The following is based on part of an address given last Tuesday at an online conference organised by Faith in Older People and Anna Chaplaincy.

To begin with I have to acknowledge that any talk of care homes has to address the problem of image and stigma. Even before the pandemic but certainly since the very understanding of care homes is one that is too often associated with the negative.

But I want to start from the perspective of challenging the stereotypes that care homes are places where people (to use the language that is often used), are places that people are  ‘put in’, or ‘end up in’ … or even worse the idea that they are ‘prisons for older age,’ ‘locations of last resort’.

Yes, it is true that for the vast majority of people moving into congregated or shared living in older age is a decision which is not ideal, and it might be one taken as a result of a decline or deterioration; we acknowledge that most of us would want to remain independent or in our own home for as long as possible.

Yet whilst many more people are living longer, they are also living with multiple conditions or co-morbidities. Another truth is that people are entering residential care much later in their illness or ageing journey. We are therefore talking about a more frail and fragile population, the majority of whom are living with some degree of cognitive decline such as dementia and the majority of whom are on a palliative and end of life care pathway in one way or another.

For many residents their care home is likely to be the place where they end their days. Most care home residents today will be in the home for between 14 and 18 months rather than the 3-5 years which were commonplace a decade ago. In many senses therefore care homes have become ‘hospices in the heart of our communities.’

That awareness has changed the dynamic of many care homes yet paradoxically that has not made care homes places of quietude and sadness but quite the opposite – for many they have become even more places of enjoyment and life affirmation, of living life to the fullest possible extent.

In my experience many care homes are places where individuals flourish, where they thrive, where they come alive, where they discover an energy which they felt they had lost in the years of past memory; where some find a new direction and sense of purpose that they might have yearned for in the past.

It is no exaggeration – at least for me – to state that care homes can be places that change lives and bring a new dimension to the remaining days of life.

In other words, care homes are not places where the task is to exist but rather, and with compassionate support and skilled professionalism, they can become places where people grow until the end of their lives, changing and moulding their days to the new rhythm of their experience.

They are places where individuals are enabled to ‘tell their story’.

Care homes can in the words of this talk be places to enhance life rather than to simply survive – and the role of spiritual care in that enhancement is critical and central.

Enhance is a lovely and intriguing word. It first came into English usage in the 13^th century and literally meant ‘to raise something higher.’

When it was first used enhance meant to mak something physically higher, but quickly it became a word used to describe making someone feel recognised, more valued, or attractive.

I love the image that the word suggests. How are we in our relationships and actions, in the dynamics of our happening times and in our silence, in the exchanges of our conversations and encounters – enhancing or raising higher those who we are privileged to spend time with?

Care homes should be about enhancing older age, about raising up, making attractive, bestowing value on age and individual and all that comes with it. They should be about scattering to the four winds the stigma and stereotype of being old, of becoming frail, of losing memory, of developing dementia, and even of dying. Because all of these experiences can each and every one be enhanced – be raised up, to the point at which someone feels heard and valued, affirmed and wanted, celebrated and seen.

Care homes are about creating spaces and places where people can discover who they are even in the last hours and moments of living and loving; they are about raising up older age as something worthy of being affirmed, as valuable in its own right, regardless of activity or ability, capacity or consent.

That is no more the case than when I reflect about dementia. A diagnosis of dementia deserves not to be a full stop in the story of your life, but rather with support and resourced focus it can become the start of a new chapter whose ending is still to be written, whose richness of experience has still to be encountered.

Too often we have both in care home and community limited people by diagnosis and labelled them by siloed response and action. Person led care and support is recognising the particularity and uniqueness of each individual – it is about changing the dynamic of the cared for and carer so the power, autonomy, control and choice rests with the person being supported (perhaps especially if the individual lacks capacity to ‘know’) – it is about not treating the condition but caring for the person.

The role of spirituality and spiritual care in the whole process of enhancing older age in care homes is simply inescapable and undeniable. In a real sense enhancing – raising up older age in care homes – is about recognising that the very dynamic of care and support is at its essence an act of spiritual care. And for me it focuses on several characteristics:

Firstly, that spiritual care which enhances older age should seek to discover and use a language that can be the means of real communication for the person being supported.

