Updated COVID19 Advice for UK Teachers, TAs and Childminders, 31st March 2020.

We live in unprecedented times and are walking over unfamiliar terrain. I posted a video last week to express gratitude and offer advice to teachers and TAs, based on the World Health Organisation’s situation report of March 6th 2020. The evidence in the WHO publication suggested that children become much less unwell than adults with COVID19 and are lower transmitters of the virus. Here is some text from the article: “Children are important drivers of influenza virus transmission in the community. For COVID-19 virus, initial data indicates that children are less affected than adults and that clinical attack rates in the 0-19 age group are low. Further preliminary data from household transmission studies in China suggest that children are infected from adults, rather than vice versa.“

 

Since that time, some fresh evidence from a small study in China has emerged in Science Daily and The Lancet to suggest that although children are at less risk from the virus overall, they may be important carriers of it (though it is stated that this is still poorly understood and needs more research). The Lancet article concludes: The most important finding to come from the present analysis is the clear evidence that children are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, but frequently do not have notable disease, raising the possibility that children could be facilitators of viral transmission. If children are important in viral transmission and amplification, social and public health policies (eg, avoiding interaction with elderly people) could be established to slow transmission and protect vulnerable populations. There is an urgent need to for further investigation of the role children have in the chain of transmission.

 

As a result of this, I’ve updated my video and also highly recommend reading the latest and incredibly helpful advice from Public Health England for schools and those caring for children and young people.

 

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4 Things to Do If You Are ‘Isolated’ at Home Because of Corona Virus

I’ve been thinking about how people can best use their time, if they are stuck at home during this Corona Virus, Covid-19 Pandemic. Some people will be asked to ‘self-isolate’, along with their household for 14 days because they have symptoms of a high temperature and/or a persistent and troubling cough. Others will be asked to do the same for 12 weeks if they are pregnant, over 70, or usually receive a flu-jab on the NHS (due to having an underlying health condition or on medication that suppresses their immune system). The reason for all of this is to try and suppress the spread of this virus, and maintain health in the wider community until we are sure we have better treatments and a vaccine that we can use across the population. Obviously, if you’re unwell, the first priority is to give your body time to recuperate by taking plenty of fluids (2-3 litres of water per day), eating well, sleeping and letting your immune system do it’s job, whilst you take paracetamol (at the recommended dose) to control your temperature and levels of pain. For many people, however, this time may feel frustrating, because symptoms will be mild or absent and some will be wondering what to do with the time they have been ‘gifted’.

 

There are 4 things, which I believe we can all do during this time, if we find ourselves in the situation of being in isolation, but not actually feeling too unwell.

 

  1. REST
  2. REFLECT
  3. RE-IMAGINE
  4. RESET

 

REST

This is something which we tend to not be very good at. However, we have been given the opportunity to step back from the fast-paced, consumerist-approach that we have adopted in society and take some time to just BE. Learning to accept that we are where we are and deliberately slowing down will enable us to find new strength and reconnect with that which is most important. Deliberately slowing down our breathing, our pace of walking and learning to calm our racing thoughts allows us to enter into a different mindset. Choosing to turn off our screens and disconnect from social media for good portions of the day allows us to create space in our heads and our hearts for another way of being. I know that social media can be a really important and safe space for many people to continue to connect and feel part of community, breaking down a sense of isolation and loneliness, but if we’re on there all the time, it can really fill our heads with unhelpful traffic and noise, which stops us being able to enter rest. As we rest, we are invited to spend our time differently – to do things that are good for the soul. You could take time to create, write, read, sing, dance, pray, go for a gentle walk, cook, sit round a table and build Lego or do jigsaws with others or on your own. There is no need to accumulate new things, what can you make do with or mend? What old or new hobbies might you rediscover or pick up? How about deliberately choosing not to get a thousand and one jobs done around the house or not rushing into a new decorating project. Just stop for a while, slow-down and rest.

