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Life under cover of whiteness30 April 2010
Sometimes you can just have Ocular Albinism where it affects the eyes only. It means: you are photophobic (sensitive to light because there is no pigment in the iris, so light is going straight in without being reflected, and all the light is hitting the retina); you have nystigma too (involuntary eye movements) and; very acute short sightedness that can’t be corrected with lenses. People usually say “why can’t you wear glasses?” The answer is I can’t, because the Ocular element of Albinism has to do with the visual pathways controlling the messages to the brain. I have Oculocutaneous Albinism which affects my hair and skin, as well as my eyes. So in addition to having the visual disorder, I have no pigment in my skin and hair. I was one of 6 children and my parents are from Pakistan. We were brought up in the traditional culture of Pakistani Muslims. My parents are both Albino – that was all to do with arranged marriage; Culturally it was felt it would be better if they were the same. But biologically that wasn’t great for us - because it meant we would all be Albino. It’s a recessive gene and that means both parents have to carry the gene for it to show in the offspring. If both of you have the gene (but aren’t Albino) there’s still a1 in 4 chance that your children will have Albinism, but if you are both Albino and have the same type of Albinism, your children will definitely have some form of Albinism. When I fill in the ethnic monitoring forms I just put White British - The government won’t be pleased with me I expect! Obviously, when I was pregnant I had to put my ethnic origins down as they had to check for conditions – so in that case I put British Asian with Albinism. I’d rather not have to do these forms. I don’t like to be categorized – there’s no box that says British Asian Albino. Who am I? What am I? I’m just me - just Naseem. I would rather the forms just say ‘How would you describe yourself?’ – and let you write your own words. My parents used to say “You’re Pakistani Asian” and we’d say “No, this is where we were born”. It probably doesn’t matter - it’s probably just me. Although, I know my husband doesn’t like it either– “Why’s that relevant?” he asks. Working within social services I do realize it’s about collecting data, but I do feel it’s irrelevant sometimes. I understand we want to respect people’s backgrounds. But I think if people want to volunteer that information to you that’s OK. Usually, how I explain it to clients is that it’s statistics for government and people say “Oh yeah, it’s another thing government want to collect”. In the context of the report Multi-Ethnic Devon, though, I can see now how the statistics are good ammunition against racism - I didn’t know before that it could be statistics with a purpose. Where I live now in Devon I don’t get much discrimination. You still get the odd idiot who wants to show off in front of his friends making comments about Albinism. In the Midlands I got the discrimination form all races - the Asian, the Black community the White community. My brothers and sisters still get it because they live in the same area. It was horrible. At a young age you do have an identity crisis and you want to know where you fit in. Growing up I didn’t know where I fitted. It affects your self-esteem and you have to do a lot of soul searching. As you get older and have more positive experiences you begin to find yourself. Being both Asian and Albino it was harder. My Dad came to the UK when he was very young and my Mum came later for the arranged marriage to him, so, my siblings and I are British-born Asian. I was brought up in the Midlands. I’d say Dad’s probably glad to be here in this country as the climate’s a lot better for his skin and eyes; as an Albino you have to wear factor 50 plus when it’s summer because you have no melamine so no protection against the UV rays. Having Albinism, he’s also got more access to opportunities in this country than in Pakistan: He’s had a chance for education that he probably wouldn’t have had; There’s support finding jobs; Disability benefit if you are struggling. My Dad’s views are completely different to mine. He was very much of an old school of thought in the traditional Muslim culture. I was born in 1979. I had the mixture of two cultures from going to school and from being in a multicultural society. It was hard growing up with Albinism because you were seen as different and didn’t fit into the Asian community. White people thought you were a bit freaky - wearing the headscarf and full clothing and being white, so you’d get racism and discrimination from both cultures being Albino. It was tough growing up. People didn’t know much about Albinism then. I’ve been estranged from my parents for 12 years; I didn’t want to have an arranged marriage – I left home when I was 18. I knew what was expected of me by my family by a certain time – marrying a cousin or someone who had been chosen for me. But I just wanted to make something come alive - I didn’t want to be married to someone I didn’t love or who didn’t love me. My parents used to say to us “Who’s going to marry our children? - They’re Albino!” It felt like they were belittling us and devaluing us because of our Albinism. It felt like they were going to marry me off with someone from Pakistan who would feel that that I owed him a favour for marrying me. I didn’t like my parents’ attitudes towards us. It was hard to digest. I still feel it was the right decision to go. It’s been tough. It was something I thought about for a long time before leaving. I don’t have any regrets, apart form losing my family. I