Partnership part 2 : Time to reclaim our radical edge.
(This was the second of a series of three articles, all published in Community Living Magazine - year 2000- trying to introduce partnership theory to learning difficulty services.)
Sometime after midnight, one arm around my deputy, at the end of thoroughly inspiring PASS workshop, I said with tears in my eyes, that we are going to change the world.
We didn't.
We shut down the old institutions and built our community services. The surroundings changed, but sadly , it's business as usual. As Bradley points out , the "social and psychological milieu" that people now live in, is still no better than the old "remote, segregated institutions" that the people came from ! (Bradley V 1996 Foreword, cited in Mansell J & Ericsson K (eds) Deinstitutionalization and community living: intellectual disability services in Britain, Scandinavia, and the USA Chapman & Hall p. xi)
No wonder that an ex - student on the Stockport degree course says in the last issue of Community Living, that "I'd rather be skint and look at myself in the mirror in the morning than be thinking I'd sold my soul" - by working in our services.
For what has changed ?
In the institution folk lived under the authority of the charge nurse and nursing staff. In their own home down the street they now live under the authority of the team manager and support staff.
People's lives are still planned by "professionals".
Professionals hold all the power, call all the shots.
That is no way to live.
That is not what we set out to bring about.
The problem is that all the models we use : normalisation inspired like social role valorisation and the 5 accomplishments; values-based like gentle teaching or the ordinary housing model itself , although part of a long tradition of human liberation, still flow from within the same system - the system which oppressed the people in the first place.
This system - we call it the Dominator System in partnership language, simply takes all your radical energy then absorbs, tames and domesticates it. Sucks your commitment dry. Markets it, breeds consultants , university-based "experts" and a cocktail circuit of conferences.
So that at the end of the day it's somehow all about cost-cutting and you find yourself, the liberator, forced into being :
a gatekeeper of limited resources
an agent of control, through legal and policy restrictions
a defender of the organisation through your career structures.
http://www.uq.net.au/~zzqai/PUBS/9812F.htm
As the old song goes : "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss !" ( The Who : Won't Get Fooled Again )
What we haven't yet done is work to change the system itself. This is where partnership theory comes in. Raine Eisler is probably the world's leading developer of partnership. She writes :
"Today, as never before in human history, the world stands at a crossroads. On the one side is the well-trodden path of violence and domination -- of man over women, man over man, parent over child, race over race, nation over nation, and man over nature. This is the road leading to a world of totalitarian controls and nuclear or ecological disaster.
On the other side lies a very different path: the road to a world where our basic civil, political, and economic rights - including protection from domination and violence will be respected, and our natural environment will be protected from man's fabled conquest of nature. This is the road that could take us to a new era of human partnership and peace.
http://www.partnershipway.org/humanrights.html
Partnership, then, represents an alternative to the old dominator system that we know and love. And it seems to be breaking out all over :
Consider this :
Partnership is being heavily advocated - as a "duty" no less, by this government . They do not mince words when they attack Health and Social Services for their "poor organisation, poor practice, poor use of taxpayer' s money" - and urge them to find a new way to work together. (Partnership in Action : New Opportunities for Joint Working between Health and Social Services 1998).
The British Medical Association have recently decided (May 10 2000) to "work in partnership with our colleagues in health care and with our patients."
Australia is already leading the way in partnership education. For a glimpse of the future , check out this web-site : "In many ways the students in this program are pioneers of a new profession, one which sees them work in partnership with people with disabilities rather than one which gives them the power and authority to make decisions about others' lives. "
http://www.swin.edu.au/aare/97pap/BUTCJ274.htm
Quite simply, in the face of rapid and complex global change, the dominator system is breaking down and a fantastic shift in thinking is called for. The "Third Way" increasingly dominates politics, especially in Europe. Instinctively partnership-orientated, it is challenging established ways of doing things and causing considerable turmoil in its striving for a new consensus. As Josef Joffe puts it : 'the 21st century game cannot be played by 19th century rules." (Time : June 12 2000 p. 36) .
We shall be looking more closely at partnership theory and
its practical implications, especially for service development
in the next article, but for now just consider how important all
this is for us .
For years we have been going on about normalisation in a world
which spoke a different language.
Take for example that passage above : "the well-trodden path of violence and domination" that Eisler talks about - how long has that been around ?
For the entire history of Western civilisation that's when - ever since man discovered war. Since then, the dominator system - - driven by the values of domination and conquest, has flourished.
Male-dominated - women in this country still earn on average 42% less than men (Social Inequalities May 2000); authoritarian; secretive; closed; top-down ; the dominator system does not value the family, it does not value the vulnerable, the ill. It does not value the work that you and I do - caring.
The money markets rule and profit is the bottom line.
We take it for granted that is how things are.
They don't have to be.
" On the other side lies a very different path"..
The path of partnership.
And with partnership, there is a new language emerging. A language much more in tune with what we have been advocating for years , yet with tremendous transformative power. In Fig 2, for example, I have shown how partnership transforms our understanding of the Five Accomplishments.
The challenge is nothing less than this : can you and I, for the first time in the history of Western Civilisation, begin the move from a dominator to a partnership society ?
It is time to reclaim our radical edge, for in the work that we do, we are well placed to occupy a place on the leading edge of this fledgling movement.
Partnership- much much more than "social role valorisation", is what we are about and we have a wealth of experience already under our belts.
But don't expect anything to be the same anymore. Hold onto your hats ! Be prepared to be challenged as you have never been challenged before.
For example, just stand back and for a moment ponder what might happen if your service decided to take all this on board :
It might act in the most surprising way :
We have decided to stand in true partnership with people who have a learning difficulty.
It might think the "unthinkable" :
We are going to radically question any part of ourselves that corresponds to the dominator system.
It might get the shock of its life :
We cannot exist anymore.
In Part 3 we sketch out how partnership might look in practice.