 

REFLECT

When we consider the far reaching potential effects of a global pandemic, like the one we find ourselves in, it causes us to pause, notice more the interconnectedness of human life across the world and the utter fragility of our systems. It should cause us to notice more deeply the injustices upon which we build our society, the insecurity of work and the implications of global capitalism on the poorest in our communities and indeed our environment. During this time, we do well to reflect on what we are learning together. Birds are heard singing for the first time in years in Wuhan – a city usually thick with smog. Destructive air pollution has reduced by over 25% in China and Italy. The canals are cleaner than ever in Venice and global air travel has decreased significantly. Of course, we notice some of the worst bits of our humanity – driven by fear – and some selfishness. But we also see the indomitable human spirit at work – huge acts of love, courage, kindness and generosity. There are amazing offers to help and support with home schooling and teachers are going above and beyond their usual brilliance, thinking creatively about how best to enable their students to thrive. Healthcare workers continue to put themselves at risk and pour themselves into the work of healing. Voluntary food clubs to feed the hungry, delivery services for shopping and medication, community support schemes and the ongoing service of the most vulnerable in our society – it’s amazing. This ability to re-organise ourselves, to connect together differently, to make wider political and economic decisions and find a way to be that feels more wholesome should give us plenty not only to be grateful for but to reflect on about why we put so much energy into maintaining the usual status quo. What good things are we noticing and learning?

 

RE-IMAGINE

What might be possible together? Can we imagine a world with less commutes and more digital connection? Doesn’t it seem more possible to cut global emissions a great deal more quickly, when we’re forced to focus our attention? Could we work and earn differently and be more generous with wages and leave, so that we don’t see so many people left in such a vulnerable state. If we can find the ability to be so kind to each other at such a time as this – why not more so all the time? As we’ve recognised the fragility of our lives and existence, are the grudges we hold worthwhile? Are we able to forgive and reconnect? Might we adopt a way of life that is more about sharing and regenerating than grabbing all we can? Isn’t community one of the most delicious and richest of experiences? How can we build more of it? Can you sniff an economics that is more about wellbeing than profit and a politics that is more about connection and participation in our life together than centralised sovereignty? How about an education system that doesn’t treat our children like fodder for the machine, but invests in their ability to build a beautiful future. Have you seen how relationship really could be the foundation of our public services? So how might we think differently about our governance structures and the way we organise ourselves – think ‘Radical Help’ (Hilary Cottam), ‘Doughnut Economics’ (Kate Raworth) and ‘All Our Welfare’ (Peter Beresford) – plus many more. Can you imagine a society in which we really put the wellbeing of all people and the planet at the heart of what we do? If so….why would we continue with a way of being together which is so detrimental to both?

 

RESET

Our invitation, therefore, is to reset. This invitation comes from the earth itself, from our deepest longings, and from the source of all love and life itself. We don’t have to continue living in the story of selfishness and scarcity. We have shown ourselves that there is a more ancient and wonderful story of connectedness, restoration and hope, to which we all belong. We don’t have to go back to how it has been. Step by step, we can use this ‘kairos’ moment to walk into a new future together. A future in which we heal our divides and regenerate our planet, forgive our deep, historical wrongdoings, rebuild our ruins and restore our relationships; do away with injustice and create reconciliation. It’s time to reset. Are you ready to press the button?

 

Here is a beautiful poem, by Kitty O’Meara, to help us rest, reflect, re-imagine and rest.

 

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Creating a Culture of Joy – some practical ideas!

I am hugely passionate about how we create great cultures in which to live and work. One particular thing I love is building a culture of joy! My friends Rachel Pilling and Dan Wadsworth have come up with a super easy way in which to practically build joy in work, through this simple but excellent idea of 15-30. This is the magic that happens when clinicians and managers work together. Watch it, if you work in the NHS then sign up and get involved and if you work outside the NHS – the idea is entirely replicable in any other part of life. By you going the extra mile now, you could save your friend a marathon….Building joy in work is, according to the IHI, the most important foundation on which to build a safe, sustainable and excellent health and care system. With staff morale as low as it is, let’s do what we can to promote joy in the daily grind. Here are Dan and Rachel explaining more in their excellent TEDxNHS talk – well worth your time!:

 

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How Does Change Happen? Part 2

This question has become extremely important to me, in my work around how we tackle health inequalities and social injustice. It’s all too easy to take sides, point fingers and play the blame game. But if our political system teachers us anything, it is that this kind of didactic, oppositional approach to life, brings about little change, if any.

