Humansolutions Bulletin - April 30th 2020

This important new book emphasises the sociological aspects of resilience. It challenges the idea that resilience is purely a psychological phenomenon by exploring the wide range of social factors involved. Available for purchase here

Often confusion arises because there is a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. The more pressurized the situation is, the more likely this problem is to occur. This confusion can breed anxiety and that anxiety, in turn, can lead to fuzzy thinking which then contributes to confusion about boundaries. There is therefore much to be gained from being clear about where the boundaries lie. It is important to be clear about what you are personally responsible for in any given situation. But it is also important to be clear about what part you play in any shared responsibility. Are the others who share that responsibility clear about their contribution and are you all clear about how you…

Let me start by telling you a secret, you can’t tell my boss though. When I first got a job at The Equality Trust I didn’t really know what inequality was. This is probably partly down to my privilege, but if you asked me to define it, there and then, as I was being interviewed, I’d have been toast. So when I started at The Equality Trust, I did what everyone does, I googled it. Then I read books on it, really good books. Then I watched Ted Talks on it and listened to podcasts but still it couldn’t quite stick. I couldn’t quite make sense of it in my head. Until I heard a story about it. Then I…

Ted has been buoyant since the first day of lockdown. He is retired and lives in a village near Salisbury with his wife. They are financially secure and “continue to enjoy good health and have all we need at home”. He can still garden, cycle and enjoy the countryside. For him, and a fifth of Britons surveyed, it is business as usual. A collection of lockdown diaries compiled by 50 Britons over three weeks reveals a bleak contrast between those who, like Ted, can afford to cope in the current crisis, and those struggling to feed their families and maintain their physical and mental health. In a study put together by Britain Thinks, a third of respondents keeping weekly diaries…

Every year, our Bright Spots research programme works with local authorities across the country to understand the experience of their children in care and care leavers and explore ways in which their experiences can be improved. In one of our surveys a child reported: “I hate that when the register comes up on the screen and others in the class can see that I am CLA . It winds me up even though everyone knows. I don’t like to be different”. This alerted the local authority who cared for the child about how they felt about the school register. With this knowledge, their virtual school could contact schools to ask them to stop this practice. Click here to read more…

Facebook page Facebook Social Work Focus group LinkedIn Twitter YouTube channel Neil’s website The humansolutions website Information about Neil’s online learning community, the Avenue Professional Development Programme