Guinea Pig syndrome?…..

Many people have heard of, or can identify with, imposter syndrome. The behavioural health phenomenon described as self-doubt of intellect, skills, or accomplishments among high-achieving individuals.

But how many charity leaders could identify with “Guinea Pig syndrome”?

About 12 years ago, my partner and I, before our children, purchased a couple of house pets.  A couple of guinea pigs.  Noisy little buggers, but they were good pets, took minimal management, and provided the required level of interaction and feedback to make having them, an enjoyable experience. 

One day, about 4 months into ownership, we came home to see one of them, laying on its side in the cage, not moving much, fairly lifeless.  What ensued in the following few hours was enlightening to say the least. After booking the little chap in to the nearest emergency vet, and paying the consultation fee, Bank Holiday rate, of course it was, we were told that the poor thing was almost certain to die in the next few hours. 

We did the humane thing. But the following chat with the Vet was an education.

We were telling him that the guinea pig was rushing around, eating and everything appeared completely normal the previous day, and the vet explained, that this is what guinea pigs do, they hide any illness, any difficulties and anything which might suggest they are vulnerable, because they are a preyed upon animal, they basically make every effort to show outwardly that everything is ok, even though they might be struggling, and then, they just suddenly die.

Wow.  It shows a remarkable level of determination of course, and an impressive level of courage, but my partner and I tagged the process “Guinea Pig syndrome”.

So, you might be asking yourself as you read this, what is this? How is this linked to charity leadership?

Well, This is how I can best describe being a leader of a small to medium charity, in the context of a National brand presence. People have the wrong impression of who we are, and how we are affiliated.

Outwardly, our charity is operating under a very well known and well-resourced brand, a National brand in fact. 

This affiliation leads to a level of public confusion, which is to a degree, beneficial, but for the most part, potentially damaging.

As a member of a federated network of charities, the most popular misconception is that we are a “branch” of the national organisation, and therefore supported fully, resourced centrally, and enabled somehow, to be a healthy organisation, irrespective of the local and national challenges of the cost-of-living crisis, high inflation, reducing local authority contract prices etc. This misapprehension is really unhelpful at best, and damaging at its worst.

As a local charity, we are constituted locally, designed to be able to respond to local need, in a more agile way, far quicker, and with more relevance than a huge National charity.

This means that we have our own Board of Trustees, all volunteers by the way, and that we are charged with setting our own budgets, generating our own income, and managing, or attempting to manage our own charity business through the various challenges that businesses experience each day, week, month, and year.

Over the last 12 years, Age UK Kent Rivers has achieved a great deal within the confines of this confusing model, growth to reach nearly 20k older people across North Kent every year, the development of our own awareness campaign, #AskAboutAlf, the development of innovative services like the Clarendon Royal Community and sustained ourselves through the very challenging times of the global pandemic.

We have rolled with the punches, and always come through intact, presenting outwardly as “we are fine”.

However, the internal and external challenges we face have a detrimental impact on our efforts, and mask, to an extent, just how hard it is actually, to get through, to keep going, to sustain services.

I have lost count of the number of times customers and supporters tell me, “I give regularly to Age UK, because you do such a fantastic job taking care of my mum”, only to find out, that the person subscribes to the National organisations lottery, thinking they are directly supporting Age UK Kent Rivers.

I can’t tell you the number of calls we get to complain about missed donation collections, or poor customer experience in one of “our shops”, when in fact, we, have one shop, one very small shop in Gillingham, yet our area of benefit is used for the collection of donations through letter box bags, delivered at high costs, and donations are collected and whisked off to a regional warehouse to be distributed to National Age UK Shops which surround us. If we want to access those donations, we must pay per bag.  Let that sink in for a minute.

We must continually engage with local solicitors, to inform them of the difference between the local and National charities, because they are advising older people on leaving legacies to charities. 

Without our proactive messaging, it is all too easy to fulfil the request of a will maker, and name “Age UK” in the will, having heard about the valuable services enjoyed in later life in our area, services that only Age UK Kent Rivers provide, and yet, the name that goes into the will, from a pure lack of understanding is “Age UK”, the National charity.  It won’t reach the local charity.

This week, I learned that our National organisation will be using private site fundraising, as part of its own fundraising strategy.  This means that booths will be popping up all over the country, inside some of the popular high street shops, to recruit regular donors to Age UK.  People will be encouraged to set up a Direct Debit and make a regular monthly donation of £12 or more to the charity.  I wonder how many of those people will immediately assume that the “Age UK” they are donating to, is their local charity. The charity that provides the transport to and from its day services or dementia services, the charity that provides personal care to people at home, trips out, delivered meals, nail cutting across the community, respite care, extra care, exercise classes, falls prevention, wellbeing sessions, walking sports?  Because that charity, is the local charity, and in this area, it’s us, Age UK Kent Rivers.

Now I realise that none of this is anyone else’s problem, and in fact it is a problem our network have been engaged in discussion on, for every year of the 12 years I have been CEO, and hopefully, together, as a network of smaller charities, we can find a way to work together with the National charity in a way which helps make the distinction clear, clear for the general public, clear for funders. We are all committed to doing so, but in the meantime, it’s so very important to be clear about the difference, and to be clear that when we, as a local charity ask for support, or try to raise funds, that this message is understood.

Without this clarity of understanding, our own local efforts to be sustainable, supported by local fundraising, our attempts to secure corporate supporters, high net worth individuals to support our work, regular donors, regular take up of our services and regular referrals to our charity, run the very real risk of being overlooked.