 

Over the last few years in Morecambe Bay, we’ve been exploring the power of Social Movements and how we can best work with our communities to effect real and lasting change. As, I said in part one of this series, we’ve been very affected by the need for personal change and the need for deep listening. Change begins with us and this requires genuine humility and deep listening, putting ourselves into uncomfortable situations and surroundings. How can we possibly make decisions for communities with whom we have never spent any time? It’s important that we do our own work and reflect on what we hear and be willing to change our way of working as a result. Series 3 of The Crown, highlights this beautifully with the inauguration of Prince Charles as The Prince of Wales. His relationship with his Welsh tutor utterly transforms the way he sees the plight of the welsh people and indeed his understanding of power, but it only comes from being immersed in Wales and having some significant challenge brought to his world-view.

 

Personal change does not just happen through encounters. The encounter with ‘the other’ invites us into a deeper journey of change. It’s why I have personally also found The Enneagram to be such a helpful tool when it comes to dealing with my own internal issues and mechanisms. For me, as a type 7, it has helped me to understand why I run away from pain and needlessly distract myself from the present in search for ever more stimulation. I have had to face this head on, in order to learn to become more fully human and the best gift I can be (nowhere near there yet!)….

 

I believe we will not see societal change if we are not, ourselves, willing to be changed. Personal transformation, however, is not enough, vital though it is. In thinking about wider social change, I have been really influenced by the philosopher, Valerie Fournier. She talks about three key components which are necessary to drive change within communities. Firstly, she says we must cultivate anger. Initially this seems like quite a strong statement, but what she is referring to is the need to stir a corporate sense of passion around injustice. I have certainly found this to be an important aspect of enabling change in our communities. If we’re not careful, we can spend much of our waking life asleep. If we are to be truly woke to the issues we’re facing across our communities then we must create a space in which people can become stirred to care enough about the reality of the status quo. We have found that people across Morecambe Bay really care about the fact that people living only a few miles apart can have a 15 year difference in life expectancy and an even bigger gap when it comes to years lived in good health. Our experience is that if we give no voice to the discontent within the communities, especially for those at the receiving end of systemic injustice, then we can end up going round in circles, unable to move forward. We definitely don’t want to remain in the place of anger, but it can be harnessed as an incredible energy for good. 

 

The expression of anger is an important part of The Poverty Truth Commission process. Those who are subject to poverty and at the receiving end of the coldness of ‘the system’ need to be given voice to express what that means for them and how it impacts their sense of wellbeing. I think in Britain, we’re not particularly good at ‘anger’. It’s uncomfortable for us. It doesn’t feel polite. We would much rather keep things under wraps and hide away that which makes us feel ashamed. However, when we choose to be present enough to suspend what we think we know about poverty and the experience of it, and really listen to the harrowing reality of it, in another human being and then go on to build relationship and even friendship with that person….then we too are invited into that same anger, not to rage against the machine, but to use the power of our ‘fileo’ (friendship) love to become an agent of radical change. 

 

Anger harnessed in this way leads to Fournier’s second step in social change: ‘Challenge inevitability’ – challenge the inevitability that things must always be this way. When we think about issues like poverty, health inequality, social injustice, adverse childhood experiences – things which feel ‘too hard to change’, it’s easy to resign ourselves to the notion that things will always be this way – therefore we should just ‘keep calm and carry on’, and just do what we can to ‘help those less fortunate than ourselves’….but all this does is reinforce the same old story. Social change requires that we challenge the inevitability of the status quo and that means challenging the world views we hold and the stories we tell ourselves. It doesn’t mean that we must therefore create a greater division between rich and poor or make enemies of ‘the elite’. It’s about taking ideologies that we hold to be ‘true’ and asking probing questions of them. In fact, it’s about giving them a really good shake and uprooting those that are deeply damaging and throwing them on the fire. There are great examples of this kind of work in economics – Kate Raworth in her book ‘Doughnut Economics’, or Katherine Trebeck in her book ‘The Economics of Arrival’ – both challenging economic theory built on GDP and obsessed with growth. We see it in Hilary Cottam’s tour de force ‘Radical Help’ in her challenge to the transactional basis of the welfare state. Bev Skeggs and Imogen Tyler, sociologists both challenging the way society is set up. Rob Barratt, challenging the way we think about education. 

