What is the primary purpose, or task, of a prison? Punishment? Protection of the public from violent offenders?  Rehabilitation?  The purpose of prisons is different for different people. Whatever is deemed the ‘primary task’ of the prison will determine almost everything about it: its architecture, culture, internal décor, regime, staff recruitment, policies, organisational structure and measures of success[i].

Therefore the ‘primary task’ is of critical importance in determining every dimension and outcome. This is a subject I have been coming back to since listening to an episode of “The Secure Start” podcast.  Personally, I’ve been struck and challenged by the question ‘what are you here for?’ and have found it interesting to explore this question both personally, and for Concrete Rose corporately – and to better understand the intersection between the two.

Personal reflections

Mark Twain insightfully observed: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”.

For me, the ‘why’ came in mid-2001 at the foot of the French Alps.  Surrounded by imposing mountains and seated under the awe-inspiring night sky lit up by the Milky Way, I felt at the same time totally insignificant and yet somehow known and loved by a God who was real and involved.  In hindsight I see this experience best articulated by Psalm 8:

“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers – the moon and the stars you set in place – what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honour.”

This encounter not only sparked a lifelong journey of trying to follow Jesus[ii] (with some ups and downs along the way) but also a desire to live for a purpose beyond myself and to communicate this significance of every individual to others.  This inspiration and aspiration has resulted in over 20 years of working with young people and particularly those who, through circumstance and life experience, have a distorted sense of self-worth and capability.  Inevitably it has also influenced the purpose and culture of Concrete Rose.

Organisational reflections

When working out the ‘why’ or primary task of an organisation, it is often helpful to ask what is the one thing that the organisation must do to survive and succeed. As Menzies Lyth points out “in commercial institutions it is to make profit, since without making it they will not survive, although the precise methods adopted to make profit may be more open to debate and subject to change in changing circumstances”.

When it comes to ‘humane institutions’ that look to effect change with people, it is rarely so reductionistic, yet it is often muddled – resulting in negative effects on the whole organisation, its outcomes and particularly in staff and volunteer satisfaction.  If staff don’t understand the primary task, how can they know they have achieved it?  In fact, ‘mission drift’ away from the primary task is in some ways inevitable without mechanisms to continually refocus on and communicate the primary task.  There is also a balance to be struck between remaining ‘on task’ and creating an organisation that can be flexible, innovative and responsive to need.

So what is the primary task of Concrete Rose and the one thing it must do to survive/succeed?  Accommodation? Mentoring? Training? Advocacy?  This is something that has taken some time to distil even as a young organisation and as its founder!

In approaching this question, it was firstly helpful to identify and articulate two foundational principles that have always been (and will always be) fundamental to our work.  These are akin to the two lenses in a pair of glasses, through which we evaluate our work and the opportunities before us (including new initiatives) and which must be in play to express the DNA of the organisation.

The first of these, self-evidently, is a focus on responding to the real and felt needs of young people – and notably young people without sufficient family support structures e.g. those who are care-experienced or have complicated relationships with family[iii]. Initially, Concrete Rose was set up to respond to concerns about the inadequacy and insufficiency of accommodation for young people at risk of homelessness in Cambridge(shire). Many of these needs and risks have their origins in relational poverty.

The second ‘lens’ is the desire to root the response in the community.  We believe not only that there is sufficient capacity, concern and goodwill within the community to genuinely change the outcomes for young people, but also that this allows for a significantly more relational response when we can move the support away from purely ‘professional’ context. Reflecting the importance of relationships (both quality and quantity), we sometimes describe ourselves as a “professional community of non-professionals” or as one mentor once described it, an “irrepressible village”.  This is not to diminish the role of professionals, nor the recognition of the need to employ staff, but that our work lies in resourcing and equipping those in the community to make a difference.  In this sense, the role of Concrete Rose is to provide the context (boundaries, support, training, protocols etc) for members of the community to share their resources, time, gifts and talents and impact the lives of young people in positive ways.  This way of working addresses the relational poverty at the root of many young people’s struggles, fuelling loneliness and mental health issues, and creating barriers to learning and meaningful employment. Leveraging community resource also creates a degree of longevity and a multiplier factor that we could never sustain from within our limited resources.

These two lenses adequately capture our primary task (to respond to the prescient needs of young people) and our methodology (using community assets and through these two lenses, it is easy to see how our two main programmes of supported lodgings and mentoring for care-experienced/estranged students came into being.  Both respond to needs, and both galvanise community capacity in the form of hosts and mentors.

So to crystallise the main principles of our work:

• Practically responding to need
• Equipping the community to respond

Nevertheless, if we were to stop here, it would feel as if there were something missing: our “primary task” is not just what we do but the way we go about it – in our case, in a deeply relational way, communicating that each person matters[iv].  Put most simply our “primary task” is underpinned by love[v].

Having established these core elements, my next step was to try to articulate it as clearly and concisely as possible.  Currently, our website states:  “First-class accommodation and support enabling young people to flourish”.  This is possibly not far off (it encapsulates the ways we currently meet the needs of young people) – although it misses some of the elements described above.  My attempts to rework this can be found below:

• First-class accommodation and support enabling young people to flourish
• First-class accommodation and support rooted in community and enabling young people to flourish
• First class accommodation and support, rooted in community and empowered by love, enabling young people to flourish.

Clearly this still needs some workshopping! (Answers on a postcard if you have any thoughts!)

Outcomes

In terms of outcomes, my belief is that, in responding to the actual needs of young people in ways that demonstrate love and care, the results will be transformative. In particular, that young people would understand their own significance, gain a sense of hope and purpose and be able to fulfil their hopes, dreams and potential.  This is also something that to some extent can be measured and it is important to be able to find measurement criteria that prove our task is successful.

However, it is important to realise that this is not something we can control or dictate, and that the young person themselves will always be the key agent in their own life journey.  We can only create good and fertile soil for growth. Therefore, we can neither take much credit for transformation, nor much disappointment when things don’t change.  This recognition is important as we try to establish our own measures of success: our model dictates that these must be rooted in our own actions rather than the results in others.  In the words of Mother Teresa, “God has not called us to be successful; he has called us to be faithful”.

It is also important to recognise that the work of supporting young people is a two-way thing: it has the potential to be equally enriching, life-affirming and transformative to those providing this support. Holding in mind the reciprocity of relationships prevents us doing things “to” people and instead, simply journeying through life “to-gether”, and appreciating this is a process that will change both parties.

In response

If this article has resonated with you, then maybe establishing the primary task for yourself – personally or professionally – could be a next step?  Simply ask “What are you here for?” and try and pin the answer down as succinctly and coherently as possible.  It might take a while and you may not get the most coherent outcome (it is also likely to change over time) but I’m sure it will be fruitful in fuelling your sense of purpose

 

[i] The primary task may exist as an official version but be overtaken by an unofficial version. This is a reason why clarity is important. The unofficial version is likely to be anti-task, inconsistent, and difficult to challenge in the absence of a clearly articulated primary task.

[ii] Essentially to follow Jesus is to try and live in a way that Jesus would and apply his wisdom and character to life scenarios

[iii]   Whilst we hold loose boundaries in defining young people are expertise and inclination leads us to focus on those in adolescence (14-30)

[iv] For an interesting article on mattering see: https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/1185/1395

[v] As the bible notes worthy things done without love are ultimately pointless: “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3.  Later in the same passage a definition is given of what constitutes the purest (or divine) form of love – far above romantic, familial or brotherly love:  “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.