CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation THEME SEVEN ORGANISATION and MANAGEMENT - Not another Committee! "CARESCO is a very open organisation. The various clubs, day centres etc. are autonomous and the organisation of each activity is fairly independent. At the centre CARESCO exists to help to gain access to finance, to help organise training, to help to share expenses, and to help to make the whole just a little more than the sum of the parts." David Whitney, Chairman. CARESCO Annual Report, 1990 What that "little more" consists of, and how an effective management structure can maximise the "value added" to a rural community is the subject of this chapter. CONSTITUTION CARESCO started as a mechanism to save two valuable services whose existence was threatened, but its Constitution as a Registered Charity gave it a much wider remit, bringing it to the front line of Community Development:- AIMS:- It seeks - to identify welfare needs of individuals and groups in Sawtry and its satellite villages, devising means to meet those needs, with the help of volunteers including some from among the unemployed, and to enlist the backing and cooperationof the statutory services and existing voluntary organisations, and any other medium. - to advance any charitable purposes for the benefit of the Community of Sawtry and its satellite villages in the County of Cambridgeshire and in particular the relief of the handicapped and persons in need within the area of benefit. MEMBERSHIP:- open to any individual or group having an interest in and sympathetic to the aims of the organisation. and a MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE:- which shall consist of (a) Representatives appointed by the funding bodies to a maximum of 6. (b) Members nominated at the Annual General Meeting to a maximum of 10. (No interested group to be represented by more than 2 members on the Committee.) The Management Committee shall be responsible for general administration and management, including the engagement of staff. Any such staff shall be ex-officio members of the Management Committee (non-voting.) CARESCO Constitution - 1982 Our Constitution had been adapted from that of the St. Ives Day Care Centre (see Theme Three, p ) and it gave us a management framework. We had three or four Committee meetings a year - pleasant social occasions , which were well supported. Soon it became necessary to appoint a Finance and General Purposes Committee, which thrashed out - 1 - CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation Recommendations for consideration by the main Committee. The Annual Report, (printed by the Printshop,) became known as a "Good Read" by people on the fringes of the organisation. So without overdoing the bureaucracy, we became conscious that we were performing many of the functions of Good Management. MANAGING THE UNKNOWN But there were no exact patterns for what we had set ourselves to achieve. We were literally going into the unknown , and expecting some well-entrenched statutory bodies to come with us. It is not surprising that we made (and continue to make,) some mistakes as we tried to evolve appropriate patterns of management and leadership. With such an open membership and such close involvement of "staff", who at the start were all essentially volunteers with small honoraria, it is clear that the "Management" functions were shared with the workers, and the "Direction" of the organisation (normally the function of a Management Committee,) was similarly shared among a close-knit group all committed to achieving benefits for the community, and "Accountable" to that community. In the 1990s the concept of Workers' Co-operatives delivering Home Care has aroused great interest. A very successful model - 'Sunderland Home Care Associates' - has been built up in partnership with the Social Services Department, which contracts with the 'Associates' for the delivery of Home Care, recognising that, although their charges are comparatively high, this refects their commitment to training and back-up support for all the workers. Rural Counties such as Cumbria are seeking means of adapting this 'Co-Operative' concept to serve their more scattered populations. Without using the term, CARESCO has always worked in the spirit of a Co-Op, as is shown in the Introduction to its most recent Business Plan:- Since its formation, CARESCO has evolved into a volunteer-driven group, where the skills and lessons learnt in practice are shared between the team members. Whilst a clear chain of commands exists, the reality is that members are largely interchangeable between functions. Succession planning and longevity is therefore assured. A culture of self-help exists, building confidence, restoring self-esteem and where appropriate, honing new skills. It is these elements that constitute the "added value" to the CARESCO package. CARESCO Business Plan, 1997 Over the years, the "Management Committee" discovered that it must to some extent distance itself from the "Workers" when it needed, for example, to review the levels