Asset based approaches – I have to be honest, I’ve never been completely sure what this means in the context of neighbourhoods and people living in those neighbourhoods. I guess my skepticism around the use of the words asset-based approaches comes from my first and short-lived career working in a bank.
One of the things we were taught at the bank was that part of our role was about how we could increase the profitability of our bank. How we managed, squeezed, manipulated, twisted and sliced the assets that we did and didn’t control, was a key part of the banks profitability – and our asset based approach.
Now, I’m sure that the majority of us involved in social care and health aren’t thinking about how much we can squeeze out of a neighbourhood when we’re talking about asset-based approaches. However, I’m also wondering at the same time if unconsciously, that’s what we’re trying to do. Yes, social care and health services are under pressure, and subsequently, anything that the neighbourhood can do to reduce or alleviate that pressure has to be a good thing?
So what is the difference between a bank’s approach to assets and social care and health’s approach? Is a neighbourhood an asset? Are the people in that neighbourhood the assets? Is it about how we can identify an asset, like a local volunteer home-sitting service for people with a learning disability and push more and more of our paid services into that model without us having to invest in that service? Is it about holding down real-term incomes of people working in social care and health and getting people to do a lot more for less? Squeezing those neighbourhood and people assets as tightly as we can in the hope that they won’t go off sick or say no, we can’t do any more.
That isn’t to say that taking an asset-based approach Is the wrong thing to do. It is saying that we have to think carefully about why we are taking it.
Just over 14 years ago, I asked two colleagues to look at all of the research that had been done in relation to community development over the previous 30 years. The results of their voyage of discovery were published under the title, “Only a Foot Step Away.” For those of you who remember the TV show Neighbours, you’ll know what we were talking about!
And I think that’s still very much the key to how we work in partnership with people and the neighbourhoods they are a part of. Great neighbourhood focused support is only a footstep away, and often most of it goes on unspoken about, unheard of and unacknowledged. It might be the neighbour that takes your dog for a walk when you are not feeling well, it might be the local neighbourhood shop that knows which of its customers it needs to go and check up on if they haven’t seen them for two or three days. These are the people assets and neighbourhood assets that help us to make sure everyone in the neighbourhood is getting good access to being part of their community. Thus reducing the pressure on formal social care and health support without slicing, dicing, twisting and manipulating people and their neighbourhoods.
So what did we do with the report ‘Only a Foot Step Away’ next? Well that’s the subject of future blogs. One of the things that came out of that is the picture on the first page of this website. Developed by Pen Mendonca, the picture shows the incredible range of knowledge, skills and expertise that you will find amongst the people who live in a neighbourhood or community that really is…. Only a Footstep Away.
Jim Thomas
October 2024
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