Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 9th November 2025

I’ve had a lovely couple of days this week in Dublin at a conference put on by the good folk at Dovida Ireland – a big organisation committed to doing things differently. First of all, it’s a joy to spend time in rooms with people. Much as I appreciate the ability to reach lots of you by a Zoom call, nothing beats sharing physical space. And I had some lovely moments.

How’s this for a great photo test?  

Apologies for blurred out faces, but I wanted to share the real photograph. I’d gone to get some fresh air on Wednesday afternoon having had a very early flight and several online calls, and as I was walking back through a square of park, I saw the two police officers having a kick-about with two boys. I stopped and watched for a good five minutes as the police officers took it in turns to stand in the makeshift goal up against the wall and have the boys pound balls at them. What a beautiful example of policing. The photos are taken as the game was coming to an end, both officers had just fist-bumped both the boys, and they were having a chat.

I waited, because I’m a curious (and nosey) person, for the two officers to start patrolling again and walked with them for a couple of minutes, explaining what I do and sharing the idea of Test Three with them. They really loved it, and I told them they’d properly made my heart sing to see such a lovely, natural interaction going on.

They explained in return that there were groups of young lads in that neighbourhood who started to be a little bit troublesome (their words) and that it made sense to them, rather than getting to the point where their policing role became sorting out problems and upholding the law, for their role to be about building connections and relationships. I guess you’d call that prevention, wouldn’t you, or maybe just common sense?  Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes, they went on their way, and I went on mine. What joy.

I had some other lovely moments during the conference.

Chats with people about things that were making sense to them about Gloriously Ordinary Lives, and also things that were not making sense. I had a big conversation with a woman I’ll call Mandy on the importance or not about the idea of professionalism. Helen Sanderson was also there, sharing her learning from Wellbeing Teams and values-based recruitment – how powerful it is to look for people with a good heart and soul and the values of humanity, who we can then teach any skills and knowledge around social care and direct support that we need to. I shared an example from when I was still recruiting personal assistants of a message on my street WhatsApp that led to me employing my friend’s 19-year-old daughter, Lola, who lived just across the road. Mandy’s point (very rightly) was to challenge the notion that if anyone’s neighbour can come in and do a social care job, and it doesn’t matter what you know, your skills and qualifications, then why on earth should we be fighting to pay people better?

I think the point is that we’re not saying by any stretch of the imagination that anyone can do the job of directly supporting me, my kids or my Mum - far from it. What we are saying, though, is how dangerous it is to believe that we can simply legislate and formally train or certify for those roles. Lola was a great fit as a PA for The Girl, because she was a performing arts student and The Girl loves music and dancing. I already knew this, but what I didn’t know was that Lola also regularly said hello to The Girl when she was out and about where we live and that she felt a connection. Lola had never worked as a PA before or had anything to do with the world of social care, and it took the message on the WhatsApp group for her to have the confidence to approach me.

She didn’t start working the next day as a personal assistant, simply with her gifts and talents in performing arts, she spent three days working paid shifts alongside three different PAs who knew The Girl really well. At the end of those three days, we had a chat about what she had learnt. I asked some key questions around what good support looks like for The Girl, and I spoke to all three personal assistants she’d done shifts with.  We established that she was a good fit for the role and the role was a good fit for her, oh, and The Girl does, of course, get the final say. So straight away she’d had 30 hours + training, and I’m pretty certain that most people start roles as support workers without that.

The final nugget from Dublin I want to share is something that comes up lots in our Glorious Ordinary Language programme, and that’s the idea that there are certain times and places where there are words that we simply have to use even though we might not like them. It’s fascinating that wherever I go (and I’ve had this conversation in several different countries now), there is a belief that there are certain things that must be written.

People talk about ‘legislative frameworks’, the expectations of regulators and commissioners, about assessments, support plans and reports. It’s linked to the idea that certain words ‘trigger’ support or a particular service, so if you write that I’m a vulnerable adult, there will be nodding of heads and some action …..if I’m ‘complex’ you can refer me to the Complex Care team but unless I use the word complex then that support won’t be triggered. Firstly, the concept that these words have legal or regulatory weight is just not true (I promise, go check), and secondly, they generally don’t tell you anything factual about me.

What does it look like for me to be complex? To be vulnerable? What does that mean about what support I need, what my Gloriously Ordinary Life might look like? Nothing.

So, can we take a collective responsibility, whatever our role, to use language that is factual and human, to take a stand and to push back when others are not? I think I might need to hop on a podcast with Bryony Shannon about this one!

PS. Did you see? The Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast episode 14 is here. You'll hear that I am absolutely thrilled to introduce you all to the lovely ⁠⁠⁠Marianne Selby-Boothroyd⁠⁠⁠, who's joining the Gloriously Ordinary Lives team... that's right, the Gloriously Ordinary Lives team! How exciting is that? Have a listen, and we'd love to hear what you think!