Radical surgery needed

I promise no rants this time. But just to recap:

We don't need the sticking plaster of reasonable adjustments in Wales. We need radical surgery.

I believe it is possible for public life in Wales to become inclusive. But...

it requires a different way of seeing the world, different way of relating with ourselves and other people, different ways of planning and different ways of organising and doing stuff.

To me, that adds up to some pretty radical surgery for public life in Wales.

Pre-op

Step 1 is to believe that inclusive public life is a) possible, b) desirable and c) is stronger than a public life that excludes so many people. If you need help getting your head round that, check out the now-finished Evolve, part of Chwarae Teg's Agile Nation project.

Step 2 is to get your head round Shared Spaces, a way of thinking about how we relate.

Step 3 is to get the most diverse bunch of mystery shoppers possible to check out, honestly, what it's like to try to be part of public life. And then tell you. Don't be devastated; we know (most of) you didn't mean to shut so many people out; you just didn't realise what you were doing.

So far, so straightforward. There are routemaps, tools and examples for all the above.

Then the fun starts.

Planning for experimental surgery

Let's start off small. How do you organise an inclusive public meeting?

I will be honest. I don't know. I haven't been to one. And I don't claim to have run one.

What I do know is that I make assumptions whenever I organise anything. We all do. And the problems come because we unconsciously assume people are like us or people we know well. So our assumptions mean we come up with something that works for us, rather than works for anyone.

Here are a few assumptions I know I used to make. And I see these assumptions at almost every public meeting I go to. We don't even notice these assumptions because they are true for most people traditionally involved in public life. So when someone pops up who doesn't fit the mould we've made, we often get a bit flustered.

We usually (unconsciously) assume:

• people drive or have access to a car
• people are fully mobile
• people can hear
• people can see
• people can read and write
• people can listen, think and plan a response all at the same time
• people have enough stamina for an 8 hour working day with only few breaks
• people use language the same way as you, and know the same jargon
• people know when and how to break into a discussion to get heard
• people know what to wear (and have access to what they think they should wear)
• people can afford to cover their own expenses, or at least pay up front and wait to get the money back

You can probably add assumptions of your own - and please do add them in the comments. It's the old Johari window effect; The dangerous part of the window is where I'm not aware of what I don't know.We made a video about the whispering service - a way to include people who don't follow public-life-speak. And to our shame, it never crossed our minds to subtitle it because none of us in Barod is D/deaf. So we excluded a whole bunch of people from a video about how to include a another (probably overlapping) bunch of people. We are very grateful to some lovely twitter friends who gently pointed this out - and I'm learning how to subtitle and video edit so we can do something about it.

First attempts at radical surgery

As Barod, we are learning and developing prototypes for more inclusive ways of running meetings. Our wonderful friends at Good Practice Wales and Working With Not To give us opportunities to test them out. 

We routinely ask, when invited to discussion meetings, for a series of things that make it easier for Barod to take part:

• people's willingness to send information and presentations in advance so we can take time to prepare (so we have space to think, reflect and check things out in advance)
• people's tolerance if we need to ask someone to slow down, repeat what they said, rephrase what they said or allow one of us to double check we have understood (so we aren't left with a choice of embarrassment at asking or remaining clueless)
• an agreement whether speakers will keep things plain, clear, slow and jargon-free, or for Barod to provide a translator for anyone who struggles with standard public life speak (so we don't look stupid just because we can't process a stream of unfamiliar words quickly)
• a minute or two's gap between a presentation or question and the start of the discussion (so we can stop, think and decide what needs saying by us)
• for everyone to put their hand up and wait to be invited to speak by the Chair (so we know where to look before someone starts speaking, we aren't trying to follow multiple conversations and you don't need to be skilled at breaking into discussion without looking like you are interrupting)

Asking for this involves compromise on both sides. We aren't asking for the gold standard of accessible meetings for people with a learning difficulty [if you want to know more about what a gold standard meeting would be like, ask Barod!]. We are asking people to value us enough to make it possible for us to be part of their meeting. And we do suggest they try these things for all meetings, as experience shows it makes for better meetings for everyone.

Towards an inclusive future?

Experimental surgery is risky. It needs to be based on the best possible information, thinking, skills and expertise. So perhaps what we need is a bunch of people who, between us, fail to fit in with any of the assumptions. If we could work out how to work together on an equal footing, then we'd have the makings of a model for inclusive public life ready to test out. 

Any volunteers? (And any offers to pay foreveryone's time?)

The sticking plaster of reasonable adjustments

Warning! Rant alert!

"Hi, we've automatically excluded you by the way we do things around here. If you'd like to join our gang/use our services then you need to tell us. If you need a reasonable adjustment so you can join in (where "reasonable" = we feel like doing it or the law says we must) then we will prove what wonderful people we are by making a special exception in your case and doing something differently."

How medical model can you get?

It's a fantastic way of saying "Let's focus on the individual we have disabled as if they are the problem. And we will do this under the guise of being nice kind people who don't want to exclude anyone."

And that, my friends, is why I hate the term "reasonable adjustments".

(I promise a Part Two non-rant about solutions, but research work is calling and my timesheet says I must obey...)

The coproduction myth

I thought I'd offer to help a fellow student out yesterday. She's doing research about coproduction and, like the great research student she is, she wanted help to test an interview schedule.

I reckon I know a fair bit about coproduction (as part of Barod I've even led workshops about it called Shared Space). I'm opinionated, which always makes for a feisty semi-structured interview, and if we can't help each other out as fellow students then the world is a sorrier place than I believe it is.

What I hadn't expected was to learn something new about how I think about coproduction. Or, more accurately, talking together crystallised something I'd almost but not quite got round to thinking.

The interview was going fine from my point of view. The questions made sense. I could answer openly and honestly. I could have gone down a number of different avenues which suggested the interview schedule would work for anyone. I could hear in my answers that she was getting key information out of me quite naturally.

And then came "The Question".  I can't even remember what it was. But the way the question was phrased assumed that coproduction is a tool or process. And the question stumped me. I did a good goldfish impersonation.

Cue: Pause interview; Step out of roles as interviewee/interviewer; talk as fellow researchers about why I was stumped by the question.

Answer: I believe coproduction is a relationship, not a process or tool.

The moment I realised that, so much clicked into place about the coproduction myth. We talk about coproduction, we say it is happening. Public services tell us we are now going to coproduce. And most of what goes by the name of coproduction doesn't feel any different from good old fashioned user involvement, public engagement - pick the once-trendy label of your choice.

And perhaps that's because, if you try to codify coproduction and turn it into a tool or a process, you are almost inevitably commodifying it and making it into a "thing" that exists independent of the people involved. And if it is a "thing", then people don't need to change and relationships don't need to change - you just need to chuck this "thing" called coproduction into the mix and, hey presto, you now have something that has some of the hallmarks of coproduction but none of the feel or transformational impact of what I would call coproduction. And we end up with the myth of coproduction because we believe in the wonderful transforming concept of coproduction but however hard we search, it seems always just beyond our grasp.

If coproduction is a relationship, then we need to think about how people relate (and how people-in-systems relate to people-in-a-different-system). And how we relate is largely influenced by status, power, having things in common, a shared purpose, ability to communicate - and whether we like and trust each other enough to be open, honest and transparent in our relationship and determined enough to tackle the differences between our systems that make it difficult for us to work together.

So, huge thank you to KESS (Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship) for funding my research and my fellow student's research because that's how we ended up having the encounter that resulted in this blog.

And if you love the thought of coproduction, check out Shared Spaces and get thinking about how you relate to people rather than what you can do to/with them.