Guest blog from Clare Armstrong, Academy Project Manager, Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland. The Health and Social Care Academy is a programme of the Health and Social Care Alliance (the ALLIANCE) and is a cross-sectoral platform for transformational change in health and social care using the voice of lived experience.

The Academy is holding a series of events in 2018, around the theme of unleashing courageous leadership at every age, and the next event will take place on April 24 from 5-7pm at the Grassmarket Community Project in Edinburgh. If you would like more details, or to find out more about the Academy and our work, please email academy@alliance-scotland.org.uk .

Faith in people. It’s not a theme that surfaces a lot these days. With all the political turmoil at home and abroad it’s easy to sink into despair at the world; unable to see beyond the next story or scandal. By the Year of Young People’s definition I am apparently still a young person, however I must confess that with each new news alert on my phone I feel like five years is added to my age!

But this is what made the Fire Starter Festival this year such a welcome breath of fresh air. The past weeks have been an opportunity to step out of this familiar bubble of gloom and have a little faith in the world. Not cautious, tentative faith with footnotes and caveats – but a bold faith that always sees the best in people and demands that their voices be heard and listened to. Themed around young people, this series of events has not skipped over the challenges that the future holds for all generations, but has placed faith in our collective ability to empower one another and make a difference.

The Festival started in Kelvingrove Museum, with a quote by Megan Whitley that perhaps best summarises my takeaway from the week overall:

“Sane leadership is the unshakeable faith in people’s capacity to be generous, creative, and kind.”

Later, as I wandered around the museum listening to a series of speeches through a pair of headphones, I reflected that this was certainly the type of leadership on display here. Whether it was Johanna Holtan recounting a challenging time in her youth when her mother had asked her “So what are you going to do about it?”, or Katie Slavin reminding us to “always, always be humble”, these were leaders that believed in the people they were helping, and saw themselves not as heroes swooping in to save the day – but enablers standing shoulder to shoulder with others and trusting them to help themselves.

The next day, my team at the Health and Social Care Academy had our own experiment in taking a leap of faith, at our Unleashing Courageous Leadership event. Having heard speeches from five inspiring young people, we had opened up the discussion to the audience through a “fishbowl” format (something completely new to us!), with four chairs in the middle for those who wished to speak – always with one free chair so that other participants could swap in and out of the discussion throughout. We held our breath slightly, hoping that the audience would want to share their views… and were rewarded with a stimulating and enthusiastic discussion around what courageous leadership really meant. In fact, we were so overwhelmed by the number of people wanting to share their views that we didn’t even get around to answering our last question!

After worrying that our fishbowl might be met with awkward silence, the event was a necessary reminder of the importance of trusting people and giving everyone a platform to voice their opinions. In the words of our speaker, Rachael McCully, “if you help young people be leaders, you’ll learn more from them than the other way around”. Well, I certainly learned a lot, and look forward to continuing this conversation at our next Courageous Leadership event in April.

My Fire Starter experience was wrapped up a couple of days later, as I headed to the ‘When Open Government Met Co-production’ discussion. Knowing nothing about Open Government beforehand, it was encouraging to hear of the steps being taken to build “an outward looking government which is more open and accessible to Scotland’s people than ever before”, and the progress that has already been made elsewhere. Who knew that in Norway, 1 in 70 people will hold public office in their life, compared to 1 in 3000 in Scotland?! Clearly we have much further to go, but the passion of the speakers and the examples of co-productive decision-making closer to home gives me confidence that we can get there.

No doubt, Scotland and its young people face huge challenges, and this Fire Starter week did not shy away from the tough decisions involved in pushing for progress. But the overwhelming message was not to let these challenges stop us from having unshakeable faith; in others, in our communities, and ultimately in ourselves. The best vision of our future involves more fishbowls, more fire-starting, and more faith in each other. So, whatever the challenge is that we’re facing, let’s all have a quiet, determined voice in our head saying – what are you going to do about it?

As part of Fire Starter Festival, the Scottish Health Council held Voices Scotland workshops across the country. Today’s guest blog is from Gerd Peters, Local Officer at Scottish Health Council Orkney.

Under an angry grey sky on an icy January morning in Kirkwall my colleague Kevin Ward and I carefully pick our way into fierce headwinds towards the Pickaquoy leisure centre for today’s Fire Starter taster session. We’re looking forward to the day, feeling slightly apprehensive now that this weather might well persuade some in our audience to stay away.

Our aim for the day is to inspire a diverse audience with a shared interest in health and social care to work and learn together in a supportive environment. Besides, Kevin and I are determined to make the most of the potential for team based interactive learning that is the hallmark of Voices Scotland, and with luck ‘spark’ new ideas as to how the public and services can work together well in Orkney.

By 1pm Karen from our Stromness office has arrived and we’ve finished setting up the venue for the session. As Karen welcomes our first guests, we can see others arriving through the panoramic window that looks out over the car park and Kirkwall Bay. By 1.30pm the sky is brightening up with the sun pushing through the clouds, and there are now 11 attendees in the room seated café style around three team stations. Among them volunteers and staff from Orkney College/University Highlands & Islands, the Health & Social Care Partnership, NHS Orkney, Third sector and community groups.

Working from the Voices Scotland course template, Kevin and I had decided to focus on three activities, including working with emotional touch points; thinking about what is effective public engagement; and working together with members of the public and health and social care professionals. This, we figured, would allow everyone to contribute on their terms whilst enjoying themselves and learning something new.

Keeping our introduction to a minimum, we begin the session by inviting individual participants to reflect on a recent experience of health and social care. Together with saying a few words about themselves, participants are asked to choose an emotional touch point card, and using this as a prop, share their experience with the group. Everyone does and at the end of the exercise a degree of familiarity among participants has developed that sets the mood for the entire session. It also makes everyone aware that beyond our respective roles, occupations and background we are all users of health and social care service in our own right.

For our second activity we call on the groups to lend support as Kevin charts the organisational structure of health and social care in Scotland on the wall. For this he uses a comprehensive set of logo cards with concise explanations on their flip sides. With the professionals in the room momentarily identifying their place in the structure, the activity inevitably develops a competitive element, which draws everyone into the excitement. Looking at the completed chart we all become aware of the complexity of the Scottish health and care landscape, and there isn’t one among us who hasn’t learned something new.

Our third and final activity consists of a brainstorming session. For this we split into three groups again, each group in turn identifying traits they believe separate health and care professionals from public representatives, and naming benefits and barriers of working together. The task is soon accomplished and the results shared. With participants having worked together so well throughout the session in spite of their differing backgrounds and interests, it now doesn’t take much for everyone to realise that looking out for differences and obstacles is mostly dealing in presumptions and preconceptions.

Calling this into focus we wrap up the session to laughter and an unexpected round of applause!

We have achieved what we set out to do: demonstrating the potential of Voices Scotland to empower people who have experienced health and care services to become contributors to making services better

When we say our farewells, the message seemed to have taken hold. Everyone clearly has enjoyed the content and interactive nature of the session, and we have our first taker for the full Voices Scotland session.

Cat Tabbner reflects on the launch of Fire Starter Festival 2018 and how it has set her up for the year ahead.