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Blog Post
Knowledge Action Inquiry: Paradigm shift
Read moreEarlier this week we flagged that one of the elements of our Knowledge Action Inquiry is ‘examining the basis of our collective knowledge system’. By this, we mean that we want to explore the underlying values, assumptions and judgments we...
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Blog Post
Knowledge Action Inquiry: Knowledge Democracy
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As a major theme of our Knowledge Action Inquiry, we’ll be examining ‘knowledge democracy’ and its relevance to our work on severe and multiple disadvantage. We’re in the early stages of discovering and engaging with quite a...
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Blog Post
Knowledge Action Inquiry: What do we know about severe and multiple disadvantage?
Read moreWe all try to make sense of the world we live in: it’s part of the natural state of things to assemble information and act on what we (think or feel) we know. Similarly, the idea of knowledge underpins our whole discourse on severe and multiple...
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Blog Post
Place based working – what have we learned so far?
Read moreEighteen months ago we set out to work alongside a few partners in places to explore how we can support people and institutions nurture the conditions for change to flourish locally. This followed 18 months of seeking advice and input from as...
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Blog Post
What does the world of tech and big data have to do with us?
Read moreWe’ve had two brushes with big data in the last couple of weeks. Cathy’s been talking to other foundations about it…. On my first day back in the office after returning from a meeting of international foundations on big data, The...
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Blog Post
Introducing Systems Changers 2018
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The third Systems Changers programme launches this week and I feel particularly fortunate to be involved in it. The Systems Changers 2018 group is made up of practitioners who work specifically with vulnerable young people and the systems they...
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Blog Post
An untold story of power, defiance, mutuality and growth
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Disclaimer first: my role in the process of facilitating An Untold Story was to listen, amplify the voices and facilitate the editing choices of the twelve women who told their stories in the book. (Their voices can be found here, in full colour,...
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Blog Post
Knowledge, Trust, Capability & Empowerment (1)
Read moreKnowing what we know Despite decades of research on ethnic inequalities and severe mental illnesses, it is surprising how few of the findings are well known by the public and many specialists. It is as if evidence of injustice or intractable...
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Blog Post
Light Despite the Darkness
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“The best we can hope for with these people is to keep them alive” I remember it like it was yesterday, the shock that someone in his position would say something like that, knowing I had to challenge it and feeling determined to change...
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Blog Post
Do the limits of my language, limit my world?
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Power is an abstract concept and many conversations start tentatively so I was particularly struck by the conversation we had with the students in a secondary school in Bristol recently. The students were able, and willing to explore a complex...