had to feel comfortable in my own skin. I have a double colour disadvantage. It makes me see everyone can be racist. There’s racism in every culture. Asians can be racist against whites or black. Racism is not accepting other culture’s differences. Having two cultures – Albino and Asian I can step out of that and see racism everywhere; But its an individual thing - people don’t have to be racist. It’s just a minority that can make such a big impact. Racism can isolate you and it creates barriers. Including the protective barriers you place where you don’t want to mix in with other cultures - because of fear of racism. Because of a small minority you feel like tarnishing everyone with the same brush. The impact on me was that I had to leave that environment. I had to leave home and go off and find myself. I was looking for a community where that abuse wouldn’t be that intense – just the rare occasion with that silly person. But that means I don’t have the support of my siblings round me, so you have to sacrifice some things. I didn’t know where to move to. I just went into a refuge for people fleeing crisis in life. Looking back now it all felt just like madness. When you’re 18 you think you know it all. As you get older you learn, and you toughen up, and realize it doesn’t have to be as bad as it was when you were a child. But at the time I didn’t have any where to go, so I went into a refuge to get the right support – to get re-located and re-housed. Before coming to Devon I first moved to Yorkshire where I met my husband, and he suggested moving down south because he had connections here from his time at the south west rehabilitation centre as he’s visually impaired too. So I thought, we’ve got nothing to lose. It’s been the best 8 years of my life – I did my training, got my job, got married, and now we have a baby. Devon is very accepting. I feel comfortable being me; People don’t know I’m Asian unless I divulge it, although obviously I have an unusual name. I don’t have other minority ethnic friends in Devon – I don’t feel the need, as I didn’t really fit into my culture at home. And when I left home I didn’t feel I could mix with the Asian community because I’m always worried my family will catch up with me. You hear horrible things like parents will want to kill children who have left. It used to be a frightening feeling. Now as I get older I think, if they do anything to me they’re going to get themselves into trouble. 5 or 6 years ago I would have been too scared of the consequences to do an interview like this. But that fear has gone. I have lines of communication with my family, but they don’t know where I live. I think the percentage of Black and Minority Ethnic people in Devon was about 1 or 2 % at the last census. In working with disability I’ve only had 2 or 3 Asian clients in about 5 years. You don’t see very many Black people. I think it’s getting more. When we first came down here there were hardly any at all. I guess the fastest growing group is migrants (Europeans). I’m not surprised to hear it’s mixed heritage families too. I can understand that - my son is dual heritage. Colour shouldn’t matter, but it does. In everyday life it matters because of the way people are treated. Services need to keep mindful of what the person’s saying they need. The trick is to be person-centered and person-led in your approach rather than colour and culture led. There will always be racism of some sort whether against colour or migration. We have to work on accepting each other’s differences. Service providers really have to focus on being person centered in order not to discriminate in the way they provide services. I do have quite a few friends with albinism, but not here. Just like any other friends, we have a connection – we’re the same. Whilst 1 in 70 people carry the Albino gene, in most populations only 1 in 40,000 people have Oculocutaneous Albinism. I don’t have any Albino friends in Devon – they’re scattered around the country. We met at the Royal National College for visually impaired people. Before that, all I knew were my immediate family and my visual support teacher. It was great to meet other people whom you have this instant connection to. We are a minority. I went to a recent Albinism conference and it was great to see other people with Albinism. All our lives we’ve been told were different. To see other people like me – it’s nice. The conference talked about parenting with Albinism, the genetic side and the visual side. There were lots of new parents with Albino children gathering info about the prospects for their children; Technology helps – especially for studying and you now have the same chances as other children because of IT learning support. You learn to touch type because writing is difficult. Technology gives you the same opportunities and prospects as sighted people. Like if you are totally blind you can get a screen reader that reads your emails and orders your shopping online and helps you maintain your independence. You don’t have to rely on other people any more. I have an Albino friend who dyes her hair and gets a fake tan. She does it to fit in with the western community and because she likes it. I tint my eyelashes so you can see my features a bit more – so that I don’t just look like a blur. We all do things to make ourselves feel better. I have tried tanning sprays and it looks awful when it comes out streaky. I just have to love the skin I’m in, because it’s hard work to fit into other people’s perceptions of how to look. Just be yourself.
Thanks to Kim Normanton of Loftus Productions for putting Naseem in touch with Open Hearts Open Minds following the radio production Too White to be Black.
