Leicester to Northampton via Market Harborough
The rain had stopped and the clothes mostly dried out as we prepared to leave Leicester. The gradients had also flattened and this was to be a days riding along long straight paths with some unexpectedly challlenging off roading across fields of ripening wheat and down paths that were probably not intended for cyclicsts. So what exactly do you call an old railway line that is now being used as a cycle path? Surely there should be some sort of collective name for them. We have ridden a lot of them - railway cuttings (describes past use only) - ex railway cuttings (describes past but doesn't tell us about current) - sustrans routes (true but too general - doesn't tell us about the history) - cycleways (true but miisses the details about the ex railway use) All of these labels miss out the luxuriant trees on either side and the quality of the surface and the details of the bikes that are being used and the nature of the group travelling the route and why they are travelling. So all of these terms tell us something but not key things about the experience of the riding we are having and so it is with the use of labels in the care of vulnerable children and young people and adults where lots of labels are being used these days to describe behaviour and to group children and adults together ASD ADHD ODD Depression BPD All of these labels take us a small step towards defining something but they miss out on a lot of key detail that can be very important. Most importantly they can be very misleading. Diagnosis often implies to the general public that an individual has 'got' a 'thing'. However this is not what diagnosis is. Diagnosis simply describes a cluster of symptoms like 'ex railway route'. If we are going to get better at Caring for the Common Good we need to be able to understand and accept complexity and resist the temptation to simplify down to labels. So remember when you hear a label there may be a lot of key information missing.
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Derby to Leicester via Loughborough
Today it rained - a lot - with a lot of wind - and so we set off in rain gear and travelled by Route 6 cycle way but we arrived in Loughborough VERY soggy. We ate a lovely lunch with Loughborough Friends with the room strewn around with drying raincoats and wet puddles gathered under our chairs as shoes and socks continued to drain out. After lunch there was a bit of a break in the rain and most of us were starting to feel much drier until about 40 mins before the end of the ride where we received a deluge! It was good to arrive in Leicester - very familiar places for me as this is where I grew up and lots of familiar friendly faces. The building itself is full of memories for me of things that have happened there at different stages of my life - the art room where we did lots of creative things for many years. The library where we used to meet for Family meetings and the main meeting room where so much had happened - weddings - including my own - dancing - plays - celebrations of the life of Friends who had died and the wonderful garden. In one room I found a picture painted by a member of the meeting Anne Gregson. It showed the garden and two elderly Friends Gwen and Vera sitting on a corner bench under the trees. These two woman - now long died - were - amongst others - such key characters in my experience of the Meeting. I did not know them well but they were a part of this very welcoming steady 'attachment community'. They were part of the continuity that I went away from and came back to over and over even after I had long moved on from Leicester as my regular home. Having such stability and continuity somewhere is an enormous help as one steps out into the world and I see the fragmentation of this continuity as one of the key contributors to the difficulties faced by many vulnerable children and adults. Stability enables the process of thinking back and thinking forward. It helps the organising of self in space as the predictability creates order and pattern. Thinking back and thinking forwards is a developmental skill that many of our most challenging children and adults have not yet comfortably acquired. When faced with apparently illogical destructive behaviour it can be difficult to appreciate that a child or adult has not been able to consider the potential consequences of their actions. However if you do not yet have a sense of self in time and space such thinking is remarkably difficult. So one of the features of a caring community - one that can care for its members and for the strangers that arrive or pass through - is the ability to create stability and continuity through the repetition of daily familiar actions - such foundations create a solid platform on which other actions become possible. Stability and continuity are to be preciously valued contributors to well-being and so to create a community that can Care for All they need to be part of what we want to create as we think forward. Bakewell to Derby
