AI weirdness, drug related deaths, combatting racism and building community cohesion

Had a spring clean of the website – thanks as ever to the wonderful Vicky. Who also encouraged me to add some images to my blogs and further encouraged me to play around with Chat GPT. And this was the result – I asked it to get a suitable image of me developing a strategy, with me in it, consistent with the style of my website and other blogs. The young looking, clearly unmarried fella in the right is me with an audience including identical twins. Other clues that let you know it’s not really me is that this young chap is right handed and has better teeth than me. Flowed nicely from a conversation in the last half hour or so I had with Joe – part of the street community in Brighton who is often found outside our local Co-Op. He’s turning 43 next week and is in a pretty good state – and is housed at the moment. I wished him a happy birthday and said that i would be 59 next birthday “really I thought you were older – but looking OK” was his response. I think I’m flattered.

Been thinking quite a lot about politics and the state of the world again recently – and just how pleased I am to be largely absent from the world of social media. Soundbite messaging, headline grabbing confected rage is a corrosive force. It also leads to really poor policy development and decision making.

Examples – the fairly complex debates one assumes would have taken around crowd safety at a forthcoming football match involving an Israeli team = “national disgrace”.

Dodgy Bob Jenrick on community cohesion = “we should probably ban the burqa” – say what now.

Any talk of migration = “must make it more difficult for people to come and stay”.

I also heard an interview with someone from a centre left ‘think tank’ describing phases of migration and whether or not they contributed to or drew upon public resources. Really dehumanising when a natural life-cycle and foundation of the the notion of ‘society’ is reduced to transactions. Edmund Burke (not my usual go to source for quotes) said in the 18th Century that ‘society is a contract between “those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born,”. We would do well to remember that.

Anyway in the world of work – drug related death figures were released for 2024. Showed record numbers of dying at well over 5,500. More than 100 people a week dying in England and Wales. “Record” figures is no longer even shocking – the “record” has been broken every year for the last 12. We do though live in a broken system – one which everyone knows is failing the people who need it most. Yet there is almost complicity between policy makers, funders and providers to plod on in the same broken system. Now this is not to knock anyone working in the field – I’ve been involved for over 30 years. Most of those people get up every day and go to work to try and make a difference and do some good. Many are traumatised by the constant exposure to death amongst their client groups.

But it does feel like time for a fundamental re-set. I wrote a while ago about the changes in the treatment system over my career – how the involvement of new providers opened up the possibilities of radical change and innovation. And it was largely successful – treatment numbers were expanded, waiting times slashed and drug services became ‘visible’ in every community. Most of those new entrants were driven by passion and a determination to changes things.

It remains a great sadness that much of this reforming zeal has been crushed by regulation and bureaucracy – the disruptors became the status quo and no-one is prepared to rock the boat.

So the death figures are released – everyone expresses horror, regret and remorse and calls for renewed effort and sustainable investment. It’s like reading the statements I wrote a decade ago. And of course everyone means it and the financial uncertainties cost lives. But where is the commitment for real change, the calls for regulatory change (how do we have a system governed by legislation over 50 years old) and where is the campaigning zeal to push the boundaries. There are of course no silver bullets – safe supply of opiods is important, as is the availability of sterile equipment and facilities within which drugs can be safely used. Equally important is the access to detox and rehabilitative treatment.

But none of this will happen without legislative and attitudinal change. And it’s within everyone’s gift to do something.

In more uplifting news – I had the pleasure of chairing the 25th Annual General Meeting of the wonderful Trust for Developing Communities – having been chair for the last 6 years. The organisation was established before Brighton and Hove became a City, the Albion played in a barely converted athletic stadium and ‘we can fix it’ by Bob the Builder was the biggest selling single of the year. We always get slightly nervous about whether we’ll be quorate, will partners come, will anyone from the communities we work in bother to turn up. 3 hours later having combined: formal business, with food, presentations of community activity and celebrations of the diversity of our city and sector we finished tired, relieved and energised.

Set against the backdrop of political toxicity, increased hate and overt racism seen in our city and the rest of the country being in a room with 200 diverse colleagues, partners, funders and more importantly community activists from across the City made me feel much more positive about the future.

Of course there is still so much more to do – there are structural problems in society, a toxic and hostile environment that blames anyone and everything for societies ills (apart from obscene wealth inequality obvs). And we can’t ‘fix it’ all – not like Bob. But we can all do something.