of Expenses and of Honoraria, and decide whether other workers should receive them. Similarly, thought had to be given to how the Day Centres should develop: whether one pattern should be used for all of them, developing in parallel, or whether each should be allowed to evolve according to the character of the individual villages which they served. At these times the "Management Committee" had to stand back and make some difficult decisions. The presence at meetings of our "Named Officer" from the Social Services was helpful here in bringing the professional viewpoint. More recently, thought has had to be given to coopting people with experience of fundraising on a large scale, for a new building. - 2 - CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation MEMBERSHIP OF THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE In many voluntary organisations, it falls to the Staff to ensure the nomination of useful members for the Management Committee and then to make full use of them, although officially the process happens the other way round! As we welcomed newcomers who had useful experience, we regularly discovered that even people who knew a lot about one of our projects (the Day Centre or the Nearly New, perhaps,) had no idea how they related to the whole organisation. Ways were sought of revisiting our history, so that the Management Committee Members had a sound background for their deliberations. In 1986 it was decided to give voting rights on the Management Committee to two representatives of the Staff, because some important decisions been swayed by comparative newcomers. Committee Members who are not involved in the day-to-day work of the organisation find it difficult to make the time to keep in touch between Committee meetings. In some ways this does not matter because the Staff are put on their mettle to report progress and problems objectively at meetings. In the past, however, the Staff have felt unsupported when one Chairman offered to be available for "supervising" and "appraising" their work, but in the event never found time to do so. THE ROLE OF OUTSIDE AGENCIES CARESCO prides itself that its strength and the impetus for its growth has come from within its own local communities. The possibility of this is only partly recognised by current literature on Community Development. The chapter on Management in Rural Community Work in Francis and Henderson's "Working with Rural Communities - a Practical Social Work Manual" assumes that initiatives such as that which started CARESCO, will be carried out by a Worker appointed by an outside agency, such as the Rural Community Council, or even a far-sighted Health Authority. Employees of such agencies would normally spend some time putting down the roots in the community itself which CARESCO already had. The Brockenhurst Healthy Village Project.(see the end of Theme Five,) is quoted in NCVO's "Strategies for Success in Rural Care" as an example of good practice. Like CARESCO, "its most original features were: - a high degree of coordination between agencies - the adoption of a holistic view of health - the harnessing of existing community activity" The "agency" which initiated the project, however, was the local Primary Health Care Team, and they counted themselves lucky to find a village-based Coordinator, who had already developed many community contacts. The dangers for a locally-based organisation such as CARESCO are that its outlook will remain too parochial. (The Parish Council's refusal to continue with the Health Survey in 1988 is an example of this. - See Theme Five.) Francis and Henderson, considering - 3 - CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation development by a worker appointed from outside, cite the "advantages of staff management and evaluation by an appointing agency:- - to ensure good planning and the setting of clear objectives and sensible work programmes. - to ensure that strategies and programmes actually do get carried out. - to ensure that resources (including staff) are brought into play to enable the programme to succeed. - to keep the worker in touch with developments and trends in the agency and the wider world. - to keep the agency in touch with what is happening on the ground, so that it can adjust its policies and programmes where necessary. - to maintain the worker's morale and confidence and help with problem-solving. - to improve the worker's competence, effectiveness and career development. - to ensure that communities receive help which is appropriate. - to improve the agency's performance." Francis & Henderson - Working with Rural Communities, p117 As will be seen in previous chapters, the management of CARESCO came over time to achieve most of these advantages, except those which refer to an "agency". Even though CARESCO is an independent organisation, it has depended heavily on the professional advice and support of the Cambridgeshire Social Services through a succession of "Named Officers" who have regularly attended Committee Meetings and conducted Annual Reviews as part of the conditions of