Reclaiming The Radical

At 13, I was a self-proclaimed ‘indie kid’, often to be found in the playground with a guitar and a book of poetry, spouting soundbites from philosophers that I didn’t fully understand. It felt important and it enabled me to belong to a ‘tribe’, while at the same time I could convince myself that I was unique. Looking back I can see that it was all a normal part of growing up, asserting my own identity, and finding like-minded people. It was also completely harmless.

Today as an educationalist, a parent, and a so-called ‘grown-up’, I keep my eyes open with a mix of nostalgia and curiosity for all the new tribes who will follow in the footsteps of the indie kids, townies, goths, crusties, and sk8ers that went before them, But I’m not sure that such tribes really exist anymore.

With the dawn of the social media age, the internet has broken apart the concept of ‘subculture’ so that everyone can simultaneously belong to every tribe and no tribe. Borders and boundaries are tumbling and the idea of identifying yourself in terms of a single music or fashion counterculture has become more mainstream than the mainstream itself. Everything seems to be a mash-up, and in that environment sometimes a clear message can appear especially seductive.

But my nostalgia for my own youth is increasingly tinged with something else: a worry that some young people today might not know how to belong to something anymore, or, indeed know where to belong. Whereas youth-focused subcultures used to put safe, local boundaries around teenagers’ natural need to rebel, the very essence of ‘belonging’ to something has changed in a world of 24-hour mobility, globalisation, and social networking. After all, why join a club when you can contact the entire world?

Today, if young people feel ‘other’, dispossessed, or different to the people around them, then the Web can offer an altogether different type of lifeline, one that takes them away from their immediate worlds, or connects them with radically different ones. Online platforms, gaming communities, fan groups, and more, may open up new avenues of friendship, sometimes with strangers in other parts of the world who appear to share common interests and passions.

Of course, that can be a wonderful thing, and vulnerable young people may discover a world of support and understanding rather than harm. But many internet safety specialists tell us that that the dispersed and amorphous nature of online communities can sometimes be used to hide very different agendas. Some experts warn that children are increasingly at risk of being lured towards extreme ideas and ideological kinships.

So how worried should we really be about some young people’s frustrations or anger being turned into something that is genuinely destructive to either themselves or to the people around them?

The ‘radicalisation’ of disaffected young people often occurs when the immediate mainstream feels alien to them, while a community elsewhere – with its promise of thousands of like-minded people – appears to offer easy answers to big questions. The construction of fundamentalist politics and beliefs sits much more easily at the centre of that perfect storm of private disaffection and external allure than it does in any other scenario.

It’s important to emphasise that all political viewpoints, faiths, and belief systems have their extreme proponents, and in today’s world of fast news and easy social shares, it’s easy to mistake the extreme as representing the centre or the majority. Sometimes young people make that mistake too.

Radicalisation, then, is not the preserve of any one political or religious movement, or of any one belief system or community. But the more conservatively fundamentalist that any viewpoint is, ironically the bigger the change from the status quo it offers, or demands. No wonder that children and young people (and within that, we know that BAME and looked after children even more so) are often at the greatest risk from any such message, especially if it is one of hatred of the people around them. 

To say that the fear and prevention of radicalisation is a political hot potato at the moment is an understatement, particularly for anyone whose job is to teach and care for young people. It’s a stark reality that in a very small, but serious, number of cases, the lure of various ideologies has resulted in people uprooting themselves to follow the promise of a different life, in some cases fighting for causes that value the brutal subjugation of dissent. Nobody pretends that our own society is perfect, but some teenagers’ disaffection makes it easier for others to attach a hate-filled or violent viewpoint to young people’s commonplace desire for change.

The Home Office and Ofsted are particularly keen to roll out the Prevent Agenda, a set of safeguarding duties that legally oblige education and youth support services to look out for and report any signs that suggest an individual in their care may be being ‘radicalised’.

In Sussex, where I live, there are some particular areas of concern with small networks of young people turning openly to hateful and righteous messages online. Social networks are an unparalleled tool for spreading a message quickly, but once it is out there is no taking it back – a lesson that many teenagers are still learning the hard way.

Safeguarding has, and always will be, paramount to those teaching children and young people, but this environment is certainly presenting some new challenges. Some education providers – mainly FE colleges and independent training providers – have already had their inspection grades reduced because their internal Prevent Agenda strategy has been underdeveloped.

