Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 24th November 2024

Quick one this week. Consider it a public service announcement (and in no way a rant, not at all).

Gloriously Ordinary Lives is in danger of becoming GOL.

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

As you all know, Gloriously Ordinary Lives is just my way of trying to explain what we all want out of life, and therefore what this means if support from social care needs to be something that enables our Gloriously Ordinary Lives. If it becomes an acronym, then something hopefully beautiful gets taken over and owned by Serviceland. It excludes people who don’t know what the acronym means and starts a power game I don’t want to be part of.

Person-centred planning became PCP.

Personal budgets became PBs.

My lovely fellow convenors at Social Care Future know that I’ll never write SCF.

Several times in the last couple of weeks people have typed PWS into the chat on a Zoom call (people we support apparently)

Don’t get me started on LD or LAC.

I had an email a couple of months ago asking,

‘Is GOL just for people with LD/ASD or could it be for YP with MH?’

I took a deep breath and waited 24 hours before replying.

Here’s the point. My absolute nightmare is that Gloriously Ordinary Lives becomes a ‘thing’,

Oh yes, we do Gloriously Ordinary Lives.

And when we start ‘doing’ something it becomes just one more thing in the Serviceland bubble. We probably do it on a Thursday morning.

I don’t think I need to say any more. You get it. Help me out folks and keep it real.

Big love to you all.

PS. Did you see? The Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast episode 8 is here. I chat with the wonderful ⁠Mary Gardner, and we discuss how Direct Payments and personal assistants are a key route to Gloriously Ordinary Lives. We share 5 top tips for Local Authorities on making Direct Payments and personal assistants work effectively.

PPS. Have you heard the news?

Tricia Nicoll and Kate Mercer are excited to announce our new programme, Advocating with and for Gloriously Ordinary Lives, starting in January 2025.

A Gloriously Ordinary Lives and Black Belt Advocacy collaboration.

BOOKING IS NOW LIVE! To find out more and book a place, click here.