Complex community problems in your manor? - Simples!30 April 2010 Neighbourhoods experiencing long term Big businesses, engineers, mechanics, logisticians, doctors all have to deal with the question because of two key issues: systems and relationships. Anything that has an interactive relationship with something else is part of a system. Communities are a system in which the flows and blockages are determined by relationships. In business and science, mathematical models are used to understand how complex relational systems work and adapt to inputs. Out of this, has emerged Complexity Theory, and its lessons have been transferred into the study of social science.
Any community can be viewed as a complex adaptive system of interacting residents, service providers and organizations. This complexity is compounded for disadvantaged communities who typically suffer from serious levels of anti-social behaviour and social isolation. Often deeply stigmatized, both residents and service providers are often overwhelmed and ‘locked in’ to a negative construct of the neighbourhood in which they live and work. This results in a stalemate scenario in which neither side has a sense that lasting change is possible. Families in that environment are affected by layers of interconnected problems, living often chaotic lives with few social networks. Living below the breadline and struggling to present a normal face to the world, the everyday tasks of getting the kids to school, putting meals on plates and having a social life become enormous. But if you take a microscope view of a dysfunctional community, it’s usually the behaviour of a tiny minority, around1%, that pushes the rest of the community over the tipping point of coping. They’ll have a whole range of agencies working with them, for them and to them, but quite often these agencies don’t connect with each other - that makes for a complex problem. You need several ingredients in place to set up this context for change: Trust; respect;ability to listen and ‘out of the box’ locations and techniques for residents to connect with agencies on a new relational footing. In applying Complexity Theory there can be no hierarchy – everyone works as partners. Ultimately, in Falmouth, that meant agencies had to devolve power over resources and action planning to the local community. But it never starts with big money (in Falmouth the first bit of action took off with £35.50 from a community raffle), it starts with something far more valuable – a good quality conversation. To kick start the dialogue, you need to locate where there is energy for change. Given a desperate estate, where do you start? I start by finding out who in the community really wants/ needs change to happen and who is really hungry for it in the agencies. These people are brought together as a core group - who will dare to believe change could happen, and who have the potential skills to engage their peers We do a neighbourhood walk with residents people trust and know, and ask people what it’s really like to live round here – statistics alone don’t reveal the lived experience. The next step is a daylong workshop for a wider group of service providers and key residents, bringing together two types of evidence: The dialogue begins to work because the people having the conversation are in the same room, listening to each other eyeball to eyeball. It reveals for all concerned something so simple and so obvious; Agencies want a better working environment and the residents want a better living environment. In complexity parlance this is known as ‘interdependence’. This sometimes comes as a bit of a shock, but this is where true partnership working begins! Consultation is so often poorly done – usually with questionnaires - and there are so many basic skills lacking in service providers today: listening; understanding the power of a community to bring about change; and how to support that to become long-term. The ‘listening event’ is different to your run of the mill public meeting. It’s fun! With sponsored raffles, things for children to do, and participatory techniques; Everyone sits at tables with cake and squash – approx 6 residents at each table with 2 service providers - and we get the service providers to listen and record people’s issues and priorities on sticky note pads, then build up a picture on a wall and check out what they have learned. We ALWAYS start with what they love about their neighbourhood. (This whole process is based on ‘appreciative enquiry’ and is about building on strengths not focusing on weaknesses). The issues are themed during a coffee break and after the break residents use sticky dots to prioritize and identify what needs tackling first. The whole set-up changes the power dynamics. The people are being served and listened to by agencies. The next step is that all this valuable data is compiled as a report and used to frame an action plan for delivery. A follow up event happens within 7-10 days for attendees to discuss next steps for setting up a constituted, community led partnership to deliver on neighbourhood priorities. People bang on endlessly about building capacity. This is about releasing community capacity. Even in the worst community ever, there is always capacity already there. It’s a matter of tapping into the inner strength that people have used to survive on these hard estates. How do you create those conditions that release the capacity? By changing the power dynamics so that the local people start taking the decisions. You know you are on the right track when you start to see the community self-organising - without that, the changes won’t last. Unless the community takes the bull by the horns and the lead on doing it for themselves – forget it. It’s about communities becoming self managing but supported by service providers. We know this process is transferable as our track record proves: In Camborne following the setting up of a young peoples’ community