“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
(T.S. Eliot The Four
Quartets - Little Gidding)”
The year’s end is a time for reflection and resolution. As
yet another year of apparently knocking my head against a variety of walls
without much success draws to a close, it might be tempting to think about
throwing in the towel, or at least putting it down on a sun lounger somewhere
warm.
The alternative is to review and simplify the messages in
the hope that 2015 will be a year in which ‘the establishment’ has its
metaphorical hearing aid turned on. Having thought about it over the holiday
period I have managed to refine my wishes for child protection for 2015 to
three. These are:
1) Focus on meeting the
needs of abused and neglected children, not on the demands of regulators or
politicians or civil servants or ‘experts’ or newspaper editors. Design systems
and working practices which make it easier to learn more about the needs and preferences
of abused and neglected children and young people. Motivate people to create
new and more effective ways of meeting them.
2) Concentrate
resources on doing only what is strictly necessary to satisfy those needs.
Be ruthless in dismantling working practices and systems and management fads
that consume resources but which deliver no tangible benefits. IT and paperwork
should only exist to make practice easier and more effective, not to impede it.
3) Adopt a grown-up
attitude to error. Recognise that doing complex things will always involve
some errors. See error as an opportunity to learn, not as something to fear or
as an opportunity to blame. Equip practitioners to understand, talk about and
learn from their errors. Capture data about errors, both systematically and
informally, and learn from it.
Happy New Year!
