Ever since #SocialCareFuture emerged in 2018 we have had a focus on shifting dominant mindsets about social care through developing and promoting a new narrative. The work we’ve done to date began with the story our movement wanted the public and the system to hold in their heads and be guided by. In 2019, eighty of us gathered in a room at Manchester Metropolitan University to begin piecing together that story through a range of group exercises. We landed on the following elements:
Living our best lives because of social care support:The story and any visual depictions should centre on people living their best lives as a result of the support they’re able to access, not on the delivery of a service
Social care support should be described as transporting us from one life situation to another, not as an end in itself
It should strive to instill hope
Home, relationships and belonging:The story should be set within home, family, love and relationships, it should invoke community and belonging and talk about social care support (or a different term) as making connections between people and things that matter to them
Equal worth, identity and self-direction:The story should convey the value that everyone is of equal worth with gifts and contributions to make and that good social care support confirms people’s identity, will and preferences by focusing on what matters to them
Reciprocity within community: The story should portray people as being part of a web of mutual support within the community, not as objects of support. It should talk about what everyone brings. It should emphasis togetherness
Universality: The story should depict social care support as benefiting and involving everyone. It should avoid any language or visual depictions that cause ‘othering’
Collaborative problem-solving The story should instill the sense that solutions can be found, working together and should avoid stories that imply problems are growing or insurmountable
Fairness and effectiveness The story should talk about the importance of any support being readily available, affordable and accessed fairly.
At the same time, working with Frameworks Institute and the Centre for Corpus Social Sciences at the University of Lancaster we mapped this against evidence concerning the dominant patterns of public thinking and the way social care was depicted in the media and by campaigning organisations.
Following extensive public audience research and the application of framing good practice, this work developed into #SocialCareFuture’s vision and story of change, published in 2021. In 2023 this was adapted into a 90 second animation, voiced by actor and disability rights activist Liz Carr.
The headline part of the vision (‘we all want to live in the place we call home…) and parts of the narrative – such as the idea that people draw on social care to live their lives – have been widely adopted, and other parts, such as the idea that social care isn’t a single service, but is about weaving together different resources, relationships and support, have begun to have influence. But this was always a first go, so it’s great to now have the opportunity to work with Frameworks UK under the auspices of the Time to Act reform group, in partnership with and supported by Think Local Act Personal, the Local Government Association, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and Social Care Institute for Excellence, to look at how we can flex and finesse the narrative. We hope to make it sharper, increase its impact, encourage more people and organisations to draw on it and through doing so bring it to a wider audience. Our first co-creation meeting was last week, and next month Frameworks UK will be running a series of public deliberative sessions, before we bring their draft recommendations back to people and organisations to explore and test. We’ll share more as the work develops.
#SocialCareFurture hopes in 2025 to roll out a new learning programme across the UK, with our partners also mounting promotion and training courses across their networks. Get in touch if this is something of interest – we’d love to better understand what would work for you in terms of content, design and delivery.
In the meantime, please draw on these resources. Ultimately narrative change comes about because lots of people’s messages broadly support an overall direction of travel. And remember that our guidance is a framework for communicating well about social care, not a script. Be inspired by it, but feel free to adapt and develop it. You don’t need to use the exact words, but you might think about how to communicate a particular story or piece of information in a way that draws down on and reinforces the narrative and the values underpinning it. And good communication is more than words – get creative, and in particular think about how to change the visual story of social care that people carry in their heads so that it matches the story we want people to hold.
A new narrative can help us to give the public and politicians reason to attach greater priority to adult social care, increasing its salience by shifting people’s imagination about what it is, does, and its value to society as a whole. We’re all storytellers. Let’s learn how to do it well.
