Social Care Changemakers - Community-Led Reform Stories

Something I've noted about the 'social care reform' debate is that 'reform' is framed as something 'done to' the 'social care sector', and yet when I think about the people and organisations that come together under the banner of #SocialCareFuture what I see are social reformers: changemakers not waiting to be led, but leaders seeking to be backed and for barriers in their way to be removed. This morning I went out for a quick stroll around Bermondsey in South East London where I live, and passed the deeply moving statue 'Dr Salters Daydream' on the banks of the Thames. The Salters were a tour de force, not just in this part of London but London as a whole in the early 20th Century, with a public health mission which saw free healthcare brought to Bermondsey years before the NHS, slum clearance, campaigns against air polution and 'beautification' through the planting of trees and designation of parks (hence Ada's spade) all of which characterise Southwark and wider London today. Ada was a social worker at Bermondsey Settlement. So committed were they to the people of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe that they lived among them, and what the statue sadly commemorates is the loss of their daughter, Joyce, who died aged 8 from Scarlet Fever that swept through the slums. In 1922 Alfred was elected as MP for Bermondsey, representing Labour, while Ada in the same year became the first woman mayor in London and the first Labour woman mayor in Britain. I know for a fact there are social reformers across our country today not waiting for government to act when it comes to care, support and wellbeing, and who are creating future possibilities in the present, or 'planting trees under in whose shade they know they might never sit' as Ada did. We don't do enough to tell those stories, and #SocialCareFuture wants to change that so that the debate about the future of adult social care is animated by brilliant stuff that is happening. So we're about to get back to our roots - our early days were very much about spotlighting the good stuff - and will be collating and sharing these over the coming months online and via events, gatherings and meetings. If you've got something you think the world would benefit from hearing and learning about, which can animate the future of social care, drop me a line, and we can talk about how best to capture it.