We run the risk of being ignored, on the misconceived basis that “we are a huge charity with loads of money”, evidenced by the fact that we can afford national TV advertising….so apologies for shouting, but “THAT’S NOT US!!”

Of course its not all bad, I said at the start of this blog that the confusion can be a benefit, and sometimes it is, because yes, the brand is very well recognised, and that’s through a combination of National and local efforts over the past 12 years since we stopped being “Age Concern”, and yes, we benefit from a website which is hosted and paid for Nationally, and we do for now, get a small grant each year as part of our legal binding to the National charity, but it is so small in the context of the work we do locally, it really is.

It’s less than 10k, in a turnover of 7 million.

There are other benefits too, a network of colleagues in similar roles to meet with and share ideas with, a few other things too, but when the rubber hits the road, what happens in our patch, is down to us. 

It’s for us to design services, for us to register with CQC, for us to generate our income, for us to chase our debts, for us to balance our books, report to the Charities Commission, engage auditors etc, just like every other smaller charity.

So why I am making all this noise now?

It’s because we, Age UK Kent Rivers, are just about to start a much-needed fundraising campaign.  We have been through some immensely challenging changes this past year and have much to look forward to as a result, but we need fundraising support to get us through.  We need to raise funds now and to ensure that the message behind our fundraising ask is understood, and not confused with the National charity’s own efforts. 

We need to be clear, so we are not perceived as the Guinea Pig I mentioned in my opening lines, to all intents and purposes, visually fine, running around quite happily, just getting on with life, and then suddenly not.

We are Local, we deliver locally, for local people, responding to local needs and aspirations, with innovation, enthusiasm and professionalism that comes from an unswerving commitment to our beneficiaries.  Age UK Kent Rivers is determined to be here in the long term, for the generations which are yet to come, and to help ensure that every older person, and adult with a learning disability across our North Kent territory can Achieve Life’s Fullness.

Please don’t pass us by, please don’t assume you know who we are, come and find out.

Please don’t look the other way if we ask for support, thinking we are ok because we are part of something so much bigger.

The truth is, when it comes down to it, we are on our own.

We are trying our best to be here for everyone who needs us. But we need help.  We need funds, support, donations, legacies, and grants to help support our local people.

Does it always have to be new?….

Firstly a thank you to the all those who posted positive comments on my first blog for a while a couple of weeks ago, welcome support, truly appreciated.

In this blog I want to raise an issue and incite, if I can, some debate, healthy and productive of course, around an issue which I feel that many Charity sector leaders wrestle with on an ongoing basis.

The issue I want to talk about is charity funding. for too many years, the charity sector has been “offered” funding for want of a better word, through grants, either through local authorities, or grant making trusts and organisation, or contracts for service delivery. Of course fundraising through individual giving, legacies, corporate support and traditional fundraising events has a part to play, but I want to focus ion on the grants, and to a lesser extent, contracts.

it seems whatever the grant, whatever the amount, and whoever the grant maker, a consistent ask of charities is to innovate. grant makers are always on the look out for new and innovative ways to meet peoples needs through grant support, and expect often, chapters of narrative and outcome measures to describe how the service proposal / bid is “new and innovative” in its approach.

Now I completely understand the need, and positively encourage charities to think outside of the box, and to create mechanisms which are “new world” in order to engage with new “customers” for services, and meet peoples aspirations. this prevents of course, a stagnation of service provision, and a culture where people can “just do what they have always done”.

But, can I suggest that there is a place for funding the continuation of valuable services too. It’s essential of course, that services don’t remain “as they were” in perpetuity, but often at their core, are services which people rely on, and hold in their minds eye as “always available”, for when they might need them.

If a charity secures a grant for two years of work, to create a new service, designed to access a certain demographic of people that have bene missing out on appropriate support etc, why should they have to worry that toward the end of the initial two years, they will need to completely re-design the services, place staff at risk of redundancy, in anticipation that they might not be able to secure continued funding?

Of course every grant application will ask how the service will become sustainable, and charities have to think about how they can begin to deliver sustainable projects and have sensible plans for the end of the grant period, but often this is hampered by the limited period of time the grant is awarded in the first place, and the relentless desire by grant makers that every grant should be for a “new and innovative service”.

Broadly, the current grant awarding culture creates the very status quo which is decrees to resolve, filling gaps in service provision for vulnerable people….created by service closure, creating the gap…….and so on.

There is a real need for grant makers, and contract awarding bodies to understand the impact of short term grants and contracts, coupled with the unwavering desire to crow about innovation.

Often the organisations that do manage to “flex” their service model sufficiently to meet the evolving criteria of a grant maker, will share that actually, they just changed the name of the service maybe, or tweaked it slightly to satisfy the funder. What a complete waste of time that is! Not only time, but anxiety across staffing teams, some caution in staff development perhaps as the grant expiry date approaches, and the not inconsiderable costs in re-producing an entire new project plan, bid or tender.

The culture undermines charities ability to plan effectively too, any 5 year business plan will have a few question marks in, surrounding key income streams, and of course the constant presence of associated risks in the organisations risk matrix ensures Trustees spend much of their volunteer time, focussing on the, “what is the impact on the organisation” question, rather than the “how can we increase our impact with our beneficiary’s” question.

My own organisation has just been through massive growth in our territory, those who read my last block will know about the mechanics of this, and following that growth, we have pulled out a key metric by which we can measure our growth in impact.