What a beautiful day's cycling - wonderful canal paths, lanes and railway cuttings. Our morning meeting was very quiet - there is a lovely coming together of the group of riders with the local support - this time of Bakewell Quakers - Friends that we have never met any may never meet again yet they have organised themselves to support us? How is that some human beings want to care for those who they have never met? Usually it seems to depend on their ability to recognise that there is something that we hold in common and their ability to feel that they can share what they have without losing out. The sharing of food seems to form a natural way of both giving and receiving and of letting each other know that we come in peace - that we do not intend to hurt or harm. Many of the meetings that we are visiting are involved in the Sanctuary Movement assisting refugees who are arriving in the country after long and difficult journeys. Sanctuary offers the kindness of strangers who want to show what they have with those who have struggled with so much. However there is a definite sense that we are moving into worlds that feel more challenged. Friends in Bakewell had shared an article about a man who had travelled to the UK from Afghanistan only to find it so difficult that he had chosen voluntarily to leave. Here in Derby the meeting clearly feels surrounded by an environment that feels more hostile and more vulnerable to intruders and we were cautioned to be careful out and about in town and invited to keep windows and doors locked It begs the question, if human beings can show such care and kindness, what is happening - when human beings start to be dangerous to each other? What needs have not been met? Sheffield to Bakewell
Today was pitched as a gentle day - just 20 miles but we are in the middle of a heat wave and so the temperatures remain high long into the evening when we generally expect cooler times. However there is something very wonderful about zipping up and down hills with such views all around - it feels a tremendous privilege and opportunity to see the country at a different pace and from a different perspective. Robert our intrepid 79 year old who managed the hills comfortably along with our four teens is not with us today but we have Judith and Anne and Perry in their 70's. This evening we were invited to share the reasons for the ride with Quakers from Bakewell and they in turn shared some stories of the people they were supporting in local foodbanks. One elderly Quaker shared that a woman in the foodbank had been brought to tears to learn that someone had picked up the concern for people like herself. Another, an asylum seeker who had had no money at all for over 12 weeks was too frightened to put his name on the card. Another a lady caring for her disabled husband had spoken of his having had his benefits cut and that they now had just £2 in the bank even though she was working as a care support assistant herself. She had no idea how the billls would be paid The cards are increasing and we are thinking together about how to make sure these often invisible stories are best shared as we go forward. It is interesting to me that one key human need that must be addressed to feel a sense of wellbeing is that of contributing to the care of others. Contributing to the care of others is a need but being successful at caring for others is also a skill set. It involves many small details - notably that of understanding what others might like and enjoy, that of being able to problem solve in groups to make things happen and to overcome obstacles. These are all skills that many of our most vulnerable children fail to acquire - because the need to be cared for first is overlooked - yet when these needs are overlooked, they also become those adults who are most challenging and expensive to care for. Huddersfield to Sheffield with an early stop off in Wooldale.
We are being greeted with wonderful spreads in each place and any ideas that we had of perhaps losing weight on this ride to London are being quickly dispelled in the face of such welcomes and generosity. We are also seeing buildings that have been carefully cared for in order to preserve spaces that groups can come together to wait and reflect and consider what actions are needed or are possible Wooldale was a small historic meeting perched on top of a hill. Sheffield is a thriving modern meeting with a bustling sense of activity. In each meeting there are conversations - exchanges with people we have never met about their concerns and our own. Everywhere we go we are hearing people speak about the growth in food banks in their areas and the cuts to charities that were doing good work to serve vulnerable people. We are gathering stories on postcards and carrying these with us carefully as these are the stories of people who often struggle to get heard. Today, I spoke with a woman I had never met and she spoke of a charity that had been supporting several people with severe mental illness in her area. it had just had to close due to lack of funds. There is a truth to the fact that when communities need to work together they can work together. In the face of such frequent stories that seem to represent such backward steps, the challenge is to not succumb to feeling overwhelmed and to believing that nothing can be done or that someone else should be doing it. The challenge seems to involve finding small steps, some positive way of engaging with others on actions that seem important. And all of that determination to take action depends on individuals (children who become adults) having a sense of feeling empowered, having had enough experiences that their efforts lead to results that matter, or that in the face of set backs they can bounce back. We have two main groups of riders at the moment - the not so slow and the not so fast. The not so slow group include our 4 teens and the electric bike owners and the not so fast group includes the group who prefer to walk some of the hills!
