At the risk of being a "Blog Hog", I thought this second post I put on the Australia 2020 Summit participants' website might also be of interest to SIX members:
If you haven't already done so, please try to watch the powerful, confronting documentary film "The Oasis", screened on the ABC last Thursday night. Filmed over a period of two years, it follows the Director of the Oasis youth crisis centre in Darlinghurst, Sydney—Captain Paul Moulds—and his team as they provide basic, life-sustaining support for some of the 22,000 teenagers in Australia who are homeless every night in our wealthy country. In Paul Moulds' words, the job is to "try to stop desperate young people from jumping over the cliff".
It is disturbing and heart-wrenching, but it also leaves a glimmer of hope. Hope that comes from the fact that wonderful people like Paul exist and that they will probably never give up on the people in whom they see so much promise. Hope in the young people themselves—in their resilience, their inner fire. And hope that, for at least some of them, circumstance, their will to survive and the tenacious support of the Captain Paul Moulds of the world might come together—and as a result they might just live the rewarding, fulfilling lives that they and every other Australian deserve and to which they all, ultimately aspire. It can be viewed online at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/oasis/about/watch/watchFilm.htm.
While the film focuses on the important and challenging problems of youth homelessness, the basic messages it leaves apply, in my view, to all of the issues that result in social exclusion. I mentioned in an earlier post that I have lived with a disability most of my life and have spent a lot of my career contributing to the reform process that aims to remove the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating fully in society. As I watched the film I saw so many of the same dynamics in the situations of the young people in the film—and the systems and processes that try to support them but only survive on a shoestring and the goodwill of decent people—that I see so often faced by people with disabilities in our community. And I know that these are also the same issues that indigenous people, economically disadvantaged people, people from non-English-speaking backgrounds and so on all face.
The first of these is the gap between the reality of what's going on on the ground and the decision-making process that decides what needs to be done. As our society has become bigger, more complex and less "personal" the gap between those who are disadvantaged and the issues they face and those who make the decisions about the programs, interventions and the money to be spent on them has widened to the point where, despite the best efforts of those who are in the privileged position to control the nation's resources, they simply can't understand—largely because they are NOT disadvantaged—what living life at the disadvantaged end of the spectrum really means.
The irony here is that, in the end, a "successful" life for someone who is currently excluded would look no different and should be no different to a "successful" life for anybody else. Life is a pathway. To be "successful" in life that pathway needs to be (mostly) smooth. Of course some people can deal with life's challenges reasonably well—but they are usually the ones with a combination of inner resilience, opportunity, resources, strong family and community support and a healthy dose of good luck. With those resources in their "life tool kit" the inevitable potholes in life can usually be overcome fairly easily.
The homeless youth in the film are not on a smooth life pathway. As the film so graphically shows, most have had virtually no opportunity, no resources, no family and community support and no luck. Even those with a healthy dose of inner resilience are so far behind the eight ball that the resilience that they may have started with either manifests as anti-social behaviour or simply gets eroded away. Their fire goes out.
I see it all the time. I have even felt it myself—the frustration, the anger and sometimes the insidious feeling of disempowerment that comes from living in a world that views me and others who are somehow "different" as somehow "lesser"—as second-class citizens. It is not just that these homeless young people don't have a home. It is that we (the "mainstream") haven't understood the complex set of issues that cause homelessness and we haven't created a plan to address all of these issues in unison—to create a smooth life pathway. We just don't understand them and their lives.
We CAN sort all of this out, of course. As I said in my previous post, the business sector in particular sorts out complex problems all the time—but it requires "big picture thinking": thinking that embraces the ENTIRE problem, not just the bits that, like an iceberg, appear above the surface.
The second is the fundamental role that self-esteem and hope play in every individual's life. These are not things that can be just injected into a person and they are certainly not things that are passively received by the individual. I believe one of the greatest builders of self-esteem is an individual's capacity to meet the expectations of our society: of our family and friends and of the community as a whole. A sense of achievement.
This is about rights and responsibilities.
A citizen who is fully included in society has a responsibility—not necessarily formalised and not even necessarily overtly recognised—to contribute to building and sustaining that society. And as they discharge their responsibility they have a right to expect that the society to which they contribute will provide them with the support they need to function effectively in society. On the other hand, society has a right to expect that individuals will take advantage of the combined efforts of its citizens to build a world in which individuals can contribute. It also has a responsibility to ensure that, as it builds that world, every citizen can take advantage of it.
