caring business. I even hint it would be lovely to work with them again on my various projects as their knowledge and skills would be such an asset. They smile and thank me for my encouragement; I’m not holding my breath though- I know only too well the bruising that can come from the type of psychological battering that can be handed out in many working environments....but you never know!