But the government’s new approach to monitoring and intervention is coupled with another obligation on teachers, and that is to embed the concept of ‘British values’ into their school curriculum. According to the Department for Education, these values are: democracy; the rule of law; individual liberty and mutual respect; and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

It’s understandable, therefore, that some teachers, social workers and parents are finding areas of confusion or potential conflict between these two sets of obligations. For example: at what point does monitoring students’ extracurricular behaviour and beliefs, as the Prevent Agenda implies, encroach on their individual liberty, which the teaching of British values is designed to protect?

Other questions that teachers find themselves asking include: when is a radical belief no longer tolerated? How is that expressed, and by whom? Is the concept of ‘radical’ in itself always a bad thing? And what makes certain – presumably more moderate – values uniquely ‘British’ – rather than, say, European, Asian, African, or American?

Many teachers and assessors are uneasy with the implications of viewing ethical conduct in national, rather than simply ‘human’, terms. For one thing, many long-established ‘British’ values are missing from the government’s own list – what about fairness, for example? And for another, there is a clear inference that someone born elsewhere, including in Europe or the US, will have a completely different set of values. On the whole, they probably won’t. And there’s another consideration too: the internet is global.

I’m in no way trying to make or score any political points here, but these prescriptions do leave themselves open to question – especially when there are penalties involved for not getting it ‘right’.

Most teachers and parents, when thinking about the safety of children, are beginning to understand that the internet is a place like any other. While virtual places may feel more abstract, they are still places where people meet and engage, where behaviours have consequences, and where the urge to explore is compelling, even if the risks are great.

We now understand all too well that vulnerable people can be groomed and influenced without ever meeting the perpetrator. We also understand that values and ethics and codes of conduct are as much in play as in the real world, but can also appear looser and less clear, and be skewed by the anonymity of participants.

So I suggest that what we have here is a real opportunity. What this all boils down to is that young people’s disaffection and/or alienation always has the potential of leading to destructive and hate-fuelled ideas, thoughts, and actions. Yet, crucially, it always has the potential for the exact opposite, too. As communities, we need to look for the tipping point at which frustration can become a drive to build and change for the better, rather than to forge a need to destroy.

What we have come to call ‘radicalisation’ is seen by those who entice young people towards hate-filled behaviours as a means to an end; it is not the end itself. And it’s worth remembering something equally important: the connotations of extreme hate and barbarism attached to the word ‘radical’ are a recent phenomenon.

We should all work to ensure that ‘radical’ never becomes permanently associated with negative, vicious, hate-filled, or violent behaviour. Every dictionary definition of radical speaks of ‘change’, ‘thoroughness’, ‘innovation’, and ‘action’, and there are countless positive examples of this online. Lots of ‘radical’ thinkers have changed the world for the better, after all.

For example, every day we see social media being used to gather signatures on petitions; to raise money for charities, disadvantaged people, and emergency or disaster relief; to call public figures to account, and to co-ordinate rallies or support new ideas, inventions, campaigns, and ventures. This is radical. These too are ‘radicalised’ moments – and ‘radicalised’ people are playing a part in these moments – and the internet now plays the most crucial part of all in connecting people and reaching out to others.

As responsible adults, our duty is to do more than shield, monitor, and prevent vulnerable children from discovering the dark places. We should also encourage and persuade them to ‘think big’ about what the future could look like. As a society we need to be having conversations with our children and our students about what hatred, fear, difference, and extreme behaviours feel like, look like, and sound like. Disenfranchised? Feeling left out? OK. So what can we do together to change that and make things better for everyone?

As I touched on earlier, I get excited about the idea of human values, and the role such discussions could have in getting children and young people to talk about subjects such as ideology, globalisation, identity, duty, and social action.

After all, the internet rarely respects sovereign borders – unless censorship is involved, as in China – so perhaps there should be a set of taught/discussed human values that remind us of the faces and the hands behind the machines. We can hang onto great ideas such as mutual respect and tolerance, but perhaps add the value that shared spaces should always be used for the common good – and that innovation, generosity, and goodwill should be rewarded.

