The grey book

One of my work colleagues is my all-time hero. She's got a fantastic attitude when it comes to making the voluntary sector great and she sets up charities left, right and centre whenever she sees a need. The last one she set up was for dads who, through false allegations made by a former partner, were prevented from seeing their children grow up. In three months she had them organised and had supervised Saturdays set up. This means that, provided someone else is with them (unobstrusively), the dads can be with their kids. Julie is A-MA-ZING.

Once, she told me something along the lines of: "Look Dany, it's our job, we're getting paid for it, we're knowledgeable and we have great networks. If we can't do it, then tell me who the hell can."

Let's not kid ourselves though. She is also very much the exception and most third sector professionals, while reasonably efficient, are nowhere near displaying this level of enthusiasm and hard-headedness. But some are, I'd say maybe one in ten, one in five if I'm optimistic... By working in this sector, you do end up meeting them.

An interesting thing to note is that Julie is not great at everything she does. She sometimes "signposts" people to complete dead end services that may not be all that useful to them. Her signposting drives me crazy. Still, if she were perfect she'd be unimitable. As it is she's not perfect, she makes mistakes, she sometimes lacks reflexivity, but she get things done like there is no tomorrow.

Her signposting is not such a bad idea though, if it worked. It acknowledge the fact that one person or organisation cannot do everything and that the service user might need to be signposted to another person or agency which can be trusted to do a great job. For a while, I've been thinking that the medical first aid training I received should be complemented by some form of social first aid training. I received a tiny bit of it as a Niteliner, mostly to to with exam stress, HIV, suicide and bereavement.

I'm thinking that I need a "grey book", with a couple of paragraphs of best practices under each heading, and the best people or agencies that people could be signposted to if I or the people around me do not have the capacity to help. This is becoming quite pressing now as it's only a few month until H. has to be the visible face ot the Church in a middle size town. My thinking is, if you're going to walk around in a dog collar, then you'd better put on a damn good show and not ignore the needs around you, especially when approached directly. He agrees.

So now grey book will have to be compiled and fast. Fortunately, I've just spent two years as a third sector professional, I love collecting information and I enjoy networking with cool people. Here are the possible headings:

Advice and information

Animal welfare

Armed services

Arts and Community Arts

Bereavement

Carers and Carer respite care

Careers and worklessness

Childcare

Clothing

Counselling

Crime prevention

Education (adults)

Education (children)

Environment and conservation

Ethnic minorities

Families

Finances (personal and family)

Foodbanks

LGBT

Health promotion

History

Hospital visits

Housing and homelessness

Libraries

Listening services

Learning disabilities

Loneliness and isolation

Lone parents

Marriage

Meals-on-wheels

Mental health

Mediation

Older people

Overseas aid projects

Perinatal support and young children

Physical disabilities

Politics, democracy and campaigning

Poverty (hidden)

Prisoners and past offenders

Prisoners' families

Recreation and leisure

Refugees and asylum seekers

Road safety

Safety in the community

Substance abuse

Toy libraries / toy buses

Transport issues

Women and girls

Young people