Many years ago, I was privileged to spend some time with Phoebe Caldwell who for many is the mother of modern speech and language therapy, not least because of her development of intensive interaction approaches. I have seen with my own eyes how Phoebe worked with individuals who had been ‘locked in’, who had never or had stopped using words as their means of communication. Phoebe used to say that every human being has a unique language and communicates in a unique way. I am on one side of the river- you are on the other – the art of communication is the building of the bridge of understanding from one shore to the other. It is arrogance and hubris of the highest order to assume (as we so often do) that in order to communicate you must come over to my world, use my language, my words. It is much better for us to garner the humility of encountering one another in the middle of that bridge where I learn what your sounds, or eyes, or motion, or jerks say to me and vice versa. Real communication happens when there is a mutuality of encounter. For me that has always been an essential part of spiritual care – I am about learning your language, being humble enough not to assume I have all the insights or answers, all the knowledge and sense.

Dr Maggie Ellis from St Andrews University has done so much to use Phoebe’s approaches in communicating with individuals who have lost the power of speech in the latter stages of dementia. I would commend her work to you not least because now and in the years to come there will be so many more who because of their dementia will lose the power of speech and communication – we can either dismiss them as used to be the case in the way we labelled people with disabilities and autism as ‘non communicative’ or we can enter a new world of self and mutual discovery and learn a new language of spirit, compassion and care. Learning a new language and new ways to communicate is key to effective spiritual care.

My second characteristic of care that enhances older age is a spiritual care that seeks to address the whole of a person rather than the elements that can be simply determined, recorded, and recognised.

In the words of the Scottish Government’s Spiritual Care Framework

‘We all have a part of us that seeks to discover meaning, purpose and hope in those aspects of our experience that matter most to us. This is often referred to as “spirituality”; informing our personal values and beliefs, and affirming that tears, laughter, pain, and joy are all part of the human experience.

 I believe that part of enhancing older age – of raising it up – is to acknowledge that questions of meaning, purpose and hope are as real and valid in older age – and whilst living with conditions such as dementia – as at any other age. These are spiritual questions which we need to give space to – and ignoring them, not encouraging them, or worst still avoiding them is a limiting of the person.

That might take us into uncomfortable territory because I fear that our risk averse attitudes to age and frailty have led us sometimes to treat older people as children, to avoid the totality of being human, to try not to be unsafe or take risks, or fail and not succeed; to somehow think all older people are like one another; to presume that older age has no capacity for the novel or new, has no appreciation of the desire to do learn or discover possibility. Caring for the totality of a person requires spiritual care but is in itself an act of spiritual care. I just wonder if we sometimes limit the shocking potential of spiritual care by being predictable and safe?

Lastly, for me a critical component of enhancing, of raising up older age in care homes is the spiritual art of being honest and real and raw in accepting the uncertainties of the unknown and in giving sanctuary to the deepest fears of individuals.

Care homes are much better at walking with people on the journey to dying than perhaps they used to be. Living in and through dying is a critical component of ageing.

Care homes are in an often-unique position in enabling the giftedness of encounter and relationship formation to build a sense of belonging that can heal the deepest wounds even beyond the tears of grief.

There is perhaps no greater act of care for the person than to allow them to die well, with choice and autonomy and control as much as is possible.

Enhancing the last moments of life, raising up the latter days of an individual, creating space for there to be acts to raise the value and worth of a life lived to the full are all surely the core of spiritual care.

So spiritual care is essential to enhancing – to raising up the lives of all who are older, but not least in our care homes. At its best it is an art that allows the person to become who they have the potential to be, to flourish and to thrive into wholeness.

The Canadian poet Rupi Kaur writes:

“it was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself I found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to be whole.”

Donald Macaskill

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Tuesday coming, the 19^th of March is World Social Work Day.

I have spent a lot of my life surrounded by social workers both in terms of being colleagues of them, working alongside them, and even sharing office space with them. But I have also been very aware of the role of social work through relatives and family connections who were and are social workers. It is a profession, therefore, with which I am very familiar and for which I have over the years developed a deep respect, no less so than when I trained hundreds of social workers in Self-directed Support legislation, around issues such as grief and loss, and adult protection.