When we’re picking apart the internet with our children and examining the connections that they’re making, we could do worse than to hang the conversation on concepts such as peace, truth, right conduct, love, and non-violence. But what do these actually mean, beyond the clichés and sentimentalism? Imagine, with the world now so close to us and new ideas so readily available, how genuinely radical (in the true sense) we could all be.

Whenever I work with young people – some whom may be very vulnerable through circumstance or poverty of opportunity – I always get them to stop and think about who they are: who they actually are and want to be.

Human beings – even the more solitary ones among us – are relational people, in that most of us construct images of ourselves in relation to what we think other people’s perceptions of us might be. For example, others consider me to be creative, talkative, and pretty ropey at DIY – I know this because different people tell me so – but does this mean that it’s true? It might not be, but those perceptions have become part of my identity and have helped form my behaviours. Online, our identities are more fluid, but still just as constructed and controlled. The most significant difference is that, as hard as it might be, we can switch it off! This is especially important when the images of themselves that some vulnerable young people get from the internet are negative, thanks to cyber-bullying and other problems related to self-esteem.

The children and young people who are at the highest risk of radicalisation are those looking for confirmation of who they are and what their consequential behaviours must be (possibly because adult influence has not been effective at providing that guidance). As the safest influencers in their lives, it’s our responsibility to get there first and to find a way to help them work this out. Let us be the ones to make our children into radical thinkers in the most tolerant, constructive, and innovative sense. Positive internet communities can help us do that.

Let’s reclaim the real meaning of radical: being innovative and thorough, and taking positive action, not reinforcing hate and violence. Let’s treasure and celebrate teenage fashion and musical tribes as a means of self-expression, because the alternatives can be devastating. Let’s keep talking about our values and our behaviours and what unites us, in both our physical and online spaces.

The biggest tool we have against malicious, nihilistic radicals – wherever they may be in the world – is our human capacity to be bigger, more positive, and more inclusive radicals than they are.

Interested in joining our Human Values Project? - click here

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Richard Freeman the Director of always possible.

We support education providers, creative organisations, values-led business and charities with project development, organisational cultures, policy, leadership & resilience. Please visit alwayspossible.co.uk to see how we can support you.

This article was originally commissioned for Child Internet Safety magazine and was skillfully edited by Chris Middleton.

Money Is Dead. Long Live Money.

always possible is a founding member of Goodmoney CIC, an ambitious social enterprise based in Brighton & Hove. Its main focus is on the reinvention of resilient local finance that does not rely on the conventional banking system. There will be many ways that it does this, with plans for a mutual credit system powered by independent businesses and charities, as well as a time bank that enables local individuals to exchange more of their time, skills, goods and services through a new concept of currency.

I first heard about the plans around 3 years ago, when one of the directors and I were having a conversation about apprenticeships, but it is truly remarkable to now be attending the launch of Goodmoney gift vouchers - as I was delighted to do last week. The gift voucher scheme currently involves 143 independent Brighton & Hove businesses, and is rising every day. 

They work in the same way as any other gift voucher, but with two substantial benefits: 

1. all of the businesses are independent SMEs or micro-businesses who would never otherwise be part of a multi-option gift voucher (a £5billion economy that shuts out everyone but the biggest retailers). Anyone given a voucher can spend it with a glorious range of places - coffee shops, art studios, bike repair shops, wedding DJs, cafes, printing companies, ice cream parlours, life coaches, IT support, watersports equipment hire, brewers etc etc.

2. statistically, 5% of all gift vouchers do not get redeemed - in the UK, that's around £250million per year that is counted as pure profit by big retailers. Any unspent Goodmoney vouchers will be used to fund community projects, education and health initiatives - making the impact of the vouchers infinitely more than the cash paid for them.

People can spend vouchers with my company on coaching or training in skills such as pitching ideas, writing funding applications, networking, facilitating a workshop, putting on an event, leadership and management skills or designing a project for young people (and much more). We can provide ‘critical friendship’ for people wanting to test ideas or products. 

The launch event was great fun, with many of the supporting businesses chipping in to keep costs down and entertainment high (free curry, craft beer and gramophone DJs). Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas is one of the board members overseeing the development of this scheme, and she came along to give a few words and award prizes to the children who had designed the gift cards in which the vouchers are presented - despite her party conference due to start in Bournemouth just a few hours later.