That formula works well for the "average" citizen. Our mums and dads, our next door neighbours, the many others with whom we come into contact expect us to make a contribution and see it as only right that the resources we need to do so are available. We know that if that formula breaks down the "average" citizen wouldn't function well and wouldn't be able to contribute to society.
For the majority of those who are currently excluded from society, their exclusion has resulted in one way or another from an inability to access the massive infrastructure that we call "society"—an infrastructure that we have built by investing inconceivable amounts of money, time and effort. But instead of recognizing that the key reason people are not contributing is that this massive infrastructure hasn't been built with them and their needs in mind and we need to put effort and resource into fixing that, we simply lower our expectations of them. That, to me, is an abdication of one of the most basic responsibilities of society.
The third is about breaking the cycle. That's what Paul and his team try to do. And they succeed... sometimes. They would succeed more often if a) they had the resources to do the job properly and b) they were an integrated part of an overall intervention that connected a range of interventions, tailored to each individual, that created the smooth pathway that most of us take for granted. And one-off intervention—connected or otherwise—is not enough. Many of the social problems we face in our nation require sustained, continuous effort. Investment. Social investment.
Instead of trying to control and micro-manage the one-the-ground interventions that, like Paul's, are proving their worth, our systems and bureaucracies need to be facilitators and coordinators. Creating the linkages needs a helicopter view so let's do that at that level. Allocating resources can only be done by those who control those resources. That's not Paul: he was out on the streets at midnight with a tin trying to raise a few extra dollars that will at best only make a small dent in the financial challenges his organisation faces.
The fourth is about understanding people, understanding the diversity of human nature. The film didn't just show "homeless kids". It showed a huge variety of human beings. We are all different. We have different strengths and weaknesses. We respond differently to different situations—good and bad. While there was a strong commonality in the life situations that most of the kids had faced, in the end their responses to the situations were different.
The simple conclusion here? Our interventions need to build in that human diversity at every level—from inception and construction through to delivery. We need to place the individual at the centre of a set of coordinated interventions and programs. Design the programmes around the people, not the people around the programmes.
I spoke in my earlier post about the things we could learn from the success of the business sector and I'm sure many would argue that this area is probably not one of them (ie, understanding people ... doesn't Business just understand profit???). I would argue the opposite. The marketing function in any successful business is all about understanding that every "customer" sees the "product" differently. Every successful marketing program applies the concept of "market segmentation"—the process of identifying the different groups that make up the overall market, understanding what makes them "tick" and tailoring the message/product/solution to appeal to those different groups. The marketing function understands diversity perhaps better than any other.
The fifth (bear with me, I'm almost there!) is about normalising best practice. I'm sure like many others in this group I have seen countless pilot programs that prove, without any skerrick of a doubt, that there ARE achievable, practical solutions to virtually every social challenge we face. But I can number on one hand those that have gone beyond "proof of concept" to "business as usual" roll out. This makes absolutely no sense.
And the final one is about the economy. One of the key challenges I think we face at the Australia 2020 Summit and beyond is understanding that every one of the 10 streams that the Summit will focus on relates, in the end, to every other. I'm sure the 100 or so of us who will be focused on the Community stream will be able to come up with a range of great, practical solutions to our nation's most pressing social challenges. But they will go nowhere without a strong economy. And we need a secure nation. And an effective governance model. And a healthy society... We need to make those links.
And this is not a one-way thing. It's not just about needing a strong, wealthy economy to fund social programs. It is just as much about the contribution that an investment in social reform—and the increase in the productivity and contribution of all Australian citizens to the overall wealth of our nation that will result from genuine social reform—will make to the overall wealth of our nation. In business terms it's about "cost/benefit". Yes, there is a cost in funding Paul's programs and the many other clever, successful social intervention programs in all areas of disadvantage, all around the nation. But there is also a massive return.
To illustrate the point: If we offered opportunities for just a third of the working age people with disabilities who are currently sitting at home on Disability Support Pensions to access our basic community infrastructure, gain the education and training they need and as a result gain a job—that is 606,000 people—we would have fixed Australia's skills crisis. And we would have saved $3.6 billon annum in welfare payments and added $17 billion to Australia's GDP.
It’s not about cost, it’s about investment. Investment in Australia's future.