I am saying all this because I want to evidence a regard for a role and a profession which I feel to be increasingly marginalised and ignored and one which I fear may be losing sight of its essence and energy. I was sharing some of these reflections the other day with a social worker friend who had just retired after decades of service and whose reflections and insights challenged me a great deal.

The international description of World Social Work Day states that it is :

” a celebration that aims to highlight the achievements of social work, to raise the visibility of social services for the future of societies, and to defend social justice and human rights.”

It goes further and points out for this year’s theme:

“World Social Work Day …is rooted in the Global Agenda and emphasises the need for social workers to adopt innovative, community-led approaches that are grounded in indigenous wisdom and harmonious coexistence with nature.”

Social work happens the world over and whilst there may be cultural and geographic distinctions, the essence or core of the profession is largely similar regardless of location. For me a social worker has always been the person who works alongside an individual, community, or group to help them find solutions to their problems and challenges. They are about enabling people to find the resource and energy, the route and strength to empower them to thrive, and achieve their full potential. Regardless of the age of the supported person, social work is grounded in an advocacy for the person at risk of rejection and discrimination. It is a profession steeped in ethical and moral principles with a concern for those marginalised, ignored and at risk. It is a role which literally defends, intervenes to ensure safety, and directs toward independence, self-control and personal autonomy. Knowledge of law, awareness of policy, ability to manage systems are all social work skills directed to enabling the supported person to take control, be autonomous and live as independently as they can. This is all about the maximising of human potential.

The Global Definition of Social Work from the International Federation of Social Workers expresses it well:

“Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work.”

My social work friend and I reflected on the passionate originality and strength of the Social Work Scotland Act when it appeared in 1968 – which whilst I was a babe in arms – in the years after I began to appreciate was a dramatic game-changer in the world of social work in this country. It posited a very different approach to social work which attempted to change the traditional power dynamics of the era. It grounded in law the commitment to provide a community based social work service which ijn the words of a recent report was:

‘focused on providing early help, working in partnership with the communities served, and prepared and empowered to act to protect the vulnerable and those in crisis.’

My friend and I reflected on the extent to which the social work profession in Scotland was reflective of the original intent. Now straight off the bat I am not one of those sideline commentators who consider that social work has sold the pass and has lost its integrity, but it is difficult to ignore the reality that policy, political and legislative changes have altered the nature of social work over the years. Chief amongst them was the Community Care Act and the introduction of the concept of care management which to my friend, “turned us into bean counters, door blockers and system protectors.”

This change has been described in the following terms:

‘This shifted the onus from social workers as therapeutic resources towards practitioners as navigators of an increasingly complex landscape in which their professional values, methods and identity were eroded. Inevitably, social workers looked for areas within an ever more bureaucratic workplace to retain identity and purpose by trying to steer courses between policy intention, management systems and professional judgement.’ (see 3. Historical context – National Care Service – social work: contextual paper – gov.scot (www.gov.scot) )

So it was perhaps not surprising when the Self-directed Support Act (SDS) was introduced in 2013 with its emphasis on enabling the supported person to identify what would enable them to live to the fullest rather than what they needed, its principles of independent living, its emphasis on control, choice, autonomy and dignity – that virtually all the social workers I met and trained in the Act spoke about it in terms of a return to core values and about being what they had entered the profession to do in the first place, i.e. to be an advocate for those who needed a voice and to enable people to fulfil their individual potential and live their lives as they wanted and needed to.

Derek Feeley’s report and the work of Social Work Scotland in its numerous reports have well and truly described the ‘implementation gap’ between legislative aspiration around SDS and the on the ground reality, but chief amongst them must surely be the frustration and disappointment of the social work profession that the management of cases, the supervision of budgets, the emphasis on resource constraint and needs assessment has remained dominant and prevented a return to the essence of social work.

And in these last few weeks when the hidden crisis and breakdown of the social care system in Scotland has become ever more apparent to me, I cannot help but think how far that essence of advocacy and human rights protection that social work once enshrined seems to have become even more remote.