Across our patch, there are 100k people aged 65+, these are our main beneficiary demographic, and at last count, March 2024, we are now in contact with an extra 1% following our mergers. In real terms, we engage with a few more than that, but counting regular customers using our services, we have just over 19000 people we are working with. That’s nearly 20% of the total 65+ population in our area. Our goal is to incrementally reach more of the 100k each year, and demonstrate our impact with more and more people each year.

Grant funding to support marketing, core costs and continued service provision would underpin a growth strategy, with come certainty, and allow organisations like ours to increase their reach and impact, without pausing to re-write bids and tenders just to keep the services running.

So the ask here is for those with grants to offer organisation involved in charity work, please consider continued service as a valuable outcome. Please consider the real costs involved in maintaining staff training, providing core staff, supporting marketing in equal value to innovation.

Supporting charities in the longer term, and permitting continued provision of existing services will provided the natural environment to develop innovation. It will come organically from the staff and volunteers we have engaged over the longer term, the interactions and rapport we build with our beneficiaries, the sustained and progressive training and development of our people, and the opportunity to take lessons learned and re-invest those in change and continuous improvement.

By all means monitor that, feedback to grant makers that their grant has had significant impact. Feedback that they are helping to create sustainable services, in the longer term, which will impact prevention too, and begin to close the circle of acute need, crisis and urgency of need.

Have a think about it, it makes sense.

Too big to lift on my own….

Age UK Kent Rivers is now, what I always thought it could and should be. A charity whose reach is significant, both geographically and numerically. The sheer numbers involved now are eyewatering, with over 220 paid staff roles, well over 150 volunteers supporting the charities work, and our range of services delivered to a population that exceeds 500,000 people, with an over 65 demographic of just short of 100,000 individuals.

Our task now is to reach more of those older people than ever before, ensuring our services are available and accessible, and to create a diversity of services which meet peoples needs wherever they might be on their journey to ensure they can Achieve Life’s Fullness.

It’s a lot to do, and post mergers and transfers last year (March and July) our Trustee Board rightly indicated to me that I would need to build in some additional resilience and support, to help lead the organisation through its next period of change, development and consolidation.

perhaps for the first time in my tenure as CEO, I reflected, and agreed with Trustees, that the new organisation was “Too big to lift on my own”.

In December 2023, we advertised for a new senior leadership role, one of Chief Operations Officer. I felt that a COO would be essential to support me and the Trustees in moving the organisation forward, to help with the weight of responsibility, to bring operational expertise, and to help release me to be more outward facing, ensuring the organisation is strategically positioned with partners, local charities and statutory organisations to help meet the challenges of our society, and its impact on our older people and those adults with a learning need.

Setting off on this recruitment journey was anxiety inducing for me, the challenge of finding a suitable COO, who would adequately fit the role, but also be able to hit the ground running, in a complex charity, which has many facets and myriad challenges. I wondered if it were possible to be honest, and if I would “gel” with them. I can be challenging to work with sometimes, I am aware of that, so needed someone to challenge me, bounce ideas, support and encourage, provide operational confidence and most of all be able to find common ground in our championing of our charities ethos, vision and strategy. A tall order.

And let me be clearer about that previous statement, when I say I know I can be challenging to work with, its not that I am an ogre or anything (I don’t think) but I just know that the pace in which I work, form ideas, develop strategy, push new concepts etc, can be a lot to get your head around. I have been likened in the past to Tigger from the A.A Milne books, bouncing, all of the time, wanting to crack on, idea after idea, moving swiftly from achievement to achievement, rarely looking backwards, and occasionally needing an “Eeyore” or (Board of Trustees) to rein me in with a reality check or two. That’s all.

So back to the tall order, the challenge of finding, recruiting and appointing the right person to the COO role.

In December CV’s were in, and after interviews the week before Christmas, I was delighted to appoint.

Many people reading this will have seen that announcement in January, and offered their congratulations to the successful candidate, but now that I am back blogging, I needed to take the opportunity to call out my new COO, and thank her publicly for the immensely impressive start, and very effective work undertaken already, in just a few short months.

I was delighted to appoint Claire Ives to the role of COO. Claire has a wealth of operational and Age UK brand partner specific experience, joining Age UK Medway from Age UK Faversham and Sittingbourne at the point of merger last year. Claire’s qualities of absolute clarity of purpose, determination, objectivity, enthusiasm and hard work have brought a new lease of life to the new organisation we formed late last year, and she has become very quickly, the “right hand” I had been looking for, to help lead this fantastic organisation into a new era. I am immensely grateful for the lifting of the operational burden that Claire has undertaken, and through my role, re-focussed, we have been able to achieve a great deal already together, and are fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.

If you don’t already know Claire, well, I suggest you take the time to get to know her. You will not meet a more engaging and dedicated person.

Thank you for the engagement in my past blog, and apologies again to those who were frustrated by the technical glitches, hopefully now we are up and running and my priority thanks to my COO are completed. you can expect a regular blog from me, providing I hope, some interesting insights into the life, work and trials and tribulations of a charity CEO.

It’s been a while, and we have changed!

Looking back and working through my calendar, my last blog through this page was over two years ago.

No, I didn’t just get bored, the charity has undergone, and to an extent is still very much undergoing a period of significant change, growth and development.

In February 2023, our board signed off on a huge new project, called the Clarendon Royal Community, located in Gravesend, Kent. The project offers respite and extra care as part of an integrated community for older people and adults with a learning need.