We all get there in the end in hare and tortoises fashion Today we were travelling from Keighley via Bradford Cycling City - we were greeted with a wonderful curry and took a little time to wander around the enormous historic buildings of the Bradford City Centre We were greeted by journalists and even completed a radio interview for their community radio station. City riding is quite a challenge and demands a lot more concentration individually and as a group. There is so much to take in and lots of decisions to make fast. Each small group has a leader who is responsible for navigating and a back stop to make sure no one gets left behind. We are slowly learning the discipline of the group but when we get exit from roads to cycle ways we all breathe a sigh of relief. We eventually discovered Huddersfield meeting - and it was good to rest a little. Huddersfield Meeting is in a large building that had once housed a large adult-education project at the top of the hill. We were joined there by the local cycling group that reaches out to many people with disabilities in the area including those with visual impairments using tandems. I have been thinking about Andy's sharing in meeting yesterday - he spoke of having seen a road called MEWITH or ME-WITH. It is apparent to me as a psychologist this sense of self and this sense of community is something that actively needs nurture and something that we should not take for granted. But I think we are taking the emergence of this sense of care for community for granted and I think we are underestimating the impact of exclusion of individuals on the longer term outcomes for communities. I am concerned at what I see happening in schools - developmental thinking has progressively been squeezed out as schools are over assessed on their abilities to deliver the top academic results for some rather than on results for all ranges of ability. The result is a very top down culture that leads to quiet exclusion of those who are most in need of really skilled teaching. So in order to be able to 'care for all', I think we need to examine some basic premises around the purposes of our education system. What skills and attitudes will our children really most need to be able to experience long term well-being? A great deal of research indicates that mental health and wellbeing depends upon having some really basic needs met: physical safety but also safety in relationships. So care for all in my view is not just an economic issue - it must involve attention to relationships at home, relationships at school, relationships at work and in the community. Communities that have space for hares and for tortoises with a commitment to everyone 'getting there' in the end. To avoid the traffic we are cycling cross country by many small by ways - lanes, canals, disused railway tracks.
The views are beautiful and we are discovering lots of places that in a car I would ordinarily pass by. Cartmel, then Bentham meeting yesterday nestling on a small hill, then into Settle. The morning ride took us through more glorious national park and to a tiny hamlet of Ayrton where we found another little meeting house lovingly restored and now a camping barn. We rested in the sunshine and heard some of the history and then cycled on again to Skipton along magical canal tow paths - some very bumpy and rutted that required lots of concentration and some beautifully prepared so we could speed along and enjoy the views more fully. After Skipton we had our first experience of city riding - as we made our way to Keighley - roads where we were not sure where to position ourselves on roundabouts and alarming experiences of cycle lanes suddenly ending with no where to go. Life in such cities looks very different from life in the countryside that we are moving on from. We know that there will be more of this to come as we go forward and that our cycling skills will be put to the test. We are hopeful that with some help of local knowledge there will nonetheless be pathways and routes to discover that will take us cheerily on our way. In each meeting we are discovering communities that have their own history and current life that involves caring for each other and for passers by like ourselves. I have been pondering what it takes for this sense of self and sense of community to emerge because it seems to me that these two polarities are important to a vision of caring for all. Breakfast on Day 2 was at Yealand Conyers meeting
One of the realities that a new vision for a welfare state that saw less division between rich and poor might be the advances in technology. Margaret Fell rode to London on a horse and she wrote letters. Bikes weren't thought of her in her day let alone phones. In our group we have a variety of bikes amongst which there are a number of electric bikes. As a proud owner of an electric bike and a phone I can say that they are both what can be described as a transformative technologies Without my electric bike it would have been hard for me to imagine taking this ride as the distances would have felt impossibly long and the hills impossibly steep, but with my electric bike I still have to travel the distance but I have that little bit of help. An electric bike has made it possible for one of our group who has a significant disability to be able to join us. Our phones have made it possible to plot safe routes off the main roads and to communicate with one another to ensure that all stay safe. In my work with the I Matter Project I have been really excited to discover how online learning can make it possible to get important ideas to busy professionals and families who it is traditionally very difficult to reach. Training can be accessible by phone and lap top. Coaching and consultations can take place at a distance massively reducing the needs to travel. However I have also clearly seen that as the results that are important are based on relationships online learning needs the personal contact and though phone and skype are really practical they cannot replace the value of sitting in a room together at least some of the time. So technology holds some of the answers but it does not hold all of the answers. If we know that technology can be used to assist healthy relationships but cannot replace the work of ensuring that the relationships are healthy then technology is a key part of the solution to Care for the Common Good - but not all of it. Day 