When I sit and hear as I have this last week of social workers in one authority visiting service users who have had packages of care and support lasting 45 minutes to inform them that after a ‘review’ that their care would be delivered in 15 minute visits (to include getting up, being bathed, and having a meal prepared) then I cannot but feel that the essence of social work is slipping away.

When I hear a social worker in another authority stating that a body wash should replace a shower (to save time); and that a local day service needs to shut because of resource constraints, I sense a slipping away of social work.

When I listen to the family of a man with a significant neurological condition, who had been used to four visits a day to support them, now being reduced to two, and the social worker saying that the family will just have to help out more – I see the essence of social work slipping away.

Now lest you suggest these are exceptions to the rule then sadly I would contend they are not rather they are the tip of the iceberg.

Undeniably I know that there are hundreds of women and men who are fantastic passionate social workers, and I know when I speak to them, how massively frustrated they are by the fiscal and managerial shackles they have to operate within. Every day they try their best to hold back a soulless system which is increasingly inhumane and disrespectful of the dignity and human rights of some of our most vulnerable citizens. Every day they voice their despair to managers and leaders for it to be ignored and set aside.

My old retired social worker friend remarked to me that with an increasingly overt emphasis on clinical care and assessment focussed on making sure people are safe and well but not much more, that the uniqueness of social work (and I would add social care) is being increasingly crowded out and pushed to the edge. The social, community dynamic of social work, which used to see connection and neighbourhood, community and relationships as intrinsic to wellbeing is being sacrificed by the bean counters and political expedients in our towns and villages. Life is more than maintenance.

I hope against hope that on this year’s World Social Work Day the strong voice of social work advocacy, the shout of defending the human rights of all, and the proclamation of the worth and dignity of the least is heard again in loud calls to change and challenge actions which are happening up and down Scotland today.

Someone a bit like Anna Wigeon’s social worker:

Mosaic
by Anna Wigeon

The study, work placements and exams are all done,
And now it is the hour for the clients to come.

Practice process explained and values declared,
Those attending may feel it’s now easier to share.

Hurting hearts, tell unique tales and words,  about need,
Words, they hope,  will be heard. ‘Loss’ is oft a core seed.                    

Those who want  to feel ”whole’ and who yearn to ‘belong’.
The rich gent and poor rogue, might recite common song’.

What change might occur, if a skilled helping hand,
Could give timely support to assist them to stand.

Many stories depicting a myriad of need.
Common circumstance  bringing so many to heed.

The homeless, sleeping on concrete sheets while their wits,
Go to waste and wither down the cracks in the streets.

Then there are those who just want to ‘Be‘.  Be free of,
Societal labelling and that online melee.

No-one’s is excluded from these hardest of roads,
Caused by abuse, violence; into slavery sold?

Thank-you for caring; choosing a social work role,
For giving  solace to those needing consoled.

Your compassion; open mind towards those in ‘chains’,
For your seeing anew and believing in change.

As you give of yourself and your social work skills,
Remember Self-Care and your support team’s good will.

And barring emergency……do try to leave at a reasonable hour!’

From Poems by and for Social Workers – Scottish Poetry Library

Donald Macaskill

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

A couple of days ago I had the very real pleasure of being invited to give a Fireside Chat to the participants in one of the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland Leadership Development programmes. The Queens Nursing Institute is an amazing organisation and (in their own words):

‘supports, develops, and inspires Scotland’s community nurses and midwives to become agents for health improvement and catalysts for social change. Together, we are building a healthier, fairer, kinder Scotland.’

My ‘chat’ and conversation was centred around what I considered to be the key characteristics and marks of leadership. Having written more than my fair share on this topic over the years, not least in this blog, I tried to distil some of the main things I have learnt and experienced about leadership wherever that may be held or focussed. Here are some of my reflections:

For me the critical mark of all leadership is the need to be authentic, to mirror the reality of your self, ‘warts and all’. To be the real and raw ‘handmade’ person you are. Too often leaders and managers seek to mould themselves into the likeness of another, and that includes a mentor, or to shape themselves to what they expect the organisation or system demands and wants from them. That is not authentic – it is wearing a mask of pretence and usually (especially when the going gets tough) the masks slips and falls. Authentic leadership requires us to develop an honesty which allows us to be open, transparent and truthful with both ourselves and with others. In my experience such authenticity is what brings people in a team or organisation alongside a leader and strengthens the ability of all to be who they are. We need more people who walk their talk.

