Professionals

Life is an opportunity for front-line workers to discover a new approach. It's an invitation to be free to really help families without being hemmed in by the system.

Imagine being able to dedicate your full time to families without endless paperwork getting in the way. Imagine building the kind of relationship where you can support them with what's really going on. Imagine being free to use your insight and creativity to find solutions that work, and change the system to make them happen.

Life team members learn to cast aside their standard assumptions, both about the people they work with and about themselves. They leave professional constraints behind and bring their real selves to the work. Rather than treating people like problems that can somehow never be solved, they learn to build genuinely compassionate and positively challenging relationships in which people transform. Life members work as a team and support each other in their own journey of change; many experience significant changes in their own lives that they share with the families they work with. Life members are also supported by partnership staff throughout the journey. What unites people who choose to take this approach is humility, a willingness to be led by the families themselves, and a passion to spread a different way of working.

You don't have to be part of a Life team to be working in this way. Many of you will recognise yourself in these videos and case studies, and be looking for an opportunity to take it further. If so, tell us what you think. By sharing your thoughts and experiences we can make this happen more widely.

Share this with other friends or professionals you know.