Safeguarding, or rather, kicking off to get public service workers to panic
a warning that this contains discussion of suicide, among other things
The other week I visited someone I used to work with. She was bleary eyed, confused, and, rather low. I’m sure some may construe this as “suicidal”, but to be honest I’ve seen her far worse. But she had not been great for a while, and it didn’t seem to be just a case of the January or Monday blues.
So I raised a safeguarding.
Raising a safeguarding is a pretty odd thing. In fact it can be as simple as an email, usually to a local authority’s inbox (famously empty things). Although I’ve been working in public services (aren’t I wonderful) for over three years now, I’ve very rarely had to do it on behalf of one of MY CLIENTS1 and it’s always a strange process.
Most emails land in the inbox of a “First Response” team or something like that, and to say their inboxes are full, is probably a bit of an understatement (particularly in post-Osborne public service Britain). Their budgets have been so decimated that anything related to social work/ social care, tends to be a bit, “how bad can this get before we need to step in”. “No but is X actually suicidal or just the usual.” Certainly a very strategic and cost-effective way of running public services.
I remember a certain national charity raising one on behalf of a CLIENT a few years ago. She had been talking about suicidal thoughts in her talking therapy, so they made a “safeguarding” to her local council. The council worker, then embarked on a ring around of every single service in touch with this woman. My conversation with them went something like this;
“We have been informed you work with X.”
“Yes I do.”
“We’ve been told she’s suicidal. Are you supporting her?”
Certainly not a case of, how Jacqui Dillon often puts it; public service workers backdating everything to the coronor’s court.
Crisis? What crisis
It’s a funny thing really, because social care is at the vanguard I suppose of public services in that, they step in when crisis arises - but also “engage” in an attempt to avert crisis. I’m not convinced they achieve either very well, but I’m sure Mr Osborne continues to sleep well at night, seeing as he achieved his manifesto commitment of a “strong and enduring” recovery. (I’m sure Lord Cameron sleeps equally well too, seeing as he achieved his commitment of “cutting the deficit, not the NHS”.)
Anyway back to this aforementioned safeguarding that I raised recently. I emailed social care (a London borough), a relatively brief summary, noting (you have to write these things down of course) that, “I thought this woman was suicidal and I am VERY worried for her welfare”, etc etc, (ie, do something or you might be liable, or worse; Daily Mail-ed.)
I know this is rather dark territory and the way in which I am conveying it here, may appear rather glib. But may I please note that the woman in question rolls her eyes herself, about the politics of systems, and has many times herself gone to quite lengths to get the help she needs. (We once emailed a charity that claimed to help, not judge, and suggested she would throw herself out a window if she didn’t get funding for a sofa. That was her idea, but she does have a dark sense of humour, something I often find among those dependent on the welfare state).
For Great British public services, safeguardings are sometimes the easier, or rather more straightforward option. Just tell social services that someone might die, and if they do, some of you [might] be held accountable. (It’s a bit passive aggressive sure, but have you ever met an overworked, underpaid frontline worker; I think passive aggression can often be how they survive each day.)
Such safeguardings, (emails), can at times, kick services into action. Within days, her energy company wrote me (not her, lol) an apologetic email, explaining they would add this person to their “Priority Service Register”, (I’m not sure why someone who was fairly recently homeless; has been sectioned in the past few months, and who shall we say ticks a lot of box on equalities forms, was not on the PSR - but I gave up asking rational questions a while ago.)
I don’t wish to suggest that I wasn’t worried about her welfare, I was. But I’ve seen her far worse. We had a few chats about it in advance, and came to an agreement that “escalating her case” to the local authority would probably not do any harm. This is not to suggest that my email exaggerated anything. She was pretty low, having recently discovered that she was £1000 in debt to the energy companies. And part of the reason she didn’t know these debts were building is because, she has a cognitive issue.
But there was another reason that she was not on top of her bills. She was fairly recently homeless.
Different Pathways, Different needs
When she moved from one part of the system to another (ie from a hostel to permanent housing), the system did, what Gill Taylor has often spoken to; “what it was designed to do”. This woman was now in a different path part of the system, and therefore her support – which was funded, via our outdated public sector commissioning models - pretty much vanished.
She was now under local authority social care, no longer under local authority homelessness care. In the hostel, where she resided during Covid, she had people around all the time, (it’s perhaps a bit like a care home, but with more pret sandwiches.) She rarely said she enjoyed the hostel, in fact she seemed to hate it. But at least there, she had people around.