A mark of that authenticity for me is that it requires vulnerability. Vulnerability is often perceived as a negative characteristic or quality, but I very much believe that being vulnerable and being open to vulnerability are marks of essential humanity, not least in relationship to others. Vulnerability in itself is not negative; it is only when that vulnerability is mis-used or abused by another that it can become harmful and damaging. Being vulnerable is an openness to the unknownness and sometimes pain of encounter and the risk of losing your protection of self in order to achieve a greater self-discovery. In vulnerability there is a strength beyond the cracks and the brokenness.

A leader who can be strong enough to be emotionally mature and grounded, who is able to show emotion and empathy, to demonstrate the limitations of their own knowledge and skill is one that others can see something of themselves within.

Another element I reflected on was how important it is that leadership has a sense of purpose and direction about it. This is all the more important when particular context or circumstance is taken into account. In emergency situations for instance we do not look for a laissez fair attitude, a consultative engagement as primary, but rather when the chips are down, we want someone to be inclusively directive whilst appreciative of the diversity of those they lead and the requirement to shape action or response to the capacities of an individual. Occasions and contexts matter and whilst a leader should not be dominated by them a failure to be sensitive to the realities of the world around and an inability to be practically pragmatic helps no-one.

Over the years I recognise that the best leaders I have been privileged to work and be alongside, are individuals who whilst they have a clear purpose, direction, and vision, have invested in the people around them rather than just the achievement of particular goals. It used to be that being described as a ‘people person’ was considered something of lesser worth and value than someone who was influenced and dominated by process and models, outcomes, and outputs. Thankfully leadership and management approaches now recognise that the greatest asset in any organisation or system are the people and that nurturing and developing them is an essential task of team and group leadership.

There are other qualities I could add, such as the importance of determination and the ability to keep going despite obstacles or circumstance; the development of a resilience which isn’t just a springing back to doing things the way you have always done them but an openness to the new and innovative. I think of the ability to get to know the landscape and environment around you and to appreciate that the world we live in changes continually and often dramatically; or the recognition that we all change and need to adapt and be open to our own physical, mental, and emotional journeys.

I shared with the nurses I spoke to that over the years I have found strength in some of the metaphors and models for leadership, including the maieutic which considers a leader from the perspective of a midwife. But more recently, and in no small part, from reflecting on the life of my late uncle I have started to consider the metaphor of the shepherd as resonating with me in terms of what it conveys about leadership.

I have mentioned my late uncle Donald before. He was by modern descriptors someone who had a learning disability and who struggled with verbal communication, though those who knew him well could converse with him easily. A man of quiet behaviour and few words but of determined focus and comfortable routine, like many of his island age, he was a crofter-shepherd. In his case this was an art he carried out in the barren though colourful moorlands of north-west Skye.

Over the days and weeks, I spent with him I began to understand what the life of a shepherd was and much of it strikes me as descriptive of the essence of modern leadership in any context. It wasn’t a syrupy or romantic image or reality. it was hard and real. It included the need for preparation and planning, making sure you were appropriately dressed and prepared for the weather to change at any minute; a humility that recognised that you can never do things on your own but that shepherding is always a collective act even if alone; the appreciation of the need to know your environment and the limitation of your own knowledge; an openness to be moulded and changed by circumstance and terrain; a willingness to take your lead from those who ostensibly you are there to lead; to be able to read the happenings of the moment and to listen with a silence where sound can be heard in all its subtle invitations. It was a life which sought to become attuned to the rhythms of nature and which was rooted in the humble awareness of human insignificance in the face of the elements and the rawness of death and birth, grief and renewal.

But being a shepherd then was always about creativity and ingenuity, especially in the absence of easily accessible modern technology; it was a practised art where skill was developed over years of practice and the insights of failure and error as much as the moments of success. You had to be adaptable and innovative and able to use what you had around you.

Whatever your model of leadership, whatever metaphor speaks to you, there is a sense of dynamic movement about leading – ours is the task both as leaders (in whatever way) or as those who are led, to move towards the creation of communities and organisations, teams, and societies, where the voice of all are heard and the value of everyone is upheld, and where together we can all flourish and thrive, which is the daily task of social care.