our Grant from the County. FROM THE GRASS ROOTS UPWARDS - The nearest "agency" to CARESCO was Cambridgeshire COMMUNITY Council, which never had the resources to attach a Patch worker to Sawtry, (particularly because we were not in the Rural Development Area.) Consequently, Sawtry would never have developed its social and health resources if its residents had not included a group of public-spirited people with backgrounds in Community Development (both at home and in the Third World,) and in educational administration. They knew (or could find out) where to go in the corridors of County Hall. A recent collection of essays on Organisational Change in the Business World proposes new philosophies of managerial leadership, calling on Managers not to "base their authority on superior knowledge...and experience" but on "acceptance of ignorance and the ability to raise fruitful questions rather than to impose effective answers." "This new form of leadership fully understands the need for a step-wise process of change, and is willing to make that process explicit to all concerned. It takes the needs and aspirations of others into account at each step, and actively involves them in the endless task of learning from the experience of bringing about change. Above all, these leaders recognize the need to bring diverse points of view together, in vigorous encounter. In this form of leadership, learning grows from dialogue: from entering into the feelings and thoughts of others." Boot, Lawrence & Morris:- Managing the Unknown. - 4 - CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation This is the form of leadership which CARESCO had to adopt. HOW WE LEARNED Writing about the nature of support needed by people managing and running Community buildings, to help them develop relevant skills, Paul Marriott says "It is doubtful whether traditional short training courses are the most effective way of enabling local people to develop these skills. (ie. strategic planning; volunteer recruitment; delegation and conflict resolution.) Consultancies, action learning sets, mentoring and coaching, ongoing development programmes, are all more likely to be beneficial." Marriott:- Forgotten Resources, p6. We did not use the jargon of the '90s, but CARESCO benefitted from all of these techniques. When we were given our Service Level Agreement with the County Council, we soon learned how to plan and carry out Work Programmes, helped by a Review with our Named Officer. The resources of the Village College were invaluable in supporting CARESCO's plans for motivating and training the staff and volunteers. Theme One has illustrated the wide variety of means, formal and informal, by which we built the confidence of our members. Keeping the village in touch with developments in the wider world was very important, so another essential Support worker in the early days was Hazel Shellens, the Voluntary Services Coordinator for the Social Services in Huntingdon Division. She and her successor, Angela Hauch, worked with the Community Council to bring together a growing network of strong voluntary groups in Huntingdon and foster the mutual support which is now so characteristic of Hunts Forum. Meetings with the four Volunteer Bureaux, the Citizens' Advice Bureau, Mind, the Hunts Coalition of Disabled People, the National Childbirth Trust, the Community Health Council, the St. Ives Day Centre, Age Concern and many other groups, informed us of the development of County strategies. Later we in Sawtry were able to host some of these meetings, so that our workers could have the experience of meeting some of the Senior Officers of the Health and Social Services, and even the Government, learning how to make a case for the needs of the community. When the County had to cut back their team of Voluntary Services Coordinators, (headed by Les Bright at Shire Hall,) it was a sad day for the voluntary sector. STARTING A PROJECT How were the different projects started and developed? In so many different ways that it is hard to generalise. The need for each one was identified by people in the local community, whether a "territorial" community or a "community of interest" (such as the Day Centre members who started the Swimming Therapy sessions or the Social Worker who spoke for the Special Children who benefit from the Play Scheme.) Day Centres at Alconbury and Stilton were a logical step, since members came to the Sawtry Centre from both these villages. Appeals to the Parish Councils for core funding met the predictable response "What's in it for us?" Representatives of each village, plus their GP surgeries and members of - 5 - CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation the relevant Care Teams met the CARESCO Organiser, who brought in the local Age Concern Organiser to help set up the Day Centre, which was then run by its own local Committee. Contact was kept with CARESCO by the presence of the Centre Organisers at the CARESCO staff meetings, and a Parish Council representative on the Management Committee. A more recent and very important development