Social housing these days has less of the community about it. A heady mix of gentrification, development, rampant NIMBYism, right-to-buy, ie a housing crisis - has led to high rises that would not feel out of place in A Clockwork Orange. As Burgess once wrote;
“Perhaps every dystopian vision is a figure of the present, with certain features sharpened and exaggerated to point a moral and a warning.”
Whether the government is red or blue, the austerity = efficiency discourse, underpinning Thatcherite public services (ie higher numbers = more people helped = better)2 continues to rule the day. If you find yourself homeless, you have to prove you are “fit” enough for housing (ie pay the landlord who I am sure worked very hard to buy said home), before a local authority will house you.
It’s actually relatively rare to see someone secure a permanent social housing tenancy. But after decades without a home of her own, she secured one. But while the system deemed her ready for a home, as soon as she was settled into that home, every agency that had been servicing her needs suddenly vanished.
So apparently you need to be fixed to be ready for housing. But housing also means you are fixed.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. I’ve worked with people who continue to get ongoing support from Mungo’s as part of the Housing First model, even after they’ve moved into their own permanent independent accommodation. But I feel it’s a rarity at best, again mainly because of outdated commissioning for problems (ie strict criteria) rather than for people (usually a little more complex).
The tragic case of Dan Sullivan speaks to the system’s persistent failure to approach “risk” in a humane way, when above everything it should always be about how we keep people safe.
Too often, the relationships that help us to function day to day, vanish for people dependent on public service systems. We know the people that use these systems are overwhelmingly working class, and that black and brown people, trans people and women who have been victims of violence continue to be over represented in systems. Our insistence that our Kafkaesque welfare state is fit for purpose, does a disservice to the very people dependent on it.
So, did the safeguarding work?
Not entirely, but it’s an ongoing saga which I will continue to post about on here. A few days after I sent the email, a social worker popped up and suddenly apologies were coming and thing started moving. I won’t write about that here, but suffice to say, raising a safeguarding, mentioning “crisis” and all not very nice things, called people to action. I suppose it could have been worse. And it often is - like I said above, most inboxes have simply too much for workers to deal with.
I’m sure this all says something about public service efficiency. Thatcher would be impressed, and I’m sure it’s the kind of bureaucracy Bevan and Beveridge dreamed of.
Nye said in the House back in 1949;
“What we are trying to do is to work out a system of resilient administration with as little bureaucracy as possible, with as much local self-government as possible, and yet at the same time protect the public purse against extravagant administration.
“I believe we shall do it. In fact, I am convinced we shall do it. We shall show the world how we can centralise financial responsibility and decentralise day-to-day administration in a great service of this sort. I seriously suggest to hon. Members that it is not possible until we have, first of all, at least one year’s experience behind us.
“That is the main answer to the charges made by hon. Members opposite who are so anxious to denigrate the Health Service.”
I’m not sure many public service workers today would find much in the speech above that resonates. Decentralised day-to-day administration? I can’t even imagine.
Besides, what would the Daily Mail write about, if they couldn’t pour their journalistic integrity into undertaking criminal investigations into the millions squandered by benefit claimants that work one minute past their legal entitlement?
My former employer, Mayday Trust, discouraged staff from using the term “client” because they suggested it was not an ideal term, ie I guess you could say, they found it to be derogatory. I would love to know what other words they consider derogatory?
Even if the numbers don’t necessarily mean individual people but rather - the same people accessing the same service twice.
Hello hello hello 😎
I hope that your "safeguarded" charge-in-hand, is doing well. And safe. And happy.
🙏🏻🧘🏻♀️🌌
(ps: nice word - safeguarding (&context) I live and learn, every day) 🌞
Ahem, if I may -
I do not have the background, academic or otherwise, of Sociology, but... I've been on this beautiful planet a while, so I'm "aware", what'sgoin' on a bit.
At the risk of appearing facetious, and being of limited vocabulary, I am wondering if the word "Patron" may be more apposite, appropriate than use of word "Client" - defining another human, who seeks or needs help when he/she, for umpteen reasons, faces challenges of everyday life.
Vis-a-vis public services/ public assistance:
Use of Client, Customer, Guest - there is certain yucky awfulness...as if a Subpar level of a human, dressed up / dolled up to be spoken of, sans risk, in polite company. Personally speaking, I equate it to social defenestration
I have seen too many times, the way the "haves" react towards the "have-nots".
It's the ignorant times we live in.
Please pardon me, there ARE, undoubtedly, innumerable awfully kind people (like yourself), who are passionate, dedicated to making life of vulnerable fellow Earthlings that much better, safer, healthier, happier than otherwise could've been possible (for them). I salute them all and most of all, you, Dannie Grufferty 🙏🏻💙🙏🏻sunshine on a rainy day 🧘🏻♀️🌌