A movement for gloriously ordinary lives July 2023 Introduction Social Care Future is a growing and influential movement, born of frustration but powered by hope. We unite those of us who draw on care or support to live our lives, across all ages, and allies to imagine and help build a better future. We believe that we should all be able to live the place we call home, with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for each other, doing the things that matters to us. We believe that it is wrong and avoidable that this eludes so many of us who instead endure deep and persistent inequalities that are rooted in an under-resourced, outdated and under-imagined approach. In a short time and with modest resources we have had a marked impact on the 'social care sector' and those focused on it. Our vision and the language it contains, co-created by our movement and developed through public audience research, has been widely adopted. We have helped increase the profile and present of those of us who draw on social care to live their lives in public and professional debates about the future. Crucially, as a movement of doers, we have created spaces for people who draw on and work in social care to connect, learn from one another and plan together, leading to changes in relationships, thinking and practice. But we are clear that our goal of a reimagined and reset system will only be achieved if we shift public mindsets and salience. This will only happen if we intentionally grow and build the influence of our movement in debates about the future, nationally and locally, and in bringing about culture and attitudinal change. This note outlines our plans and resource requirements to help build narrative, people and relational power to those ends. It is the product of a structured exercise, carried out with the kind support of Hallmark Foundation and Seeability. This has involved wide discussion within our movement and others in the field, desk research and engagement with leaders of other innovative and successful social movements. Its purpose is to inspire, explain and to seek support, financially or otherwise, to realise our ambitions. Background Social Care Future is already uniting those of us who draw on care and support with allies who believe everyone should enjoy a 'gloriously ordinary life'.1 We are helping to cultivate different conversations, to imagine a brighter future and to collaboratively plot and begin pursuing a practical course towards it. We believe that with wider support and more resources we can accelerate progress towards making our vision an everyday reality. Our audience research indicates that our vision can command strong support from both the public and local elected politicians when they are presented with it.2 When people who draw on support have the opportunity to lead debates, the conversation changes, new possibilities and ideas open up, and attitudes do begin to shift.3 However, it does not yet reflect how the majority of people presently hear about or imagine social care or the lives of the people they associate with it, views of whom are often coloured by ageism and ablism. Dominant public narratives about social care and the general invisibility of people who draw on care or support in public debate about their own lives perpetuate and reinforce these attitudes. While we do see glimpses of hope and possibility that embody our vision in the present, the way that social care is overwhelmingly thought about, designed and resourced is failing to support millions of us to achieve it. Publicly-funded social care is severely rationed, with a growing gulf between demand for care and support and what local councils are able to offer, and many facing financial charges for substandard support. Much of what is available to people remains stubbornly rooted in deeply outdated attitudes and cultures which deny people the opportunity to lead equal lives. Successive governments have tried and failed to get meaningful reform over the line. This deep and persistent systemic problem is contributing to growing social and economic inequality, intersecting with wider structural disadvantage, such as poverty, and felt in particular by those of us who are disabled, in later life or supporting people we care about, paid or unpaid, a majority of whom are women. Despite the scale of this challenge, we believe that there remain avenues for achieving systemic change that have yet to be explored or harnessed. However, unlike in other countries, including the USA and Australia, these clear and profound injustices are not, as yet, a strategic focus of philanthropy in the UK. Nor have older and disabled people with cause to draw on care or support, and those supporting them, been beneficiaries of philanthropic investments in new approaches to social change, such as narrative change, community organising and movement building. We want to change this. Drawing on learning from diverse social movements, and building on our work to date, this proposal sets out our plans and resource requirements for an initiative to build narrative and people power to ignite what we hope will be an unstoppable movement for change, capable of mobilising public support to make our vision a reality. What we have learned from other movements for change We have spent a six-month period in 2022 exploring how we can make deep change on the issues that affect us. This has included: - Employing the 'Three Horizons' approach to clarify the social and system change we wish to help bring about, and to identity the role of narrative and people power in doing so - Developing our understanding of how social movements achieve structural and narrative change - Mapping our values and areas of strength and power as Social Care Future - The ways in which we want the conversation about social care to change - What strategies and practical action we can employ to change it This learning process has helped to crystalise our goal, our analysis of how change happens, and the role we are well placed to play in achieving it. We are persuaded by the argument that the traditional approaches of campaigners - presenting evidence of the scale and urgency of a problem, with some articulation of the solution - is insufficient on its own to command support for the change we believe is necessary. This characterises how most campaigns about social care have and are being conducted. Rather, all of the learning we have drawn on points clearly to the need to address what the Institute for Public Policy Research refer to as the 'salience deficit', where the public or power holders do not see the issue as important or see it through a different frame, and the 'power deficit', where the people wanting change are not in positions of power or have limited influence on those who are.4 Our plans therefore centre on changing dominant culture and attitudes concerning people who draw on care or support and care and support itself and on changing power dynamics to ensure people who draw on care and support have a more powerful voice in decisions and debates about the future. Through doing so we hope to be able to exert greater pressure for system change at all levels. This work is not an alternative to the crucial work of influencing policy, conducting research, developing, implementing and evaluating innovative practice. Not does it negate the need to convey urgency about ameliorating current challenges - the symptoms of these deep systemic fault-lines that are harming so many people today. These are all important parts of an overall 'influencing ecosystem.' However, it is the missing link, focusing on the long-term work of 'changing the weather', and one which we believe Social Care Future is well placed to cultivate and grow. Crucially, we are proposing to adopt a movement building strategy and not a single-issue public campaign, because we conclude that this approach is more effective, creates deeper and lasting change by building power in key domains and naturally fits with our values and existing strengths. Our goal will be to cultivate, support and help to coordinate a growing network of different actors, each drawing on shared infrastructure to tell their stories. This mosaic or 'multiplicity of stories, through different media, will over time help build the power of a new narrative, and of people who draw on support to live their lives. We do though anticipate that through this work, focused public campaigns will emerge at key moments, such as in the run up to the 2024 UK general election, embodying these new narratives and led by these new, better equipped messengers. Our theory of change If Social Care Future: * helps to build a deeper appreciation of how to message persuasively with public audiences * builds capacity, capability and opportunity among people who draw on support and allies to deploy this narrative strategically and engagingly.... ....then our movement will be able to deploy a narrative and messages that land and chime with key segments of the public. If the messages are amplified over a 10-year horizon, through a mosaic of stories, media, through popular culture and in local and national campaigns... ...then segments of the public will default to a new story about care and support as a valuable way to grow, maintain or repair health and wellbeing, of benefit to them, their families and wider society. Over time, this story will become the 'common sense understanding' of the system goals, how care and support should be organised and evaluated, of the problems that demand to be addressed, and what the solutions are. This approach will also help to increase the political salience of investing in promoting the wellbeing of those of us with cause to draw on care or support to live our lives. If we are able to increase salience and to shift mindsets and understanding, there will be more political and policy space, nationally and locally, to reset and reorientate 'the system' in alignment with our vision and values and to command the resources to put it into practice. By building our movement nationally and locally we will ensure that we have the breadth and depth of relationships, and the interconnection between different movement organisations, to harness this 'change in the weather' to push for change at key moments. The role we will play We have identified that our strongest assets are relation to relationships, networks, lived experience and vision for a better future. We will take the following actions to increase the power of our movement in three interconnected areas: 1. Narrative power: we will develop tools and knowledge that we need to tell different and compelling stories, focusing on the role of people with lived experience. We will help create and disseminate a mosaic of stories to build this narrative and to influence the language and frames that allies and others in our ecosystem use. 2. People power: we will offer strategic and practical support to people in their own communities to organise and pursue change and bring people together at key moment to campaign nationally. 