dance team (the TR14ers) it’s been going on for 6 years; in Redruth via the Redruth North Partnership 8 years; and in Falmouth via Beacon Community Regeneration Partnership 12 years. Some go for charitable funding (donors always respond favourably to projects that are community led), and public agencies grant varying amounts depending on their sense of shared participation in the transformation. Ironically, some communities almost get penalized for doing things for themselves – as in Redruth; They’ve achieved amazing things, but they are still working out of a portacabin. They deserve public funding, as they all have massively cut down anti-social behaviour and crime, achieved higher levels of educational attainment and health indicators have improved. The cost-benefit of the impact of listening and releasing capacity is staggering. Four years after the process started in Falmouth, the overall crime rate had dropped by 50%. Affordable central heating and external cladding had been installed in over 60% of the properties which significantly impacted on childhood asthma rates and schooldays lost. Child Protection Registrations had dropped by 42%. Post-natal depression was down by 70%. Breast feeding rates increased by 30%. Educational attainment of 10-11 year old boys – i.e., level 4, key stage 2 – was up by 100%. The number of unwanted teenage pregnancies had been significantly reduced to the extent that in 2002 there were no unwanted teenage pregnancies. And the unemployment rate was down 71% amongst both males and females. The costs of a community hub-space and of a community co-ordinator are a drop in the ocean compared to what the costs would be if the community remained unchanged. Taking a new learning set to see where change has already happened adds to building up the momentum in the system to a point where it’s unstoppable: The Connecting Communities (C2) programme from the Health Complexities Group provides visits between communities who have used the Complexity Theory model and it’s been hugely powerful in accelerating the process and the learning. The whole community/system gets positively infected with the change process. This is achieved by co-learning on a regular basis – through partnership meetings monthly, fed by doorstep conversations and agreed communication lines with groups of residents. The meetings of the Partnership constituted after the workshop are always community led – meetings are cancelled if more agency members than community members turn up. It’s business like – but ‘yes’ there’s cake and tea. The focus is always on the question “What can we do better?” At the meetings the agenda begins with feedback from the residents and from education, police, local government and health. Any problem can be addressed if you have all 5 of these. People bring their ideas and decide which resources to draw in. The meetings are pacey – and over in 1 ½ hours. You cut out layers of bureaucracy by talking direct. Agencies attend every meeting because they end up getting stuff done quicker. A smaller executive committee meets in-between meetings and a monthly newsletter helps maintain accountability to the community at large. As time goes on there is a proliferation of resident led associations across the wider community, and the Chairs of these go to the main Partnership meeting creating more lines of feedback and stimulating more action. System wise it’s called loop gain. There’s a myth that it takes 10 years to change a community, but C2 can bring about rapid transformative change. Take the example of Townstal in Dartmouth – the perception was that it was an apathetic, yet highly dysfunctional estate – but in 6 months it’s got a new £93K play park, NHS dentist, legal surgery, citizenship classes in school, bingo, disco and other social activities. They call themselves “TCP (Townstal Community Partnership) makes it better”. It’s been a great example of self organization by residents willingly supported by local service providers. The neighbourhood partnership at the hub of all this is no nebulous talking shop – it transforms individual lives. The 20 or 30 community leaders who always emerge via the process, bring real individual cases of need to the table – and with all the agency resources there, there’s always something that can be done, and the effects are deep. Take two examples:- How could anyone reading this article start using complexity theory in their work? By learning the C2 approach. Once you can map out and identify critical relationships in a community, set up face-to face story-telling and listening, and level out the power-sharing, you can start small incremental injections of change which ultimately make big transformations. Seeing first hand how the approach works, with someone who has experienced being a part of it is really helpful. The C2programme offers training to groups who commission it. If practitioners in Devon are interested to explore how they could collectively commission training for themselves, talk to me and each other now at the Open Hearts Open Minds’ Simples! Forum. Websites for reference
Hand any raging-red bulls through your door lately?30 April 2010