 

At the same time as challenging inevitability we just also incept our thinking with possibility of an alternative future, asking ourselves some powerful ‘what if?’ questions. I wonder what an economy might be like if it held wellbeing of people and the planet as it’s core principles? – a question they are asking in Scotland, New Zealand and Iceland. What if we had a society in which women (change women for any other subjugated group) were treated as true equals? I wonder what education might be like if it were truly future orientated and took climate change seriously? If we challenge what is, it allows us to reimagine what might be.

 

New ideas though, are not enough. The undermining of our current realities opens up the possibility for Fournier’s third aspect of social change, which is to ‘Create moral alternative economies’. We must move from anger and challenge, into experiment. Appreciative Enquiry is a great approach to help us move into this space. It allows communities to focus on what is strong, rather than what is wrong. If we’re going to experiment with new ways of building society, politics, economics etc, we need to so on strong foundations. Once we have cleared the ground in our minds of what has been stopping us find kinder ways forward, we can then focus in on – ok – so what is good?

 

As a result of this approach in the Poverty Truth Commission, for example, we’ve been able to work together on designing the kind of job roles that would really help someone navigate the complexities of the health, social care and welfare system, when they are on the ropes. We heard the anger about where it isn’t working, challenged our own thinking that we can’t really change things and have begun to experiment with the ideas put forward by people on the receiving end of unkind and punitive processes. We’re creating a moral alternative economy. When our city council in Lancaster, recently voted to protect the rights of gypsy-travellers by buying their land and promising to ensure it is fit to live on – they also responded to the anger of deep injustice at what was being proposed (the selling of their land), challenged the inevitability that they had no choice in solving the matter and instead intervened with a moral alternative economy, that protected the ‘poor’ and actually worked for the benefit of everyone. Or, we could take an example from education: When a teacher refuses to tow the line to isolate a student and have them face a wall all day and instead finds a more creative way to understand their student’s anger, challenging the inevitability of school exclusion (and all that will lead onto) and finds an alternative way to help them process their trauma and make the system work for them, rather than the other way round – that teacher is creating a moral alternative economy. You see? We can begin to do it everywhere! And when we begin to experiment with new ways of being together in communities, we begin to tell each other a new and altogether more loving story than the one we’re currently living in. The more we experiment and either fail or succeed, the more we discover how to build a society that works for the wellbeing/peace of everyone and the planet. 

 

So, where do you need to listen more deeply, to allow yourself to be made uncomfortable by the palpable anger that is underneath the surface, or sometimes erupting onto our streets? Why is the anger there? What does it tap into? Where is it coming from? Who is it aimed at? Is that anger able to be channelled in a way that can leverage an altogether more loving and kind society? What inevitability in your personal or our corporate thinking needs to be challenged as a result? What ‘truths’ need to be questioned? What space might that clear for new experiments to emerge? What if those experiments began to interconnect and learn from each other, sharing resources and encouragement along the way? What might then become possible? What if we actually took a breath and decided to genuinely think and work in this way? Can you see the change ahead?! Go ahead and start creating it!

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The Resilience Myth

My friend, Dr Sammy Batt-Rawden knows only too well the dangers of just keeping her chin up and carrying on. In this beautiful, but heart-wrenching TEDx talk, she tells her story.

 

Staff in the NHS (and indeed all our public services) are working against a tide of a huge rise in public demand, funding constraints and dangerously low staffing levels for what is required. The old edict to ‘keep calm and carry on’ simply misses the point. There isn’t a culture of shirking responsibility in the NHS. People are going way above and beyond every day, and it is taking it’s very real toll. Yes, we need to increasingly develop cultures of joy and kindness in how we work, but there must be determined change by leaders in the Government to ensure that the buck is not passed when it comes to who is responsible for ensuring the wellbeing of our clinical teams across the UK. Teams are already doing much to take care of each other and themselves, and yet staff surveys across the UK show that absenteeism is increasing, along with burnout and morale continues to decline. Do the maths!