I am also working with the company on their education strategy, regularly meeting one of the directors, maths lecturer and teacher Dr Mick Taylor, on how we can use the values of the initiative to help school teachers reframe lessons on financial literacy. I am particularly interested in looking at the social impact of money and how that powers attitudes of children and young people - around their own confidence in using maths to manage every day monetary transactions, but also the consequences that social transactions like borrowing, lending, stealing, saving, spending have on an individual's concept of self worth. 

There are some complicated messages about money, debt, deficit, welfare and capital being put in and around children all the time at the moment - and I believe these might be a route in to giving practical application and context to mathematical problems so that some of the basics start to make sense.

The very small team have set themselves an extraordinary target of selling £100k of vouchers by Christmas, and £1m by 2020. If they do, they could well have something really exciting on their hands.

Sparks Flying About

I attended the first Spark Festival of Ideas in Brighton last year, when it was more of an idea itself, collecting a ragbag of digital and media industry entrepreneurs, educators and academics to decide whether such an event - where discussion>planning>doing is the key - had any use or value in shaping a new approach to creative learning.

What is quite remarkable, is how many pie-in-the-sky ideas generated at the 2014 gathering became transformational, tangible projects. The clearest example of which is the Maker Space on Brighton's London Rd, which is now a key part of the city's STEM learning offer and has seen 600 children through its doors making robots, using 3D printers, hacking computers and designing new games.

So, I was delighted to be invited back this year - especially as I have now gone independent and would not be representing any particular school, college or creative enterprise. 

The thought, care and attention to detail given to this event was palpable - as was the seamless mixing of 'grown-up' ideas workshops in the centre of the main hall at Brighton's Clarendon Centre, whilst 30 or so 6-16 year olds hacked, soldered, built, deconstructed and coded their hearts out at workstations around the edge of the space. 

The event is convened by Maker Club and Long Run Works, with some funding this year from the Arts Council, Brighton Digital Festival and City & Guilds. Volunteers told people where they needed to go and a bank of professional facilitators had been brought in to add some objectivity to the working groups - ensuring that local politics or delegate agendas didn't sway the discussion outcomes too much. It worked well.

The event is still in its genesis period, but the evolution of its intent and reach is quite exciting. 

The 60 or so delegates were trying to solve the following problems:

1. How do we inspire a new generation of inventors?

2. How do employers and educators join the dots?

3. How do we teach making a difference before making a margin?

4. Should we be creating ‘gender neutral’ industry cultures rather than campaigning to get more women into certain industries?

5. How do we make peace between nature and technology?

Were all the right people in the room? Of course not. But as the festival grows, it will become of more interest to young people, mainstream (head)teachers and funders/influencers - all of whom were under-represented.

And if concrete solutions were not found to each of the questions, some bloody good ideas were - one of which (for a targeted series of events that fund some facilitated time between schools/colleges and STEM businesses) will now be given £5k in research & development funding. A pretty hefty irony of the day was that, for a day of innovation centred around digital thinking, there were a ludicrous number of post-it notes in play.

I, personally, made some new and very interesting connections - with the Director of the Starr Trust and the Brighton Digital Festival Chair among others - with whom I can already see ideas for collaboration.

My wish is, in all honesty, that we can move on from a lot of these questions within the next couple of years, because they have been the same ever since I have been in this game. But something is changing, and it is not just the public and voluntary sector project workers grinding their teeth in a bid to make a difference - with often limited resources and available expertise, but the small businesses are coming forward. Small businesses with flexibility, without reliance on government funding, approaching the problem from a different angle. No single sector has a hope of answering these questions on its own - let alone do anything about it - but the cumulative and collaborative 'do-ing' and 'trying' is actually starting to shift the outcome. It does feel like the opportunity to make tangible change has just been given a new dimension - I don't know if thats just down here, or if it is just because some particular sorts of people are in the right place at the right time, but it certainly feels like this is a time to seize change.

And if I ever wake up in the middle of the night wondering what the hell I've done, and whether my ambitions to work across creative, education, small enterprise and community projects is too broad and undefined - I need to remind myself about events like this. I actually think it is vital for me to work with as many people who want to make a difference as possible, to bridge the sectors, to suggest unusual partnerships. I felt great when I left the Spark Festival - because something important is happening, and I have a small part to play in it.