It’s all about an ‘everyboy’ – a composite of real stories about young people who have got into trouble amidst the pressures of today’s alco-pop, fast-food stuffed and energy-drink fuelled world. The beauty of this interactive DVD, is that the brakes can be slammed on at critical points in Jake’s story and, alongside the accompanying handbook, his behaviour and lifestyle patterns can be challenged, examined and transformed by the young people who identify with him. It’s a powerful, engaging method for the young people watching to unlock the secrets of Emotional Literacy and use it to change their lives. Children from all walks of life can get tied up in offending behaviour. They are typically caught up in complex challenges in their lives; Symptoms of inability to deal with what they face include use of alcohol and drugs, involvement in anti-social behaviour, truanting and exclusion from school. Many of the young people under Youth Offending Team supervision have already committed an offence. Some are working voluntarily with the Prevention Team having been referred from other agencies including schools, Police and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Children living in socially and economically deprived areas – whether rural or urban – who live with complex family tensions are especially likely to need support to become resilient enough to rise above the issues that are enmeshed in the family and community dynamics around them; If these dynamics are so entrenched that they have become ‘normalized’, adults in the family can fail to acknowledge the significance of the pressures influencing their children’s behaviour. It’s not until an interactive method like forum theatre, or Jake’s Story is used, that adults and young people – whatever their social background - are drawn to exploring openly the truth of the issues that face them like family structure, attitude to education, levels of self-esteem, life-style habits, role modeling behaviour……. So it’s not just the young who can learn from this resource: Anyone watching this film will notice that Jake’s hot-headed reactions resonate with experiences of frustration from youth, when age came before wisdom. Some of us will also wonder if the emotional responses that became knee-jerk in our formative years are still hi-jacking us now, or the adults we work with; If you are interested in dealing with difficult clients or workplace dynamics, there’s likely to be parallels of learning to draw from Jake’s story. So perhaps for all of us, and principally for its intended audience (parents, teachers, psychologists and anyone dealing with a young person who shoots from the hip) Jake’s story provides a clear framework for equipping a person to understand and take charge of mental and physiological reactions - when “stuff” happens. The story works because young people automatically find elements of Jake’s character to identify with, and empathize when life piles in on him: Jake’s in Year 11 (fifteen and raging hormones). He has an incendiary relationship with his stepfather, fuelled by mutual misunderstanding and mistrust. Frustrated with the injustice of it, Jake takes it out on the world, with aggressive behaviour and truanting. He’s been excluded from school. He’s convinced a local bully has stolen his mobile phone. After storming away from another blow up at home, he accuses the boy he suspects, a fight kicks off, and Jake is arrested for Actual Bodily Harm. So, how would you help Jake? And with that question a journey of discovery begins. By slowing the story down, and analyzing it stage by stage, the young person discovers how the body and brain work together to create a chain reaction towards disaster - unless these two are both understood and the young person has developed and learned to enjoy the skills of emotional regulation. By working interactively with the tool, the young person learns: simple principles of brain function and fight-flight physiology; how to recognize signals from the body, and step back from them to take perspective on the situation; how different behaviour choices feel; why the body reacts to different food and drink and other lifestyle stimuli; and how to check situations out and make the choices that get you the outcome you need. By playing the story through, identifying with Jake and altering his choices and outcomes, the young person has the chance to take on the learning as felt experience, and embed it in the psyche. The theory behind the tool is available at several levels: Just working through the resource with a child, as a parent, will provide a whole new look at how your child works. For practitioners who already have a grounding in educational and behavioural psychology, there’s a lot of information in the back of the handbook about the theoretical base. The heart of the resource is rooted in two key areas: Goldstein’s threefold theory of emotional regulation, moral reasoning and social skills, and Daniel Goleman’s 5 areas of emotional literacy – namely self-awareness, empathy, self-regulation, motivation, and social skills. (For references to these see ‘Further Information’ below). The team also enlisted the contribution of the local Community Dietician to develop awareness of the impact of lifestyle and nutrition on reducing the likelihood of aggressive behavior. Planning, consultation and the need to engage parents and carers - as well as specialists - in a young person’s rehabilitation were central to the Emotional Literacy pilot programme. With issues of family being pivotal in a young person’s view of the world, something was needed to attract the young people and those around them to want to become competent in interacting with each other successfully. The animated, interactive resource using today’s technology, and a story that was already proven to have impact, was created to capture clients’ imagination, and to support practitioners who feel less confident to use other experiential tools that require drama, movement or arts capabilities or adaptability to learning styles. The evolution of the resource is a good news story in itself: Jake’s Story had already been developed by local Youth Offending Team consultant Kay Octigan and used with great effect by colleagues in the Team and by their Educational Psychologist Amanda Tyler. Firstly, using Faupel’s Emotional Literacy Checklist, it had been deployed as an assessment tool, to check out the young person’s level of understanding of factors underpinning anger and aggression, before planning intervention. The young people opened up in response to the story so much, it became an intervention tool in itself. Amanda and the Team reported that after using the tool the indications were, that the resource could significantly reduce high school