Donald Macaskill

As I write this Scotland is enduring one of its unique weather days – torrential rain falling from a virtually cloudless blue sky, and no doubt a northerly gale will soon be blowing accompanied by hail or sleet!

It’s a time of year when my love of gardening gets stretched to the point of all patience being lost as I wait for propitious conditions to do all those seasonal tasks which dare not be done lest a spring frost arrives to destroy all effort and energy.

I’ve always been in admiration of my forebears who were farmers and crofters and who managed to live their lives in thrall to the vicissitudes of nature yet who always seemed to maintain a positivity about life. For whom the rhythm of the seasons had a predictability of renewal and a harvesting of hope but for all of whom effort, hard work and action were the ingredients of tomorrow.

I think anyone working in social care at the present time needs such a positivity despite circumstance. In the last few weeks I’ve heard of immoral fiscal savings resulting in someone in their 90s having a long term package of homecare removed with less than 72 hours’ notice; I’ve heard of someone entering end of life care 9 months after they requested a care home place yet no assessment was looking at all likely as happening any time soon; I’ve heard of a coach and horses being driven through the legal rights of supported individuals to choice, personal autonomy and independence and all in the name of public sector protectionism. Whether it is from an Audit Scotland report or the messages and calls I get weekly from those on the frontline I personally fear that Scotland’s social care sector has never faced such a perilous state of affairs.

And all of this angst and heartache in our communities is being played out against a backdrop of budgets being passed at national and local level bringing yet more cuts and ‘savings’ (dressed up in the language of efficiency and best value), and the refrain of a political pretence of normality playing in the background accompanied by a Neronic reframing of reform of systems and processes as the solution to all present troubles.

Few would now deny that the social care system is broken beyond calculation and that it is getting worse every day in every part of Scotland, and by system I don’t mean models or frameworks I mean a legion of supports and care which keeps people alive and offers the prospect of a life worth living. I have little doubt that in the next few weeks and months lives will be cut short or even lost because of the breakdown of social care support in our communities. And for those who might accuse me of melodrama I would invite them to come and walk in my shoes and hold the hard conversations I’m holding.

We’ve entered March – indeed yesterday was the start of meteorological spring, but the gloom and negativity seems all encompassing. And I’ll be honest it’s hard personally to shake myself out of my own sense of depression and fear at the state of things. It’s hard to listen to someone on the phone telling you that they are having to lay off staff not because there is a lack of care work to do out there but because the local authority has decided that only those at high risk can receive care anymore because they have run out of money. It’s really hard not to feel a sense of hopelessness and worry that things will only get worse and all the time echoing in the background are the sounds of political soundbites saying ‘ it’ll be alright tomorrow when we reform things’ or simply an attitude which suggests ‘there is nothing to see here, just move along’

In thinking of what to write this week I have walked in the rain, the cold and sun and become aware of the seasons in an even more acute sense. I have recalled the lives of grandparents and others who got up every morning in darkness, struggled against elements throughout the day, and with weary bones rested through the night to start it all over again – and all their efforts were to birth growth in the barrenness of emptiness, to bring forth fields of corn and a pen full of lambs and calves. Despite all the hardness and trouble theirs was a regularity of practical hope in the midst of cold hard reality.

My mind has also turned to the fact that one of my favourite ‘days’ is happening later this week, on the 7^th we will be celebrating World Book Day. Regular readers will know how I find in words, in prose and poetry, a source of solace and insight, and how getting lost in the world of words and stories can help me (and others I know) find direction and hope.

Words escape from the pages and can create insight and illumination which can proffer change and renewal, give you the inkling of a new direction to follow, or simply the strength to remain true.

In one of those many bits of reading in the last few weeks I re-read some of the Words of the Day which Susie Dent produces in book and social media form. One I think captures the necessary spirit of the moment (for me at least) and that is the 16^th century word ‘respair’, which means fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.