At the end of February 2023, we heard that our neighbouring brand partner Age UK Northwest Kent was in difficulty, so we took transfer of the staff and services to ensure services to older people across Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley were maintained.

In what seemed like the very same week, we were approached by the Board of Age UK Faversham and Sittingbourne, who requested a merger, which was finalised on July 31st 2023.

As a result of these significant changes, we have needed to change our name, and so in November 2023, Age UK Kent Rivers was created from the three former organisations.

Add into that an office move to accommodate an expanded team, and the myriad changes needed to blend the organisations together, it’s safe to say we have been quite busy.

Now that I have secured access to the blog again, I will aim to regularly update people in our progress, and keep people abreast of new and exciting developments as they happen.

I look forward very much to re-engaging with everyone who took interest in my blog.

The cost of living…

Currently at the top of every news schedule, we hear numerous and various stories about the rising costs of living, including the costs of food, vehicle fuel, gas and electricity.

Undoubtedly, every reader of this blog has needed to make adjustments at home to cope with the competing priorities for our hard earned cash.

But what if your income is fixed? What if you were living off savings? Or you’re already on a very low income from state pension. What if the inflation based rise of your pension is stripped back by the rising prices, not by a little but manifesting in a real terms cut in income?

How do you adjust further, from what could already be a very meagre lifestyle?

What do you have to go without, to enjoy the things which keep you connected to people? To keep you from becoming isolated and lonely?

What if you need to go out to get the support you need/want, but it’s becoming impossible to pay the bills and have enough left over for essential services of support? What do you stop? Which essential service now seems like a luxury?

“The old dilemma of heating or eating has come back to bite us really hard.”

Age UK Medway beneficiary

These are the daily problems we encounter across the charity. Our beneficiaries tell us how they are struggling and how they can’t do without our services. Even our staff recognise this challenge from within their own households. Despite a cost of living pay rise this year, the impact of inflation on every day living has undermined the charities efforts to reward its staff through slightly increased pay, and people are effectively worse off than before, with the next hope of reprieve a year away.

“Its probably the most difficult its ever been right now”

Age UK Medway staff member

The dilemma for us then, is how do we continue to deliver those essential care and support services in a rising costs context, but ensure those that need us the most get access, and get to achieve life’s fullness?

And how do we protect our workforce from the same pressures, and ensure that they are supported to be able to get through, and continue to be able to deliver the expert care and support they love to provide to our beneficiaries?

How can we reduce the everyday costs of what we all do, to preserve the essential workforce and the services they provide. I believe we need to look to our past.

This issue isn’t going away anytime soon, and of course it is really the tip of the iceberg of a very large problem that many have seen coming for a very long time. Right now, the headlines call out the cost pressures, but of course these latest inflationary linked issues are a compounding of a problem much more deep rooted.

The issue is rooted firmly in our societal attitude and approaches to care needs and care provision, the views of those who need care and support, and our opinions of those who provide it. All of this was already evident, long before the added acceleration of the Pandemic, long before Brexit and despite many successive governments attempts to “fix” the issue.

Societal change needed. I don’t say that lightly, I say it because I believe that the solution lay within how we all approach our view of the world we live in.

For far too long, the care of older and vulnerable people has been seen as either someone else’s problem, or has been undertaken by the silent army of familial carers.

How often do we hear people describe the challenge of loved ones needing care, and the solution offered is to contact the local council? How often do we hear the opinion, that the local council “have to get involved and take the pressure off”. How often to we tell people that we couldn’t do what they do, and that our Mum or Dad would be going straight to a care home? Be honest, you know you have either said it, or heard it, and that’s the problem with our society. we have for too long looked in the wrong direction for the solutions we are seeking.

What we have is a population that is flipped on its head from 40-50 years ago, but we have the attitudes and approaches we had then. We are trying to fix a new or changed issue with the same old repair kit, and it isn’t going to work. We have more older people in our society than ever before, and the numbers are increasing with every year that passes, birth rates are down, which means we have fewer younger people than before, and that will remain that way most likely, for a variety of reasons. We need to address the issue head on, and begin to make the changes we need to see in society.

I read a great post on social media yesterday about people who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, being described as a generation we are going to lose. A generation who did things differently, learnt differently, worked differently, played differently etc, and it made me think, its exactly the same for the generation that grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, and exactly the same as the generation who grew up in the 30’s and 40’s.

If we don’t treasure these people, their skills and experiences and write them off because they have reached a certain number, then we will truly lose them, and we will be far worse off as a society as a direct result.

We are gradually losing, or forgetting a vast array of skills, as we consign people to the category of “Older People” and we throw them into the same pot of challenge, for which the solution still seems to be, “do what we have always done”.

We are ignoring generations of people and with that we are losing and wasting a huge resource of skills and knowledge. We are missing the opportunity of the huge economic contribution that could be made by those we still describe as “retired”.

We are missing the skills transfer opportunities, that perhaps are more relevant now than ever, in this time of very uncertain economics. Why are we focusing on how we will be able to afford new clothes and shoes, rather than seeking out solutions from previous generations. How they made do, how they innovated around economic challenges, how they, Achieved Life’s Fullness, even in difficult financial times?

We have a huge resource of people that we have categorised as “older” and effectively written off. People are at home, feeling lonely, isolated, feeling forgotten about, invisible to society, feeling wasted, feeling useless, and desperate to feel the opposite of all of those things.

So is now the time to start to make the change we all need to see in our society? Is now the time to involve our older generations in our current dilemma’s, in the hope that they can help us solve the challenges?