 

Listen to Sammy’s story and let’s change the tone of the conversation so that we can work on practical solutions together. Those solutions will include everyone. Part of the solution lies with learning to work radically differently with our communities. Some of it lies within our choices of how we use the health service. There is of course work to do in how we care for people who work across the NHS and set good working patterns. But there is still much work to be done by those in power to think more carefully about where and how budgets are spent. The new spending plan for the NHS pays very little attention to safe staffing levels or staff development – it needs much more care and attention.

 

I’m so grateful to Sammy for changing the nature of this increasingly important conversation:

 

 

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My TEDxNHS Talk

Last year, I was invited to submit a proposal for a TEDxNHS talk. TEDx are independently organised TED events, and it turns out that TEDxNHS is the biggest of these in the world. I submitted two ideas – one around how we can work radically differently with our communities and one around how we create great working cultures in the NHS – both huge passions of mine. I was well excited to get through the process of selection, but was not at all prepared for the work ahead of me!

 

I do quite a bit of public speaking and really feel alive when I get to communicate things that I’m passionate about. I had no idea how different it is to prepare for a TED talk though! I read Chris Anderson’s book over the summer, and had several anxiety-related dreams . I genuinely thought I was never going to be ready! I couldn’t even really decide what I was going to talk about, let alone get it into an engaging piece of prose, whilst sticking to the all important 18 minute timeframe. Thanks to my amazing coach, Zara Brookes (can’t tell you how grateful I am!) and the kindness of Charlotte Hall and Shane Costigan, with hours of patience and encouragement from my lovely wife, Kat, I finally got it ready – an amalgamation of my passions. I hugely enjoyed the discipline and the focus involved in preparation, and when I got onto the stage at Indigo at the O2 Arena in London, this is what happened – hope you enjoy it:

 

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Love Ecology – Part 3 – Gabriella Gilkes

The final speaker at our ‘Love Ecology’ was the wonderful Gabriella (Gabi) Gilkes, Head of Ecology and Health and Wellbeing at Eden North. Gabi talked to us about the real nature of ecology, connectivity, community and friendship. She also took us on an amazing tour of how the Eden Project will help the people of Morecambe Bay and all those who visit, reconnect with our Ecology and get involved in falling in love with and taking care of our environment, with a strong emphasis on the creative arts, story telling and beautiful experiences. Having been involved with various members of the team from the Eden Project over recent months, I am seriously impressed with their ethos, their kindness and their genuine sense of partnership with our communities, here in the bay. It really is a wonderful world! This talk is really worth 30 minutes of your time:

 

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Love Ecology – Part 2 – Miles Irving

Having heard from the masterful wizard that is Alastair McIntosh, we also welcomed the earth-stewarding, foraging genius, who is Miles Irving. Miles, one of the leading foragers in the UK, talked to us about breaking the silence. With song and sensational wisdom, he spun out several threads, before catching us all in his web of interconnected beauty! Watch, listen and embrace the reality of our recoverable relationship to the ecology.

 

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Love Politics – Part 3 – Roger Mitchell

 

In my view, it would be impossible to host a day on ‘Love Politics’ without it including my great friend, Roger Mitchell. He is a brilliant thinker and one of the kindest people I know! His thesis, ‘Church, Gospel and Empire’ (or ‘The Fall of The Church’, if you want an easier to read version!) is vital reading for anyone who wants to seriously engage with the idea of a politics of love. Here, drawing in his own work and that of Luke Bretherton, he gives an absolutely brilliant insight into why love is such a powerful foundation and force for a new politics. This is really worthy of your time and energy!

 

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Love Politics – Part 2 – Panel and Poetry!

Following on from the incredible input from Zahra Delilah, we hosted a ‘panel in the round’ as the room was full of great thinkers. Then we had a world cafe conversation in which we asked the question: “What might be possible with a politics of love in Morecambe Bay?” We then challenged each table to write a poem as a summary of their discussion! They had the choice of and ABAB four liner, a limerick or a haiku! There were some truly excellent and amusing offerings.

 

Here are the links to the panel discussion and the poems. Enjoy!

 

 

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