The delivery of social care in Scotland, in care home and homecare, amongst staff and managers, within providers and commissioners, needs its own time of respair , we desperately need to recover from the despair of cuts and reductions, from withdrawal and entrenchment. But that will only happen not at the hands of building utopian systems and frameworks, models or systems, but on the ground in the hands of the women and men who every day make a difference because of their compassionate care and support. We need to work through the blasts of this wintertime to find the energies to plant hope into our actions so that we can harvest a new way of being and doing that renews people. There is so much that is gloriously wonderful in what is happening every day across the country, I really hope in all the talk of change and restriction, of cutbacks and removal, we do not lose sight of the essence of social care.

But our optimism and hope must be grounded in the reality of the hard work that is needed to enable flourishing and fruitfulness to happen. We do not build our tomorrows on the dreams of the night but on the visions of the daytime; visions of a tomorrow better than our moment.

I love so much of what Julia Donaldson writes, and her poem ‘I Opened a Book’ reminds me that escape as I will on World Book Day and on many other nights, we all need to come back to ourselves; and for social care that means not soundbites and systems, but re-discovering the priorities of care in season and out. We need to find respair.

‘I Opened a Book’

I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

Taken from I Opened A Book by Julia Donaldson – Scottish Poetry Library

Donald Macaskill

My late mother had many favourite quotes most of which I have forgotten – so it is good to have a sister to remind me and to continue her voice! But one I can very well remember not least because she used it so often was ‘Treat others the way you want them to treat you.’ It was her equivalent of the biblical imperative often known as the Golden Rule where Christ says: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I’m not saying by any stretch of the imagination that I have lived up to the standards of the Golden Rule, but it was what came to my mind when I read the social media posts of the UK Government’s Home Secretary James Cleverley this past week. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he almost seemed to delight and relish in stating that he had laid an order in the House of Commons on Monday, which will ‘ban overseas care workers from bringing dependents.’ and that ‘this is just one part of our plan to deliver the biggest ever cut in migration.’

What he was referring to was a decision first announced in December 2023 and given a date this past week that from the 11^th March ‘social care workers will not be allowed to bring dependants (that is, partners and children) on their visa.’ It is part of a set of new measures including the fact that the minimum income normally required to sponsor someone for a spouse/partner visa will rise in stages from £18,600 per year to £29,000 and ultimately around £38,700.’ See more details at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9920/

The UK Government has said that approximately 120,000 dependants accompanied 100,000 care workers and senior care workers in the year ending September 2023. We have of course, no way of verifying these figures and even if they are true, I would want to ask what is the issue?

I have written and spoken a lot about the need for an immigration approach which is sensitive to the uniqueness of the Scottish demographic and the reality that we have such a high level of demand in our health and social care systems. I do not necessarily want to underline those points here because in a sense you either accept or reject the argument that social care organisations are unable to recruit and retain staff at sustainable levels- despite all the measures they have taken including terms and conditions which are better than anywhere in the UK – although still not good enough. But in summary my main arguments about why international recruitment remains vital are as follows:

‘Scotland is an ageing society and has a declining population. Sadly, as we age and live longer, we are not doing so healthily and that brings a personal and societal cost to it. In addition, our population which is still active, and working is older and inevitably less productive because of health, fitness, and energy. We have also seen after Covid19 an increase in the number of those described as ‘inactive’ in the labour market – that is those of working age who have either retired early or chosen not to work. Added to this people are thinking of the ‘life-work’ balance not the ‘work-life balance’ and deciding that doing less work is the way to achieve that.

Therefore, by simple arithmetical calculation we bluntly do not have enough people to do the jobs we need filled to function as a modern society.’

What I want briefly to reflect on today is the hostile nature of the UK Government’s approach to immigration which is doing untold damage to the image of our communities and the sustainability of social care organisations, and in turn is directly affecting the lives and welfare of our fellow citizens. I do not think it is hyperbole to state that the logical conclusion to such a hostile environment is the unnecessary harm and potential deaths of citizens who require social care support. If there are not enough care workers, then people are at real risk.

The statements and invective from the UK Government are creating a toxic environment in which international recruiters of skilled nurses and care staff are already telling me that people across the world are being put off from even considering coming to Scotland because it is perceived that they – and certainly their families – are not welcome and are not wanted. We seem to be sending a message which on the one hand is saying ‘Come and work in our services and supports, in our hospitals and care homes, in our communities and help us be healthy and well… but do not even consider bringing your own families and being well and whole and healthy in your own mind and body. ‘We need you; we want you, but we will use you.’

