Last week three members of Homecare Workers’ Group spent the day at Social Care Future’s Building People Power event in Manchester. Watch this short video to get a flavour of the day:
Social Care Future represents individuals who draw on social care in England and has made great strides over the last six years in changing the way social care is spoken about at a national level.
Their work aims to move the conversation away from a tight focus on old age, wrinkly hands, being looked after and a funding blackhole and towards looking at what is possible within existing community networks, and recognising that ‘social care’ touches on all of our lives.
Social Care Future's vision for the future revolves around the statement that: “We all want to live in the place we call home, with the people and things we love, in communities where we look out for each other, doing the things that matter to us”.
As paid care workers, we fully support this vision. We have a front-row view of the way social care interacts with people’s lives and know what a positive difference it makes to an individual’s experience of life (not to mention their physical and mental health) when they are socially well-connected and live their life with purpose. So, we went along last week to work out how, as paid care workers developing our own collective voice, we can act as allies to further this good work in the interest of all the people we support.
Helpful story-telling
In the morning, we attended a session about how to tell your story in public spaces. Here, we asked the room how best to tell our stories as care workers - and advocate on behalf of individuals we support who are unable to self-advocate - without detracting from efforts to reshape the mainstream narrative of social care away from solely negative depictions.
The feedback we had from individuals who draw on social care was that we should not shy away from pointing out the negatives - that reframing is not about ‘white-washing’ - and that our stories are just as valid to tell as anyone else’s. Yet perhaps this could be balanced by also striving to emphasise why we stay in our roles despite its challenges, to the point that we will voluntarily attend events such as this one. By speaking to the reasons we love care work, its rewards in terms of personal fulfilment and its high social value, this could do much in-and-of itself to reframe popular conceptions of social care for the better. Many thanks to the people in this session for their welcome advice.
Community organising
The second session the three of us attended taught us the principles of community organising. I have been meaning to do some training about community organising with Citizens UK for some time, so this session delivered by Grapevine was very well-placed.
Over the past twelve months, Homecare Workers’ Group has brought together 278 care workers from around the UK. I have been working hard during this time to establish a welcoming, participatory and supportive environment for individuals who are generally not used to being asked their opinion!
The vibrancy of the early community we have developed is enough to inspire hope in the most committed of cynics, yet this session highlighted some important areas for improvement. Namely the fact that, if I got taken out by a lightning strike tomorrow, Homecare Workers’ Group would grind to a halt! Whilst I'm sure our core group of especially active members would do their best to keep things going, as it stands I am the only person with access to all the controls behind the scenes. Moreover, homecare workers who work full-time are incredibly short of spare time. For many, the only way it is possible to engage fully with a group like ours is to drop some working hours each week, leaving them out-of-pocket. This community organising session was a timely reminder explore whether it could be possible to remunerate members for their time from a funding perspective.
All in all, a fantastic day. Our brains were equal parts fired up and exhausted by the time the clock hit 4pm. This time last year, I went along to Social Care Future’s event on my own. Afterwards, I reflected on the lack of paid care workers in attendance and hoped that a year later I might not be the only care worker I would see there. Thanks to my fellow members, Kyly and Ann, for making that happen! Thanks also to Martin Routledge, a convener of Social Care Future who has been one of the group’s biggest supporters over the past year and who kindly invited us along. Looking forward to next year already!
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