For over five years, whilst working within the DWP, probably be around 2012 and 2018, I fulfilled a role as part of an “experimental team”, called The Social Justice Team.
We all worked across Essex, were a team of probably only 25, and were outreach.
Some of us were “loaned” to local authorities, some of us based within Jobcentres. I did both roles, spending a couple years, in each role.
The manager who oversaw us and indeed helped set up this team, facilitated monthly meetings where we could all meet up, share best practise, share our stories and get support.
We worked across a very wide range of sectors/charities/services, and our remit was to help families in chaos to remove the barriers they had, to eventually get them to the point where they were “work ready”. It was hard work and we regularly worked 12 hour days, travelled a lot and worked with people either in their own homes or places outside the Jobcentres like public libraries (where many of us set up “job clubs”).
It entailed working extremely closely with;
Probation
Police
After-care team (careleavers)
Social Services
Housing
Drug and alcohol rehab
Local councils
Local charities.
Former Gang members.
Travellers.
When I attended one of my first monthly meetings our manager shared this “story”;
“A boy and his wise grandfather were walking early one morning, upon a beach littered with dying starfish, stranded from the outgoing tide.
Every two steps the grandfather would slowly and painfully reach down, very gently pick up a starfish and place it carefully back into the sea. Grandfather, the boy asked, there’s so many dying starfish here, why are you bothering to save just a few? It makes no difference. Grandfather knelt down to his grandsons height and gently replied, it makes a difference to those we save”
I worked with so many desperate people and families, including some unaccompanied youths from war torn countries, some families born in this country but torn apart by horrific events in their lives, drug addicts, prison leavers, victims of both sexual and domestic abuse.
The starfish analogy has stayed with me.
We cannot save everyone, we cannot have all asylum seekers living here, but we can do “our bit”.
Had I stayed within the private sector working for commercial companies, I would never have been exposed to people, families, events, which have really shaped me.
It made me far more emphatic, more compassionate and certainly extremely grateful for my own situation.
I met Asylum Seekers, I attended conferences and training around people trafficking and modern slavery.
We worked directly with Kent and Essex Serious Crime Squad and on a project with Essex police around gangs and county lines.
When I speak about these things, I speak from personal and lived experience, I see people as human beings, I check and doublechech my sources, I rarely post simple opinions, I try to stick with facts. (Still I managed to sometimes get it wrong).
It was truly an eye opening few years, I considered it a privilege to be invited to listen to these people’s stories, be invited into their homes, and to actually make a difference with a sizeable proportion of them.
Thank you, to anyone who has actually made it to the end of my long post.