Me, pitching an idea with Darren Abrahams from The Starr Trust

Projects

Pretty hectic here at always possible towers over the last few weeks, so less time to write anything. Will get back on it.

The company has now been registered with Companies House for just over a month, moving it from a frenzy* of freelancers into a more structured legal entity.

*I am confident this is the correct collective noun.

In the past few weeks, some wonderful connections have been made and new ideas taking shape. 

I have been working closely to develop the Talent Match youth enterprise programme delivery with Dv8 Sussex and Prince's Trust - including leading an intensive day workshop on coaching skills for some leading creative entrepreneurs from across Sussex.

We continue to support The Original Theatre Company on their 5 year strategic plan, audience connections and fundraising. Their current show, Flare Path, has just launched its UK tour so do try and catch if it is coming near you. I went to see it in Eastbourne, but ended up drinking too long with the cast and missed my last train home. I recommend that you don't do that.

I have been dallying with the Digital Catapult Centre, looking at how the dots are being joined up in the world of tech and digital in Brighton - finding more about the ways in which data analysis is meeting creative design. Some interesting collaborations between the universities, LEPs and tech industry on the horizon, but still early days. A big 'digital exchange' site has been built at the bottom of Brighton's New England House so that the media companies can benefit from cheap and fast broadband without having to rely on the usual channels. At a networking event, I met and talked mentoring with a software engineer from American Express.

I went along to my first Atoms Collide event this week, an informal round-table ideas exchange, which was friendly and welcoming. I made a faux pas by giving out my business card (it is not a networking event), but still explored other people's interesting projects - which included solving a famous Icelandic crime mystery through writing and photography and hosting a series of events in October with people whose job is to make others terrified (think horror film effects artists etc).

As well as organisational consultancy, the main thrust of my company is project development, and brokering relationships between people, ideas and positive outcomes. Some key partnerships are being created to make the ideal become the pragmatic and to share skillsets and experience. will formalise this slightly more on the website, but here is a list of current always possible projects, either quite far developed or very early stages:

• A leadership development programme for emerging executives in the FE & skills sector - focused on values-led leadership, emotional intelligence and organisational cultures.

Partner: Youthforce

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• A creative financial literacy project, initially aimed at KS4 students with low maths attainment. Exploring the 'value' and projection of money, and how we use can truly understand the concepts of debt, credit and interest as mathematical ideas - but all social and personal ones.

Partner: Goodmoney

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• A youth social action project, developing a Cultural Manifesto with young people living in rural areas in order to influence local authority and LEP decisions on cultural and investment in creative opportunity and skills.

Partner: Culture Shift

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• A long-form mentoring project for 16-29 year olds in key areas of socio-economic disadvantage in Sussex and Surrey + a re-thinking of employability development through regular innovative Job Clubs for young people facing long-term unemployment.

Partners: Dv8 Sussex, The Girls' Network, A Band of Brothers, Catch 22, Youthforce

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• An enterprise coaching programme for unemployed 18-24 year olds in Bexhill, Hastings & Eastbourne who want to explore self-employment or a business start-up idea.

Partners: Dv8 Sussex, The Prince's Trust, Tomorrow's People

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• A digital resource pilot, developing models of blended learning of digital/classroom engagement with vocational skills tutors across Sussex.

Partners: Sussex Council of Training Providers, Sussex Learning Network

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• A theatre crowd-funding and audience development project to take a piece of experimental new writing on a major regional UK tour in late 2016. 

Partner: The Original Theatre Company 

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• A resilience skills project for 14-19 year olds in coastal West Sussex towns, incorporating sea (surfing), forest (woodland skills) and sky (creating supersized tall outdoor sculpture). 

Partner: TBC

If you're interested to find out more, or have funding for a project and need some assistance getting it off the ground, please give us a call

It Is Always Possible To…What?

I have started a business for people who want to make a difference.
I have called it always possible. But what the hell does that mean? What does it do?

When offering a service rather than a tangible ‘thing’ - an item for sale - the first challenge for any start-up is to define what lies at the core. What makes you interesting? What is your ‘why?’.

As Simon Sinek says, ‘people don’t buy what you do, but why you do it’.

With everyday that I work on the idea of always possible, it becomes clearer. Here is my pitch to you:

Why?

It is always possible to be brilliant. 