The commoditisation of people by a hostile immigration policy is a shaming of our shared humanity and politicians appealing for votes are plumbing the lowest common denominator by their actions. What does it say to our contemporary society that those who care for others should not have due care and attention given to their own needs? – and for many that means being with family, creating a space to belong, becoming rooted as our neighbours and becoming our fellow Scots.

We can and have to do better. So back to my old mother, ‘Treat others the way you want them to treat you.’

I have reflected about my upbringing a fair bit this week not least as we are in the midst of Seachdain na Gàidhlig or World Gaelic Week. Taking place from 19th – 25th February 2024, Seachdain na Gàidhlig is the first official nationwide language week of its kind in Scotland, and it aims to promote Gaelic for all. ‘The theme for the 2024 edition of the cultural celebration is Do Chànan. Do Chothrom, which translates to Your Language, Your Opportunity. Participants are encouraged to showcase how the Gaelic language benefits and enriches lives, opening doors for connections, collaboration, and success.’

The week captures part of the essence of Gaelic culture which I have been aware of from my childhood – and that is an openness to others, an enrichening of self by contact with people, an appreciation of difference and with diversity. In essence Gaelic culture recognises the human truth which lies at the heart of all social care, namely that we become who we are by being open, by being hospitable to friend and stranger alike.

Hospitality needs to be at the heart of any civilised society’s approach to immigration. It is a lived ideal which is intrinsic to the Gaelic culture which has so enriched and enabled our country to be what it is and can be. The very concept of hospitality in Gaelic culture is a rich one deserving its own blog, but for our present purposes, in short it carries connotations of health and wellbeing. Work was paused as people were given space to be welcomed, fed, nourished, and nurtured. Our fellow Celts in Ireland even had hospitality to travellers and strangers written into their ancient laws, and most of us know the story that the shock at the heart of the Massacre at Glencoe is first and foremost that it was an assault on the traditional practice of hospitality more than anything else.

To be hospitable is part of the Scottish psyche, it is part of our DNA to welcome and give value to those who as yet do not belong to us.

An immigration policy rooted in the Scottish tradition and spirit of hospitality better fits the humanity of our nation; it better fits the nature of social care which those of us who work in the sector seek to foster, and those who receive care and support expect to experience.

In this Gaelic Week, we are called to give an open hand rather than a shut door to the dependents of those we are increasingly dependent upon.

When I read the statement of James Cleverly and the subsequent justification by the UK Government for this hostile act, I was reminded of the poetry of Uyen Loewald, an Australian migrant of Vietnamese background, who was subjected to racial oppression and discrimination when first migrating to Australia. Her poem ‘Be good little migrants’ is well known to Australians and is a visceral critique of those who expect migrants to sacrifice their human dignity in order to ‘fit in and gain favour’. It is the very opposite of hospitality and should serve as a warning of the sort of society some would have us become. It is not treating others the way I would want to be treated.

 

Be good little migrants

We’ve saved you from starvation

war, landlessness, oppression

Just display your gratitude

but don’t be heard, don’t be seen

Be good little migrants

Give us your faithful service

sweep factories, clean mansions,

prepare cheap exotic food

pay taxes, feed the mainstream

Be good little migrants

Use leisure with prudence

sew costumes, paint murals

write music, and dance to our tune

Our culture must not be dull

Be good little migrants

We’ve given you opportunity

for family reunion

equality, and status, though

your colour could be wrong.

Be good little migrants

Learn English to distinguish

ESL from RSL

avoid unions and teach children

respect for institutions

Be good little migrants

You may fight one another, but

attend Sunday school, learn manners

keep violence within your culture

save industry from criminals

Be good little migrants

Intelligence means obedience

just follow ASIO, CIA spy on your countrymen

hunt commies for Americans

Be good little migrants

Museums are built for your low arts

for your multiculturalism

in time you’ll reach excellence

Just waste a few generations.

Donald Macaskill

Photo by Krzysztof Hepner on Unsplash