is the Sawtry Carers' Group. Kathy Jones, the Organiser, tells how it started:- Efforts had been made in the early days of CARESCO to set up a Carers' Support Group, but the difficulty of contacting Carers, and even convincing them that they WERE Carers prevented the idea from materialising. Our involvement with the Carers' Working Party in Huntingdon (10 miles from Sawtry,) gave us a kick-start when they planned a series of "Positive Caring Days" in the area. Ten people attended the day in Sawtry. Of the original group, nine carers have lost the loved one they cared for, and the tenth person is now in full-time residential care. Sadly, two of the original carers have also died , after giving years of their lives to devoted caring. The Positive Carers' Day was held in Autumn 1992, and was supported by the local G.Ps, their Practice Manager, Health Visitor and Community Nurse. It was the local Practice who were able to identify and encourage people to attend. Since the start of the group twenty five people have attended (not all together.) The group members have shared sadness and loss, and have supported each other in the bad times as well as the happy times. Meetings provide the opportunity for the Carers to have a relaxed, friendly chat over a cup of tea. Our links with the Doctors' Surgery have remained strong, and the regular monthly meetings are held in the surgery staffroom. It started with a Positive Caring Day, and the group remain VERY Positive. MANAGERIAL CHALLENGES A "new form of leadership" may be needed in the business world, but voluntary organisations will always present some managerial challenges different from those facing commercial enterprises. A study by the Cranfield School of Management asserts:- "Managers in the voluntary sector have to manage: - working for and being accountable to a lay management committee - the growing need for accountability to funders and the public - the difficulty of measuring performance in organisations that pursue a range of social objectives - the lack of a tangible goal that allows for a consensus, (as the need to make profit provides in the commercial sector) - the functional separation of service provision from income generation - the complex motivations of staff, who may include volunteers, those receiving honoraria and paid employees - the participative nature of most voluntary organisations, which raises questions of ownership and control - the difficulty of managing the need for long term planning with short term resources Rooley & White:- Management Development Needs of Voluntary Organisations - 6 - CARESCO History - Theme Seven - Organisation Previous pages show that all these issues have been faced by the CARESCO Committee at some point, whether consciously or unconsciously. The participative style of governance has been mentioned; no serious problems of ownership or control have yet arisen. Accountability to the public in a rural community, where the parish pump works fairly well, may not need to be too formal, but statutory funders must be satisfied that their money achieves what was intended. One serious problem, which CARESCO shares with schemes in many other rural centres, is the fact that is located in FRONTIER COUNTRY. The Village College catchment area was in the Huntingdon Division of the County Education Authority, and this defined our boundaries. (See Map) Until the recent (1997) reorganisations of Local and Parliamentary government boundaries, we were all in Huntingdon District (and Constituency.) The Health Authorities' boundaries, however, ran between Sawtry and Stilton, which, with the other northern villages, came under Peterborough. This was not too difficult, as our dealings were mainly with the GP Practices, (in Sawtry, Alconbury and Yaxley.) In 1988, however, the boundaries of the Social Services Divisions were re-drawn to bring them into line with the Health Authorities. This had logic for the professional workers, but doubled CARESCO's work when negotiating on behalf of our members. If any of them lived in Stilton, Folksworth or Morborne, we had remember to contact the Peterborough Social Workers as well as the Huntingdon Team and publicity had to be targetted in two different directions. "Meeting welfare needs" is hardly a "tangible goal" in the same sense as "making a profit" and at local community level, a consensus is most likely to be arrived at in response to a threat. (See Theme One -" the Creative use of Conflict".) Even short term projects may founder in the quicksands of statutory bureaucracies. (See Theme Four - "The disabled Persons' Toilet,") and, where buildings are shared, an "improvement" for one partner may seriously affect the activities of another. Long term planning is indeed difficult when so many authorities and sources of funding must be brought to work together. Throughout its history, however, CARESCO has profited from the participation of a great diversity of people. The concluding chapter starts appropriately with an illustration of how the complex motivations of these people have worked to one end. - 7 -