Is now the time to remember that we used to do things differently? That we used to be able to live well, whatever our financial status, and enjoy life, work hard, be passionate and learn new skills and adapt?

The reality is that we have to fix the problem, we, society, all of us, working together to solve the problem, support each other, include everyone, share costs and resources, share expertise, share experiences and skills, bring down our personal and business overheads, maximize community cohesion and our collective effectiveness.

We have been building this issue for many years, and the solution will take time, but we have to start now.

If we cant find more money, we should utilise what we already have.

Time to shine…

Age UK Medway group is just tucking the first month of the financial year under its belt, and looking forward to the full year as it stretches out in front of us (Financial).

A key difference to 2022/23 is the feeling we all have that finally, after a long 2 years of struggle and challenge, it feels like the way ahead is not only clear but packed full of opportunity for the charity to further increase its impact with and for the older people of Medway.

Its been some time now since the energy levels across the charity were so high, and to try to draw a comparison, it feels very similar to our year of explosive growth in 2016/17.

Its not particularly that much has changed, we are all, of course, still learning to live with the coronavirus and the adaptations we have needed to make to our traditional ways of work to cope with this new way of life, but more that things have “normalised”, giving staff and volunteers the opportunity finally, to lift their heads, away from the day to day work, and look a little way into the future and to begin to consider what might be possible for our older people in this changed time.

We have long been the advocates of robust financial modelling to create our own future, but it now feels like that longer term prudence and adherence to strict principles which guide our financial and growth strategies is paying off, and paving the way for some very exciting work.

In my last blog I wrote about our aim to enshrine a new principle for our work, something that speaks to the beneficiaries we serve, the staff we employ and the wider communities in which we work. The Alf Principle is now reaching the culmination point of three months of staff training and lots of work to update our external messaging and internal forms and processes, meaning we can “go live” with Alf, and begin our renewed mission to ensure that every older person in Medway has the opportunity through us, to Achieve Life’s Fullness.

Alongside this renewed principle underpinning our staff culture and training, we have recruited 10 Community Ambassadors to work alongside our Community Engagement officer to reach those people in communities who we are not yet aware of, yet are in need of services and support. Our ambassadors are embedded in their communities already, active in a community based forum or role, and now they have increased / additional knowledge and fast track referral routes to our services, which will help close the gaps in our traditional marketing and referral generation processes.

The world we operate in is starting to return to a form of normal too, we are being regularly invited to events now, allowing us to showcase our services and appeal to new audiences.

We are also being contacted again by potential partner organisations, wanting to work with us to create referral routes to our specialist services for older people, and the local authority is positively engaged in the principle that more older people need to be referred to relevant support services, such as those we provide, in order to assist us to keep the costs of those services as low as possible, basic economies of scale principles, but a veritable breakthrough.

Its always been difficult leading a charity which essentially charges for its support services, on a full costs recovery basis, and we have often received some criticism of our more commercially minded approach to leading the charity. However, it seems that the penny is starting to drop, and as a whole, people are increasingly recognising that care has to be paid for. What people are telling us they value now, more than anything, is our ability to maintain quality in service provision.

With the budget we have set for this financial year, we have created a breakeven position based upon full cost recovery with lower than historical attendance across our services, which provides plenty of scope to beat budget, and reach more people with our services which will take us into a surplus position. This surplus, after indirect costs are deducted, will be applied to ensure that the unit costs of individual services can be frozen, and in time reduced, enabling a lower cost to the end user and an overall reduction in care costs to the local authority.

We have also, with our year ahead budget, been able to reward our staff in line with our beneficiaries expectations, paying a record increase in cost of living this year, and further rewarding those key staff at the sharp end of care work for their loyalty and hard work.

It feels good to be in a position to thank staff and volunteers in a meaningful way, and to have a financial strategy which provides building blocks for positive impact on some of the worrying aspects of the care sector, namely the increasing costs.

So we are poised very well it would seem, to attend our Governance strategic away day in May, to flesh out our new strategic plan, with Alf and Alf principles at its heart. It is my intention that the new strategy is packed full of exciting challenge, innovation, and some important organisation growth work, which will keep our charity group moving forward, and ahead of the curve, in terms of both innovation, quality and financial stability.

We have sadly seen some long standing charities close down over the past few months, and suspect more will follow in the months to come, as they emerge from an ill advised Covid hibernation, or battle radical shifts in funding arrangements.

Remembering that we came close to closure ourselves in summer 2020, those who read by blog will remember that, and remember the panic which could be detected in my writing “tone” but we are still here. I believe we are now stronger than ever and I believe that it is because of our commercial approach to leading the charity, proving that it is the right way, the new way, the only way.

So its time for us to step out from the long shadow of the pandemic, and shine for everyone to see.

Time to shine…

Age UK Medway group is just tucking the first month of the financial year under its belt, and looking forward to the full year as it stretches out in front of us (Financial).

A key difference to 2022/23 is the feeling we all have that finally, after a long 2 years of struggle and challenge, it feels like the way ahead is not only clear but packed full of opportunity for the charity to further increase its impact with and for the older people of Medway.

Its been some time now since the energy levels across the charity were so high, and to try to draw a comparison, it feels very similar to our year of explosive growth in 2016/17.

Its not particularly that much has changed, we are all, of course, still learning to live with the coronavirus and the adaptations we have needed to make to our traditional ways of work to cope with this new way of life, but more that things have “normalised”, giving staff and volunteers the opportunity finally, to lift their heads, away from the day to day work, and look a little way into the future and to begin to consider what might be possible for our older people in this changed time.