1: We started off our journey gathering at Swarthmoor Hall - the home of Margaret Fell who was one of the earliest Quakers who with her husband Judge Fell supported George Fox in the earliest days of the Quaker Movement from the 1650's. Though the Quakers were just one of a number of groups who were resisting the state and claiming the right to think and worship differently, 360 years later they are still operating as a national organisation that attracts individuals who are looking for something a little bit different. Margaret Fell was someone who took action for things that mattered to her and on our Day 1 we sat together for 15 mins quiet contemplaion in the same hall where she would have eaten and gathered with other early Friends. The theme that emerged was journeys - and the sense of connection between the journey that Margaret Fell had taken and the one that we were taking. She had set off to London because of her concern at the way in which early Quakers were being persecuted. We were setting off with our different experiences of the way in which vulnerable people were being treated. We are a mixed age group of riders - 12yrs to 82 yrs - 16 core with a number of others joining us for just a part of the way and others who had come a long to wave us off. A lot of work and planning had gone into making this day possible. This years ride had emerged as an idea following the success of a 4 day pilgrimage last year from Brigflatts to Barrow. The questions we are holding: How do we respond to the changes in society that we are seeing that have become persecutory to those for example with disabilities who already have so much stacked against them? What can be done if the systems that were intended for good seem to be functioning in ways that are proving harmful? What would/could be some possible ways forward? First steps though involve getting to know one another and learning to ride safely up and down dale and along and across small lanes and busy roads. Every journey starts with small steps with some uncertainties about what will be learned on the way but we have chosen our message - on our high visibility jackets - and we now have the support with it of our Area Meeting - We are the Ride for Equality and for the Common Good We CAN afford to Care for all. Swarthmoor to London - 21st July to 6th August 2018 One of the roots of the Adult-Child Well-Being 'I Matter' Project has been the influences of Quakersim on my childhood, teens, young adulthood, and life as a parent. Quakerism has provided a spiritual home for me and a place in which I was supported in learning to think and question whilst also having a sense of connection to and responsibility for the greater whole George Fox a teacher from the Midlands in the 1650's travelled up to the Cumbrian area where he gathered together a group of people who he encouraged to study and reflect and think for themselves. The message was: you have heard what the others think but 'what canst THOU say?' Another well known Quaker message: Religion is not here to take men and women out of the world, but is to help them to live better within it. Learning to think for oneself is not always comfortable. It involves being in touch with contradiction and conflicts and uncertainty. The challenge is to dig in and listen to the inner knowing. It often involves facing fear - what will happen if I get in touch with what I really think?? What will happen if I actually speak up about what I think?? This journey is particularly important in relationships - when relationships are not feeling healthy but you are not sure why. This can be relationships between adults and children, between adult partners and in work settings. It is not comfortable recognising that if there is going to be any change you have to be willing to take action - as just hoping for the best may not be enough. Speaking up can involve some conflict and resistance and rejection. The early Quakers found themselves thrown in jail for expressing what they really thought and thankfully the result is not always so harsh, However the truth is that speaking up is not easy. I think however that this early Quaker training was a key element in my process of coming to know that something was seriously amiss in the way we were working with children and families where there is challenging complex behaviour, and the struggle to understand was key to what later emerged as the I Matter Project and to the idea embedded within the approach that there is almost always a personal journey involved in working out exactly what is wanted and how to get there. Quaker thinking was also key for a group of Kendal and Sedbergh Quakers and a group from the Southern Marches who discovered they could no longer sit comfortably with the direction that public pollcies were taking with regard to the care of the vulnerable in our society. So through a process of sharing came the conviction that there was a need to renew the vision on which the welfare state was born. What would a renewed vision of welfare look like? How can we use our resources more wisely and effctively? What role do we each have to play? How do we each get support with our concerns? Now through that careful discernment process, concern about the care of the vulnerable is coming to fruits in action and along with others I will setting off with family and friends on a ride from Swarthmoor to London to speak up about this concern. We will be travelling over 300 miles by bike and by public transport stopping off at Quaker meeting houses on the way. It seems a long way but I am looking forward to beautiful english countryside and lots of fun and sharing. Our intention is to add our voices to those who believe that the way forward in our communties must involve policies and individual actions that serve the Common Good not just the needs of a privileged few. For me because the process of speaking up has proved a very challenging but also a very rewarding process, this is going to be a Quaker Journey and an I Matter Journey and a For the Common Good Journey. If you would like to join us for a bit of this ride you can find out more here. What might such a journey be about for you? Here is our route map Day 1-9 And the route for Day 10-13 click here for short purpose description |
Dr Cathy BetoinClinical Psychologist, Teacher and Parent - and social entrepreneur Archives
July 2019
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