Please note: this post is 117 months old and The Cares Family is no longer operational. This post is shared for information only
How we do what we do matters to us. In his latest blog, our founder Alex runs through our thoughts about how the Cares family is developing, what we're learning, and how we want to improve as we grow.
--
Over the past few weeks I've been thinking and talking a lot about the value of the Cares model. Part of this is my job, of course. My amazing colleagues and I are always working to improve what we do. We want Cares Social Clubs to be the very best they can be -vibrant, valued, visible and varied. And we want the one-to-one relationships we create between neighbours to be even closer, and even more lasting than ever.
But as North London Cares and now South London Cares develop and grow, and as we embed systems and ways of working for the future, we've also been looking carefully at what our values are, why we do what we do, and why the way that we do it matters.
We've come up with a few riffs, which if you've been at one of our talks recently you might just recognise (we've been road testing new bits of language - thanks Beyond Me,NPC, Netherhall House, Campaign to End Loneliness, and many others, for having us).
Specifically:
- London is an amazing place - one of the best parties in the world. But unless you've got a ticket to that party it can be lonely, and isolating. Our work helps expand the party to people who otherwise could feel the world passing them by - by pooling the assets of the local community and economy and helping to create new relationships, shared new opportunity and fun, right on our doorsteps.
- Everybody - younger and older neighbours - can participate in and benefit from Cares family gatherings. It's that shared connection - people feeling they have a stake in others' lives, and that others have a stake in theirs - that helps neighbours feel valued, at home, loved, respected, and at ease in their communities and their lives.
- This is particularly important in a rapidly changing modern world. London can be brutal and anonymous. Globalisation, gentrification, migration, increasing house prices and digitisation have narrowed the collective experience and removed some of the what makes us human - interaction, empathy, play - from everyday living.
- These are big trends beyond our control. They have made urban life anxious for many people, but especially for our older neighbours, many of whom have lived in local Council flats for many decades where their neighbours were their sons, daughters and friends. Today, those neighbours are largely gone - replaced by students and young professionals from all over the world. That's exciting, but in a busy city it can also make people look inwards, rather than beyond their own lives.
- North London Cares and South London Cares aim to bridge the social, cultural and emotional gap between older people (who have often lived in the same place for a lifetime and who feel a vivid connection to their localities, but who increasingly feel that their communities are changing beyond their recognition or understanding) and the young professionals who best represent those rapid changes.
- More than half the older neighbours who are part of the Cares family are over 80. Almost 7 in 10 live alone (twice the national average). 6 in 10 live in Council housing. Meanwhile, most of our volunteers rent properties in the private sector, are employed full time, and live with other young professionals. Our vision is to bring these two worlds together (through Social Clubs, business sessions and one-to-ones), and to expose people to authentic new experiences and personalities on the other side of those urban divides - for the benefit of all.
- Because we believe that social challenges cannot be solved or softened with clinical healthcare interventions (since when did the word "social" come to mean "a service of government"?), our work seeks to match people with people on an authentically human level. We encourage personality over process, and quality of time over qualifications.
- In technical language, clinicians might say our work is a form of primary to early secondary intervention to prevent the need for emergency or state provided support later. We say that our volunteers and our work do not seek to make life liveable - to wash, feed, or help clothe people - but rather that they help make life worth living, through new relationships, new opportunities, new experiences, and time and pause.
A lot of this thinking has been encouraged by our friends at Renaisi and Nesta, who are supporting North London Cares and South London Cares to evaluate our processes and codify our operations and spirit for the future.
And of course we're interested in your feedback, as supporters and volunteers. Thiswouldn't be a community network if it weren't for your time, your passion, and your ideas. So please get in touch with us and help inform the next phase of the Cares family's development by emailing [email protected]. As always, we love hearing from you, and hope to see you soon.
Legacy