exclusion rates for children struggling with emotional regulation. The practitioners felt they had found a strong framework with which to approach the problem and help young people develop positive emotional literacy skills. So Henrietta Ireland (Co-manager Exeter, East and Mid Devon Youth Offending Team) commissioned a short course on using the story. At the same time, she met Helen Mason - director of Animation Therapy – who was doing some sessional work in Exeter. Henrietta spotted an opportunity to make something good even better and brought down funding to develop the tool as an animated, interactive resource. (Jake’s story in its DVD/handbook used part of funding for a wider project by the Team to create a website for arts-based practitioners to use in interactive work on youth justice.) Creative approaches are often bottom of the list of funders’ priorities (although Inspectorates seem to love the benefits they bring), but the Team hope that wider use of Jake’s story will raise the value attached to bringing story- and visual-based techniques to bear on youth offending rates. To draw in additional support when needed, and for monitoring impact of the work with a child, it’s important for practitioners to review the cases in which the technique is used with their practice supervisors/ head teachers/ line managers. Practitioners who want to use Jake’s Story DVD are being asked by the team to use a benchmarking and evaluation tool by Adrian Faupel to capture clients’ and families’ perspectives in the process through rehabilitation, and as part of the next rigorous stage of evidencing the tool’s impact. They are also urged to remain sensitive to where there might be indications of underlying mental health problems which would need the additional intervention of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. If you’ve noticed the red mist come down – whether over a client, colleague, a child or even yourself, take a look at Jake’s story and see how it is relevant to the situation and could be used, or adapted for the work you do. As Goleman demonstrates, Emotional Literacy is a better predictor of social outcomes in terms of employment and social engagement than intelligence quotients. So how might it benefit the people you work with?
To find out about accessing the Faupel assessment tool contact Henrietta Henrietta.Ireland@devon.gov.uk or the publishers at http://shop.gl-assessment.co.uk/home.php?cat=413 For information about the website for arts based practitioners currently under development at http://www.dbservice.org.uk/artsinyotsw/ also contact Henrietta. Goldstein’s Aggression Replacement Training - A Comprehensive Intervention for Aggressive Youth. Arnold P Goldstein et al ISBN0-87822-379-7 Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence is published by Bloomsbury ISBN 0-7475-2830-6
Go now to our Library Page!29 January 2010
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Meet Naseem - and you’ve met someone unusual; An Asian woman living with Albinism, her story (in which she flees to Devon seeking safety under cover of whiteness) puts prejudice under scrutiny through the lenses of colour, culture, disability, identity and belonging. Like a photo and its negative, her life-story is an opportunity to look at prejudice through different eyes and to see it again through your own with renewed vividness.
Fortunately, it’s ‘simples’ says Hazel Stuteley when it comes to applying the essence of Complexity Theory to entrenched community problems. Hazel can explain it all; She’s a local community development heroine, having been catalytic in transforming the prospects of the Beacon and Old Hill Estate in Falmouth in the 90s. Once one of the most deprived areas in Britain, and known by locals as ‘Beirut’, the estate was blighted by violent crime, drug dealing and intimidation. The process Hazel initiated within the community stands as one of the most extraordinary examples of neighbourhood regeneration in the whole of the UK. A Health Visitor at the time, she applied instinctive people-skills to the troubles faced by the locals and soon found her input was having a multiplier effect – transforming the dynamics of the community. She didn’t fully understand why, even when she was awarded an OBE ‘for services to the community of Falmouth’, spotted by government and made an advisor, until she attended a lecture on Complexity Theory given by a professor from the London School of Economics and had what she calls “a big A-ha moment”. At that point it all started clicking into place, and Hazel became a founder member of the Health Complexity Group at the Peninsula Medical School based in the University of Exeter. Whilst quick to point out she is not a complexity purist, in this article, Hazel reveals how she has found the basic application of Complexity Theory’s principles enormously helpful as a framework for achieving self-organisation and transformational change in a neighbourhood :-
The ‘system’ is characterized by a big mesh of activity but little outcome. However this ‘system’ is adaptive and is capable of change. Complexity Theory taught me that a new order will emerge following the ‘co-creation of a receptive context for transformational change’. Apologies if that sounds like jargon but I quickly learnt to interpret complexity language! In practical terms it means working with residents to create the enabling conditions necessary for them to lead change for themselves. This was what I’d done with the Beacon Project so when I heard economists talking about how doing this had transformed large organizations across the world e.g. Smith, Glaxo Kline, Rolls Royce, it was like a mirror had been held up to my work in Falmouth. That was the ‘A-ha’ moment.
Did you write this about me?? That’s the reaction from young people watching the new animated tool called ‘Jake’s Story’ just out now from Devon’s Youth Offending Team. 
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