We hope this blog, based on COVER e-bulletins and other work related to the COVER group (COVER, i-TRUST and Reboot), will help us think about common ground. Do we all, for instance, work closely enough together or do Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations, as well as the private, public and the social enterprise sectors fail to share, communicate and explore new ideas with each other? The task of this blog is to explore innovative ways of working together.
By way of an introduction, this first entry focuses on some of the issues raised in the latest e-bulletin (edition 156). One article in particular highlights the use of online films to get your message across. Films help us to effectively understand how people see their worlds. They can provide a contrast to the often over complex written reports by ‘experts’. They give us the information to understand how to work with people rather than for people at the local level.
For example, Community Links use online films to really bring home to us how disadvantaged people feel about their lives. Whilst not listed on the COVER ebulletin, Cambs Adult Social Care provides a brilliant video on how personalisation, if we think about it, really works.
Whilst, not using films, Clinks works creatively to evaluate how we work with 'offenders'. It provides ten short accounts of working with, and not for, people who find themselves in difficulties with the law.
This approach won't work unless people respond and, for my money, action research, shared and innovative thinking and fully involving people should be about working with, and not for people. I look forward to hearing from you all about how integration works and how insular thinking doesn't...