If you run an organisation that seeks to make the world better, or to challenge the things that don’t work - then I believe you can do it brilliantly.

I believe that if you’ve got the heart, soul and brain, you can make it work.

Whether you run a school, a government department, a tiny social enterprise, a youth club, a dance company, a research charity, a coffee morning, a synagogue or an after-school karate class - your provision has the possibility of changing the world, one positive experience at a time.

I believe that you need three things to be brilliant.

- The right people

- A clear purpose

- The right resources

It’s obvious? Think about an organisation you love working with or buying from, one that is thriving - what is it you love about it?

The organisations that don’t thrive, that either never get off the ground, or grow rapidly too big, or get so distracted that the floor collapses, will be missing one the three ingredients. I promise you.

No organisation is quite the same as an other, because each one has different people, a slightly different purpose, and different resources - but that is one of the most exciting things there is. But no organization is the first to try, fail and try again.

One of the hardest things to do, and believe me I know, is to step back and ask yourself the following questions:

- Does everyone in this organisation share the same values?

- Can someone we have never met explain why we exist?

- If 50% of our income streams vanished tomorrow, could we still thrive?

If you answer these questions honestly and you get three yesses, you can achieve everything you have set out to achieve. And much more.

If there is a no or two, then you’re with the majority. The thing is, though, you have just realised that something probably needs to change - which makes true brilliance only a short distance away.

What?

This is a long-winded sales pitch, you’re thinking - if you’ve got this far. Maybe. But the ‘why’ is fundamental, and I believe it is always possible to be brilliant. I wanted to set that context.

We all need a bit of help to be brilliant, and we are only brilliant because of our behaviours and the connections we build.

I’ve been around the block, for about 15 years so far. I’ve worked for/with some truly brilliant organisations, and I have worked with ones that have collapsed. I have supported charities, local authorities, training providers, schools, theatre companies, artists, social enterprises and more - I have made mistakes and prevented mistakes.

But my learning has led me to a point where I can use my knowledge and intuition quickly to create an environment for change.

I have met some amazing people on the way, and they are joining me for this journey, as associates, advisers and partners. If you book me, you might get them too, and they are worth their weight in gold.

We can help you, as friendly human beings who will *get* your business. We know you’re not like everyone else.

- The right people

We can help you develop your staff teams - whether it is helping clarify your vision and values or more formal training and CPD. 

We can support your leaders, with coaching or strategy planning - and we can help you hire the right people, or restructure existing teams for increased productivity and internal wellbeing.

We can help you to evaluate and self-assess your impact, and the impact of your team members. You need a culture that drives forward, gets things done - with a team that looks after each other and plays its best hand everyday. Sometimes a pair of outside eyes helps get to the heart of any barriers much quicker.

- A clear purpose

We can help you re-discover your ‘why’ - internally and externally. We can work with you around leadership thinking, and the creativity of being different to everyone else. We’re big, bold, creative people - but we have a keen eye for detail and for an opportunity.

We can link you up with local business networks, strategic influencers and bigger picture connections. With our help, you can distill your message so that everyone knows why you do what you do. We can improve your digital presence, the consistency of your communication and your presentation skills.

We have been designing successful education and creative projects across the south east and London since 1999. We can use what we know to ensure your good idea works in practice.

- The right resources

Our associates have raised and managed over £10million of public grants and contracts, philanthropic giving and commercial sales over the last decade.

We can help you write that winning bid, put together that killer pitch and make the most of your assets. Do you know what funding is available to you? We probably do.

We know how to hire the right staff, and to keep them. We can audit your health & safety practices and ensure that your policies are fit-for-purpose and keep your staff and service users safe.

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If you like our approach, and you think that a bit of targeted support could help take your organisation to the next level - we’d love to hear from you. It all starts with a free no-fuss, no-obligation consultation to see if we can add value to your company.

Thank you for reading. Please share and ask questions. Have a lovely week.

Rich Freeman

web: www.alwayspossible.co.uk

email: ideas@alwayspossible.co.uk

tweet: @always_possible

call: 07877 307883

Kids Company: Everybody Loses

Kids Company is closing, with about 24 hours’ notice for staff and its service users.

