This is the second of two posts reflecting on recent conversations I’ve been involved with about relational care and how more effectively its reflexes and practices might become more embedded in our care systems. The focus is especially on out of home care as a particular domain in which its absence is widely recognised as […]
The Road to Relational (Part 1)
To talk about relational care sounds a bit odd. After all, what is care if not relational? As it turns out, in some contexts – out of home care and child protection for example – the experience can be anything but relational pretty much for everyone involved but especially for those about whom these systems […]
Try, test and grow: the smell of new paradigms
I wrote a short piece recently based on James Plunkett’s ‘governing human’ observation about the energy for reform and even transformation in how we govern, including the work of the public sector, emanating from an energetic edge. And I noted that aspects of James’ work are being picked up in some strands of work within […]
Governing human: energy at the edge
“The system is dying from the middle, but there’s vitality at the periphery.” With an apt mix of despair and hope, James Plunkett front ends a very handy inventory of some evidence of the energy and renewal typically found at the edges as harbingers of system shift and renewal. It’s where he’s increasingly looking for […]
Dark Enlightenment, the bonfire of the vanities and being countercultural
This is the 10 February 2025 FT Swamp Notes from Rana Foroohar and Richard Waters. [The Notes is a great @financialtimes newsletter to which I strongly recommend you sign up if you haven’t already]. It’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve read in the torrent of analysis and speculation about exactly what the Trump/Musk […]
The power of the connecting middle: where policy, delivery and democracy meet (and often don’t)
I had one of those interesting collisions between a couple of strands of my work last week that helped to make sense of a couple of things. One piece of work is The Possibility Partnership. More about this below but it’s a project full of, well, possibility about making a dent in the vexed question […]
