From Isolation to Transformation: Hazel Stuteley at TEDxExeter
so take a look at the picture behind you this is one of the communities we're working with and there's actually two communities there there's the people who live there and the people that work there just hang on to that image of the two communities and I'm just briefly going to talk you through my question and it's about health inequalities and it's about why are we so bad in this country at dealing preventing because it's all preventable the poor health of the poor why has billions of government investment given the link with poverty billions of pounds worth of investment in communities that are struggling poor communities it hasn't made a jot of difference so uh I'm going to tell you a little bit today about something that does make a difference and it's got nothing to do with money it's got everything to do with enabling connecting and listening and the story for me began in the 60s and I was born in a council house I was seriously awful at school in the 60s when in my teenage years because I was obsessed with the Beatles utterly obsessed good Obsession to have but 1967 two then two deeply traumatic events happened to me very painful the pain is still with me now Paul McCartney married somebody else and I had my tonsils out and I went to hospital and felt completely right there two years later so I was a nurse at King's College Hospital I was confronted with health inequalities and I saw the St contrast I went out with the community Midwife you know the Midwife on Sunday night that's me on the bike cycling around taking delivery packs around Louis and I you see a lot on a bike it just hit me the stark contrast between the people at the bottom of the hill in leam how well they were and how unwell sorry run way around how unwell they were at the bottom of the hill and how well they were at the top of the hill in Black Heath and that kind of had a big effect on me so I became a health visitor in the 70s moved to corm more did not expect to have the challenges that I had in cmore so learned about K was actually the poorest county I'm sure you all know that and I learned in the 70s as a health visitor had some of my worst child protection Challenges ever and um realized then the power of being disconnected if this was about rural Pro poverty and how isolated and isolation then in the 80s I worked with teenagers on remand in care and I learned the devast ating consequences all those kids were born into poor circumstances of not being listened to those young people I'd love to say I was still in touch with them I'm not because they took their own lives okay fast forward to the 90s Health visitor have a look at that picture it's cheek by jowl affluence and poverty you don't expect to see that in Fus that estate at the back of the multi-million pound Marina was the poorest Ward poorest it's a council Ward we called it the beacon estate but it was actually penis Council estate of penw poorest ward in the poorest county and in the early '90s I was a health to there for a decade 1990 to 2000 I watched it spiral out of control and then in 1994 I became part of a process that saw it completely a complete rebirth if you like they turned things around for themselves and this is how we did it when you face if I just give you one sentence I won't give you stats of how bad things were on that estate if I tell you that as a nurse I had to have police protection at one point this was a this was a community pushing the self-destruct button totally we were Health visitors we couldn't cope there was a recession on cutbacks 1994 melting meltdown we knew we had to work in a different way way we could not cope it was a bottomless pit of need we could not cope with their illness with the depression levels so we knew we had to do something different our starting point maybe and I'm when I'm saying our it was two of us two Health visitors was that we actually really really believed that the community the residents we believed in them they were the solution and not the problem that's what we believe everybody else the police local Authority every other statutary agency had abandoned that Community they were just not there they're invisible think of the two communities so we knew we had to somehow protect them uh connect them we how are we going to do this we will run off our feet well this is where enablement kicks in and I had a wonderful nurse manager very glamorous lady Anita f a Cooper and when Phil and I said to her we've got this idea of turning around the community but we think the residents need to lead it she didn't say you're Bonkers she didn't say sick to wearing baby she said what can I do to help you big message there okay so connecting bringing back that second Community bringing back the police bringing back all the other services we needed we couldn't do we couldn't fix beacon on our own lots of cynicism we asked them we said please come and help us we think the residents need to lead this if we want real change will you come and join us there were possibly 30 agencies who could have joined us three did and that was the police that was the local Authority and that was education we then went to the residents we asked 20 to help us wonderful Brave courageous people moms and dads who just wanted a better life for their kids out of 205 self- select you had to be brave because it was a scary place okay we call them the famous five cuz they were do you know what they did to help get that Collective voice remember this was a desperate desperate estate it was survival nobody was connected to anybody we connected them the service providers listened in four years this is what all the housing looked like in four years quite quickly we had got 2.2 million the residents got it not a handout that's important we were nominated for an award we we met regularly over those four years so that's the service providers and the Famous Five magic started to happen and while we were meeting the community started to come together marvelous things started to happen they were fundraising for themselves they were taking responsibility all sorts of organizations um started to spring up oh the their imagination was band us to raise money they did bungee jumping they did pig racing don't ask it was nothing to do with the police okay and we we got four years down the line and we fact we knew something wonderful was happening and we might have left it there cuz suddenly all our jobs we could do our jobs I could do my health visiting the crisis it had all gone people said then we had somebody nominated for us award and a number cruncher said what are your outcomes and we had counted any anything we were too busy doing it and our our outcomes were quite amazing uh remember uh didn't even say this to you when the residents spoke to the service providers they said they wanted three things fixed they wanted jobs they wanted their homes done uh fixed up and they wanted the crime to go so in those four years when we counted we had there was a 50% drop in all crime right across the board 71% drop in unemployment and this is what the houses look like but you know what else happened at the same time we started counting other things boys educational attainment had gone up 100% because we had brought postnatal depression down by 70% asthma rates dropped 50% so they they got themselves well hadn't they so I'm going to fast forward you ah no the gardens sorry I just how well do people feel look this is that's what the gardens used to look like this is what made people well they they felt good about themselves okay and I think the one of the famous five this is what he said and he this is the Beating Heart of Beacon it never went back to the way it was all right the residents still lead Beacon Community regeneration partnership be crap okay um when and this was wonderful something very powerful had happened and I wanted to replicate this how was I going to do this then I met my enabler and he's here today Jonathan dead Jonathan said I think this had something to do with complexity Theory I was so cynical complexity Theory I can think see you God how dull is that it's just sounds so dull actually it should be called The Theory of Everything that's wonderful about fixing broken communities because guys it's all there the self-organizing the creating enabling conditions I'm not going to go into it now cuz I'm running out of time and I really want to get on to something else but believe me that gave me the permission we've spread this stuff everywhere now we connect we connect communities we do exchange visits this is uh new Crossgate and falou this was jerk chicken meeting Cornish pasty that's how we connect the power of listening the power of listening the first guys ever to do connect in communities we put it together two years of research we' put it together in a course by now and complexity was at the heart listening it is so important if you listen to a damaged Community it will always tell you what it needs to heal and it's nothing to do with needs assessment it's nothing to do with consultation you just listen exchange visit okay uh TR 14 is Dave listened the kids said they wanted to dance the power of dance to heal cbor was extraordinary look at those cool dudes in four or five years education entertainment had gone up antisocial Behavior had dropped their health had improved it impacted on every part of cbor that Community where child poverty was Sprat through the roof I'm going to finish with [Laughter] [Applause] this never ever give up that's something we call a Trojan Mouse do something small and wonderful things will happen it's tough It's hard doing this the rewards are huge I just I seriously I'm going to finish this I just want to show you all over the country where connecting communities is now and where communities are healing and transforming because they're enabled because they're connected and because they're listen to and that just says it all do you know leoty 600 BC I think that guy had an i somebody with an iPad there's lots of his quotes going around aren't they but that says it all we have done it for ourselves and that's what they're saying all over the country and thank you very much everybody