The children and young people attached to Kids Company projects, many of whom have profound barriers to thriving independently in mainstream society, are being given the following psychological messages:

a) This security blanket that represents something familiar to you is now gone. The staff you have learnt to trust are now not insured to keep seeing you.

b) The company that you have come to be familiar with and understand, is now being publicly called-out as a failure. Everything that stands, can quickly fall.

These are overwhelming signals to be giving any child or young adult, regardless of additional anxieties they may have. The suddenness of the charity’s closure and Camila Batmanghelidjh’s statement that the government have essentially sanctioned the ‘abandoning’ of thousands of its beneficiaries is of enormous concern to anyone working in education, youth services, social care or health. Actually, it should be of concern to everyone.

Photo: ITV

Photo: The Independent

Personal and professional hubris, and the politics of politics, seem to have created the worst possible outcome for this charity and its dependents. I use the word dependents deliberately, to include staff and volunteers, but also pointedly as there has been much criticism over the years about the Kids Company method of care, the darkest of which has pointed to bullying, abuse and the perpetuating of need - with some suggesting that there are instances of the charity needing needy young people, more than they actually need it.

For context and clarity - I have no vested interest in criticising or supporting Kids Company, other than that my own work has been supporting vulnerable young people for over a decade, so I am aware of the needs and challenges out there. I also have no evidence of specific allegations or incidents made against the organisation beyond what has been published in the press over the past few weeks. I do, however, have friends and colleagues who have vociferously undermined the Kids Company image to me in the past, warning not to touch them with a barge-pole. Lots of style, not much substance.

It probably doesn’t really need saying, but the genesis of Kids Company is from a good place and it was a small organisation frustrated by ineffective and/or under-resourced social care teams that sought to make a difference. The charity should never have needed to exist in the first place, but there was a gap and it got pro-active in trying to fill it. Whilst the numbers they claim to have helped are much in doubt, a child-centred environment that offers  sanctuary and nurture for those in most need is valuable even it only supports a handful of people.

But it has failed - and by saying so, I am now one of those voices joining the confusing and frightening messages for the service users who are now left to struggle with something new. Yet, it is absolutely essential that we recognise failure when it happens. Failure is not absolute; it is not the end point, it is the process by which things get better.

Kids Company seems to have got bloated and arrogant. Former senior staff complained about the organisational culture, led by Batmanghelidjh’s force of personality, rather than her acute business sense and strategic vision. Not all good leaders need to be expert finance managers, but good leaders sure as hell need to bring on board people who are - and listen to them especially when they tell you things you don’t want to hear.

Batmanghelidjh has the brand, the interesting and affable face of compassion and safeguarding. She speaks with ease and comfortably on Question Time and in front of large crowds. She stands out in a room, she gives off an entrepreneurial spirit - this is fundamental when winning favour and freedoms from Prime Ministers and civil servants. She is clearly colourful in every way. Politicians look good by being associated with this energy. 

But if you’re not delivering, it is meaningless. I don’t mean that Kids Company didn’t deliver individual care to individual young people - of course they did, and they almost certainly improved thousands of lives. But they didn’t deliver on the nuts and bolts of structure. Ideas are lost if you’ve got nothing to pin them to. Kids Company needed the charismatic resource investigator to go and win Coldplay’s £8m donation - but then it needed an extremely good Managing Director or CEO making that money last, and making that money provide the most effective service it can. Possibly the one thing worse than them not providing the service at all, is inflating the service so that it collapses when it is needed most. Everybody stands to lose except for expensive liquidators - skilled staff, vulnerable children, tax-payers, company creditors, the reputation of charitable causes.

Batmanghelidjh has stated on the website that her single mistake was not to raise more money. If she truly believes this then she becomes a poor example for other leaders in the voluntary sector. I hope, with time, she becomes more reflective about bigger leadership issues- as should we all when looking at how our businesses are run. Her intentions have been noble, her method has been caught short.

If you Google 'Kids Company' and select the images tab, you see Camila Batmanghelidjh in over 40% of the photos - many of which are of just her, or even her office. I can't think of one single other charity, claiming to intensively support 36,000 people each year, that would focus that much PR on its CEO, no matter how charismatic. 

The leadership got flattered by its own presentation here, and the Cabinet got lazy when seeking their press-friendly partners. If failure like this is going to happen, then it needs to fail properly. And by that, I mean it should never happen again.

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Richard Freeman is Director and Lead Consultant at always possible.

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