We have long been the advocates of robust financial modelling to create our own future, but it now feels like that longer term prudence and adherence to strict principles which guide our financial and growth strategies is paying off, and paving the way for some very exciting work.

In my last blog I wrote about our aim to enshrine a new principle for our work, something that speaks to the beneficiaries we serve, the staff we employ and the wider communities in which we work. The Alf Principle is now reaching the culmination point of three months of staff training and lots of work to update our external messaging and internal forms and processes, meaning we can “go live” with Alf, and begin our renewed mission to ensure that every older person in Medway has the opportunity through us, to Achieve Life’s Fullness.

Alongside this renewed principle underpinning our staff culture and training, we have recruited 10 Community Ambassadors to work alongside our Community Engagement officer to reach those people in communities who we are not yet aware of, yet are in need of services and support. Our ambassadors are embedded in their communities already, active in a community based forum or role, and now they have increased / additional knowledge and fast track referral routes to our services, which will help close the gaps in our traditional marketing and referral generation processes.

The world we operate in is starting to return to a form of normal too, we are being regularly invited to events now, allowing us to showcase our services and appeal to new audiences.

We are also being contacted again by potential partner organisations, wanting to work with us to create referral routes to our specialist services for older people, and the local authority is positively engaged in the principle that more older people need to be referred to relevant support services, such as those we provide, in order to assist us to keep the costs of those services as low as possible, basic economies of scale principles, but a veritable breakthrough.

Its always been difficult leading a charity which essentially charges for its support services, on a full costs recovery basis, and we have often received some criticism of our more commercially minded approach to leading the charity. However, it seems that the penny is starting to drop, and as a whole, people are increasingly recognising that care has to be paid for. What people are telling us they value now, more than anything, is our ability to maintain quality in service provision.

With the budget we have set for this financial year, we have created a breakeven position based upon full cost recovery with lower than historical attendance across our services, which provides plenty of scope to beat budget, and reach more people with our services which will take us into a surplus position. This surplus, after indirect costs are deducted, will be applied to ensure that the unit costs of individual services can be frozen, and in time reduced, enabling a lower cost to the end user and an overall reduction in care costs to the local authority.

We have also, with our year ahead budget, been able to reward our staff in line with our beneficiaries expectations, paying a record increase in cost of living this year, and further rewarding those key staff at the sharp end of care work for their loyalty and hard work.

It feels good to be in a position to thank staff and volunteers in a meaningful way, and to have a financial strategy which provides building blocks for positive impact on some of the worrying aspects of the care sector, namely the increasing costs.

So we are poised very well it would seem, to attend our Governance strategic away day in May, to flesh out our new strategic plan, with Alf and Alf principles at its heart. It is my intention that the new strategy is packed full of exciting challenge, innovation, and some important organisation growth work, which will keep our charity group moving forward, and ahead of the curve, in terms of both innovation, quality and financial stability.

We have sadly seen some long standing charities close down over the past few months, and suspect more will follow in the months to come, as they emerge from an ill advised Covid hibernation, or battle radical shifts in funding arrangements.

Remembering that we came close to closure ourselves in summer 2020, those who read by blog will remember that, and remember the panic which could be detected in my writing “tone” but we are still here. I believe we are now stronger than ever and I believe that it is because of our commercial approach to leading the charity, proving that it is the right way, the new way, the only way.

So its time for us to step out from the long shadow of the pandemic, and shine for everyone to see.

#AskAboutAlf

Getting back to basics after our pandemic response

Looking back at our post log, its been quite some time since I last had the time to blog about the joys, trials and challenges of being a CEO in the charity sector, and more specifically, talk about the everyday challenges we face as a smaller organisation making our way through the world with the responsibility of care and support of Medway’s older people driving our every action.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the last 18 months to 2 years have been the most challenging in our history, but we feel collectively as a team, that we can now consign those lost months to history, and get on with building back, learning from our experiences, and driving forward to a future which places older people at the centre of our decisions and actions.

Around October of 2021, we met as a senior team and called out the upcoming challenges, for the months and years ahead, as we began to lay foundational plans for the 2022/23 financial budget and overarching organisational strategy. We established that there were a number of challenges affecting our ability to reach people, to be impactful, and to resource our continued growth which were out of our control it seemed, and there was therefore a need to come up with a way to take control of those things, and shape the future for ourselves.

After 18 months of the countries response to the coronavirus pandemic, we had been able to adapt, re-open most of our services, albeit with some restrictions still in place. we had survived the initial emergency financial challenge, and has satisfied ourselves that we could, and would, go on to recover. however, some parts of our world had not, and still have not, reached that point, which was having a damaging impact on us as an organisation.

Let me describe the array of issues that we see as a direct challenge to our being able to function well, and serve older people to the best of our ability.

The 1st issue – Statutory services, both health and local authority, seem to still be very much on the very highest state of Covid restrictions, still working from home as a preference and still not getting out to carry out face to face visits of older people. For us, that means that the health assessments, the financial assessments, the dementia assessment aren’t happening, and as a result, the normal resultant referrals to our charity aren’t appearing.

The second issue – people have been in some kind of enforced alternate reality now for well over a year, peoples jobs have been lost, hours cut, hybrid working introduced, and as a result, we have seen a huge number of people make really big decisions about their way of life. Choosing now to change career, find something with a greater work life balance, or adjust to their new lower levels of income brought on by long periods of furlough or other big changes linked to the pandemic restrictions. This means for us, that some people are choosing to leave the care sector, having worked hard for many years doing something they enjoyed, suddenly deciding to do something completely different, which presents a challenge to staff retention.

