Stop putting me at the centre!

Stop “putting people at the centre”!

 

I know you mean well, but can you please just stop it!

 

Everywhere I look, public services (especially health and social care) want to “put you at the centre” and “give you a voice”. It's part of the “new relationships” between users and providers of public services.

 

Well, there are two ways to be at the centre. You can be the spider controlling the web. Or you can be the object that the rest of the kids in the playground are circled around.

 

I lack the power to be at the centre of a social care web, pulling strings, making things happen. Would I want that kind of relationship with the social care workforce? Possibly, but that’s based on a history of not trusting public services and, while I understand my control-freak tendencies, I’m not proud of them. I need to learn to trust - but first I need evidence that it is safe and responsible to start trusting.

 

And I cringe at the idea of being the kid in the centre of the playground circle. Even if the kids who’ve put in the centre are benign, even if they are helpful, even if they have no intention of misusing their power – they are clearly on the outside staring at me, objectifying me, evaluating me, sizing me up.  

 

As far as I can tell, the playground circle is what is happening in social care. Those on the outside (the social care workforce) retain the power of controlling on what terms I can work with them. And they treat me as something qualitatively different from them for all the talk of partnership. As we meet in the roles of 'user' and 'provider', we become 'Other' to each other. Because, yes, I am guilty of treating social care workers as 'them', just as they are guilty of treating me as 'Other'.

The imagery of "putting people at the centre" just reinforces the fundamental inequality and Othering that Wales is trying to escape.

 

I certainly don’t think this is what the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act is supposed to be doing. But from what I read of briefings for the social care workforce, I fear the “putting people at the centre” approach is becoming engrained. In many ways I AM at the centre. I am the centre of my own life. No-one can put me there. I just am there. But when I need to relate with other people and work with other people, the imagery of being in the centre loses its power.

 

So PLEASE stop talking about putting me at the centre.  Maybe talk about you and I standing shoulder to shoulder. There’s a sense of equality and respect in being shoulder-to-shoulder.