And the 3rd issue – The majority of our workforce have worked in social care settings for some considerable time. They have become, sadly, very used to being dismissed as “not professional” or overlooked in the effective care planning for a person, and have become, to some degree, resigned to the fact that the sector is a tough gig, and it was unlikely to change.

At the start of the pandemic, it seemed as if they had perhaps been wrong all this time, and that now, finally, the country was starting to recognise their value. Clapping on the doorstep every Thursday evening was a little cringeworthy admittedly, but it at least had the effect of letting carers around the country know that they mattered, and were important, and we were pleased that they were there. Even the government followed up with more of its narrative pledges to “fix social care” and the health minister described a new focus on care, and talked about a financial recognition at some point, and even wore a little badge for a day.

Our staff started to believe that things might change. And yet, towards the end of the lockdowns, when it looked like freedom day might be on the cards, the important announcements about the funding for social care were made, and it was a bitter disappointment. Another promise of “jam tomorrow”, another promise which fell flat, without delivering. Not surprisingly, this boosted hope, and dashed reality has proven to be the final straw for many. Many people are voting with their feet, attracted by the higher wages and “easier” work in supermarkets, rather than remaining in their chosen vocation.

“It would be easier to stack shelves for more money, I am just so tired, and its never going to change.”

Carer of 12 years service

Care work is of course a vocation for many, and the boost that came from working in a social care setting, and for a charitable organisation used to fill the £2 per hour gap between paid care work and paid shop work, but not anymore. The gap is getting too big, and the evidence tells us, that it is unlikely to close anytime soon.

So how does an organisation like us, small, locally focused and keen to maintain high standards of quality, tackle those issues? How do we attract new staff to the organisation, prevent carers from leaving for pastures greener, and attract service users to our services?

It struck us, that as a result of the pandemic, we had been forced to be more insular in our work, each department focusing in on itself, to ensure viability and relevance in an emergency situation. we worked with partners, but in an emergency response setting, because that it what was driving everybody. We had also seen a halt to our normal face to face marketing activity, for obvious reasons. We had inadvertently stopped telling the story of why we are here.

So, let me tell you about Alf

Alf is an older man, who lives alone since his wife Edie died 4 years ago. Alf is quite mobile, very independent, and likes what he likes, he is a man of habit. 30 years ago, Alf would have had a very responsive and supportive network surrounding him quite naturally. Every week, Alf would have around 15-20 opportunities for social interaction in a typical week, whether that was in the post office pension queue, at the pub, where he played dominoes and sat with a pipe and a pint, or at the local grocery shop where he always tried to talk his way to a discount. It all sounds quite nice really, and if ever Alf didn’t turn up to the pub, or missed his pension collection day, you could be sure someone would say “where’s Alf? nip up to his house and knock the door to make sure he is ok!”

The trouble is, its not 30 years ago, and there is no queue in the post office on a pension day anymore, and the likelihood is, when the smoking ban came in, in all of our interests, that meant Alf wouldn’t go anymore to dominoes, the pint just wasn’t the same without his pipe. The grocers shop closed years ago when the big supermarket sprung up on the outskirts of town, wrapping everything in plastic rather than brown paper bags, and all of that of course, that we call progress, is leaving people like Alf behind.

So the big question now is, who looks out for Alf?, Who asks after him when he doesn’t arrive at the same time every week at the pub or in the post office? The answer sadly, is no-one.

No-one asks about Alf, in fact the person most likely to be Alf’s next conversation, is more likely to be a member of the emergency services, picking him up off the floor. Goodness knows how long he has laid there, I hope he is ok….

At Age UK Medway we hold “Alf” in our hearts and in our minds, every time we have an interaction with an older person, we always ask about Alf, and we are going back to basics to re-learn what we have been forced to forget over this past couple of years, re-learn why we are all here, and remember why we are the best possible organisation locally for older people. The launch of our new customer service/staff reward and retention scheme is a tribute to Alf, he is the driving force for our purpose, our service variety, our staff dedication and our organisational DNA. You will now see Alf, and the principle he has inspired, mentioned across our website, in all of our recruitment papers, he is embedded in our training plans, our strategic planning documents and our staff supervisions. Alf is so much the centre of our work, that our staff and volunteer reward scheme is based upon dedication to the Alf principles, ensuring every older person is given the opportunity to Achieve Life’s Fullness. We want everyone to remember to #AskAboutAlf and we invite you to do so to.

Just popping my head up…

What a year we have all endured thus far. The range of responses we have generated as a charity this past 6 months has been without precedent, and the range of emotions we have experienced ourselves, and witnessed from our charity beneficiaries has been exhausting. I would have loved to have begun this blog with the pandemic at our back, and a much brighter future ahead. Sadly, it seems that we are just about to, as I write this piece, be plunged head on into the second wave of this disruptive, damaging, devisive and devastating viral pandemic.

As a charity we have rolled with the repeated financial body blows and struggled back to our feet. We have re-opened our services in the most part, but carry the scars of the journey, in that we are smaller, with less ability to impact the lives of older people in the way we once did. We have lost colleagues along the way as costs have been trimmed to make financial sense for the future months balanced against our reduced income, but we are still in the fight, very much so, and fighting for our older population, who have by far, suffered more at the hands of this pandemic that any other.

As the medical and scientific experts work tirelessly to advise the best courses of action, and to devise the best methods to defeat the virus, I take some comfort that eventually, perhaps in 6 months, perhaps 12, we might all begin to see a clearing of the virus, and a return to a life we once called normal. But it wont be normal really, not if you think about it.

I said in the opening paragraph that the virus had been divisive, and I meant it. Once we have overcome the medical challenges brought by this pandemic, and the scientific solutions are embedded, when to you think, will society turn its attention to the division that this virus has perpetuated, and that has been created in our attempts to limit its impact, and in the media’s attempt to keep us informed?

The division which exists now is plain for everyone to see, and I worry that we are all so fixated on the obvious challenges, that we will collectively let this, perhaps the biggest challenge of our society, slip quietly by into our “new normal”.

Watching social media channels, and listening to TV, Radio and the raft of “experts” wheeled out on mainstream programs to help give us all of the information we crave about this pandemic, we are hearing more and more about who is to blame. who’s fault is it, that we are heading back into a more restrictive way of life? why are some generations being “punished” to help other generations? Why is it that some cultures and ethnic groups are highlighted more than others? why is is some follow the rules and some apparently don’t have to?

The risk we face as we move forward, is that our society will become tolerant of blaming others, it will become acceptable to make blanket decisions about who can d what, and who cant, based on how old people are, or what colour they are, or if they are well off, or poorer, if they are working from home, or going into the office, whether keyworkers, or high financiers.

This is worrying on so many levels, and very reminiscent of days long past which many people we support on a daily basis, fought hard to stamp out. We should learn from our older people and the stories thay have to offer, because this is lived experience, warnings from history if you will, and we should take heed and make sure we never allow division to become part of our normal everyday acceptance of our everyday lives.

We have an opportunity to bring people together as we head into another 6 months of restrictive living. we have an opportunity to bring communities together, to bring generations together, to bring cultures and ethnicity together. But we have to acknowledge that the division is there, is worsening, and is unacceptable.

I hope everyone reading this blog, embraces the challenges we have coming, and helps the country overcome this awful virus, but I also hope that everyone takes a moment to look carefully and the after affects, and does something to close the divisions. If you are a young person, follow the rules, wear a mask to protect yourself and others and think about how you can offer help to an older person in your community. If you are an older person, follow the rules, wear a mask to protect yourself an others and think about how you can offer help to a younger person in your community.

Everyone needs help from time to time, this situation is no one particular groups fault, we are all in it together, old, young, black, white, men and women. Every possible walk of life has a role to play, in supporting those that need support, and in saying no to division.

Shall we do it together?….

here’s hoping…

Today marks an event in my local calendar. Not a National event, not an anniversary or even a local celebration, but a significant event nonetheless.

Today marks the first opportunity, in recent memory, that I have been able to take more than an hour away from the daily challenges or leading this charity, and not feel that another crisis or significant challenge is imminent.

For some 13 week now, I certainly, and many others among my staff team have been completely engulfed in the ensuing chaos and uncertainty brought on by the corona-virus pandemic, and the related National lock down.

As an organisation, we have been beaten over the head repeatedly by the challenges that we have faced, day after day, week after week, and at times it has felt truly insurmountable.

I am not saying that today it’s all over, and I am not naive enough to believe that the world is returning to what it once was, but I am convinced, for perhaps the first time in a long time (13 weeks has felt like a very long time), that there is hope.

Hope, that our charity can and will survive the financial losses it has sustained, Hope, that we have plans in place to modify our services to reach people in new and creative ways, hope, that we can reshape our organisation to maximise efficiency, reduce costs, and stabilise our income.

For a long time, as a society, we probably underrated hope, it felt like the the preserve of a few deserving folk, or the preserve of those facing personal challenge, medical difficulties and the like. It has never before, certainly not for my generation, felt like hope is something that a Nation can collectively hold. But that is what it feels like to me right now, right here in Medway, within our sector, within our charity, our staff and volunteer teams, and within our many customers and charity beneficiaries.

As the Government announces more and more incremental easing of the lock down, and includes more and more people in that easing, we are starting to see some very small, but very green shoots of recovery in our charity.

Staff who have been shielding, are seeking to return to their roles, beneficiaries are starting to come out of their houses and take small steps towards seeing friends once more, and we look forward to welcoming them back to our centres and services as soon as we can.

We will look different now, we will look different to our customers and beneficiaries, and we wont seem as much like the charity they said goodbye to on the 23rd March, because we have changed and grown.

Much like the grandchildren that many people have not seen for months, we too, have certainly “shot up”.

Our staff, volunteers, Trustees, the services we deliver, even the clothes we wear to visit people, it has all changed. What hasn’t changed, is the reason we fought so hard to stay open, we remain completely committed to our beneficiaries, the older people of Medway. we remain committed to reducing isolation, promoting social activity, promoting improved health and mental health, improved mobility and nutrition, and above all the right to absolutely enjoy later life and growing older.

We will still have some changes to go through, some tough decisions to make no doubt, and some more discomfort as we move further away from what we knew, and towards more of the unknown, but we have an ally in that process, in hope.

I will never underestimate the power of hope again, nor will many of my staff, and we will have found a new comfort together. For the first time in a long time, we feel hopeful of the future, hopeful of our charities success, hopeful that we can bring people back together again, hopeful that we will reduce the damaging isolation which has been felt by us all this last few months, and hopeful that the learning we have taken from this terrible pandemic, will forever inform our future actions.

I hope we never have to endure this again, but if we do, I am hopeful we can overcome it.