3. Relational power: we will bring people and organisations together to build community, develop trust, relationships, shared language, and joint strategies. This is an action-oriented initiative, with space for learning and reflection at key stages so that we can continue to deepen our collective knowledge as we grow our power. The process of this work will reflect our values and our vision and will be co-designed and participatory at each stage. This means the work may appear slower but what we build will be stronger, more sustainable and adaptable to changing context. We commit to working for long-term, structural change and rebalancing of power. Learning from other social change movements and our own experience shows that this kind of change is not a linear process but can be very intentional and strategic We also know that sometimes moments of rapid change or crisis mean things move fast and we need to be ready to capitalise on these moments. While our vision is long-term, we will aim to grow in scale and impact over an initial three-year period. We will build on existing knowledge, skills and infrastructure in the field so that we are not reinventing the wheel. We will encourage people who share our vision to contribute to this work, with the assets that they have and we will pursue new values-aligned partnerships with people and organisations who have the knowledge, skills, resources and networks we will need to achieve our goals. We hope this work will create a lasting legacy, on which we and others can build in pursuit of our vision and wider social change goals, helping spread power and to cultivate a new, connected and empowered ecosystem of change agents across the country. At the beginning of year 3 of this programme we will conduct a strategic review, to plan for the next phase. Activities, outputs and outcomes during the first 3 years Building Narrative power Outcomes We will: * Strengthen the power and extend the reach and impact of our reframed narrative on the mindsets of 'persuadable' public audience segments * Help to increase the profile and strengthen the voice of people who draw on support to live their lives, as narrative messengers, including in the print and broadcast news media, lifestyle and culture media and online Activities and outputs With expert partners we will: * Further develop our evidence-based narrative and messages so that they are capable of influencing the mindsets of key audience segments. * Produce and update messaging and talking point guides for communicators * In co-production with people who draw on support, work with those who can help us to translate this narrative and messaging into engaging, creative, multi-media content * Commission photography depicting social care with a view to changing 'stock photos' used by print, broadcast and digital media * Disseminate shareable creative content via digital media * Build a network of messengers, and invest in their capabilities, including media training, and deployment * Strengthen proactive engagement with journalists and editors in news, lifestyle and culture media * Develop a programme focused on influencing and harnessing popular culture * Launch a focused national campaign in advance of the 2024 General Election to influence how social care and the lives of people who draw on it are discussed and represented What will we need to do this? * Expert support with narrative and message research and development, spokesperson development and media engagement * Creative agency support and the coordination of a creatives network, to produce engaging, shareable content * A digital media expert lead and digital infrastructure and strategy * Support to develop and implement a pop culture strategy Building people power Outcomes We will: * Support people who draw on support to build and exercise the power of grassroots organising in their local communities and nationally * Connect these grassroots initiatives together to form a national movement for change Activities and outputs With expert partners we will: * Secure and offer training and development in community organising and movement-building to people who draw on support and allies * Cultivate and connect a network of local leaders and community organisers * Secure leadership training and mentoring * Produce and disseminate resources and materials for use in local/targeted campaigns * Launch a focused national campaign in advance of the 2024 General Election to influence how social care and the lives of people who draw on it are discussed and represented What will we need? * Expert support and facilitation of community organising and movement building * Training * Capacity to network, coordinate and communicate within our movement * Resources to collate, produce & disseminate tools for activism Building relational power Outcomes We will: * Cultivate a richer and better-connected ecosystem of influence working towards our shared goals Activities and outputs We will: * Conduct 'power mapping' of the current ecosystem identity strengths and areas requiring development and growth * Build our political relationships, nationally and among local elected representatives * Host regular learning sessions * Further develop our relationships with other movements/lived experience groups * Conduct a 'strategic review' at the start of year 3 to collectively review progress and plan the next phases of action What will we need? * Convening costs including making spaces and opportunities equitable and accessible * Database software and internal communications tools Resourcing our plans To deliver the above, we will draw on existing assets, financial and in-kind support from our existing movement, and we will increase the engagement and seek the support of trusts and foundations, in money and through their strategic influence, in support of this movement for change. In particular, we will continue to ensure that people with lived experience of drawing on care or support are centrally involved, as equal partners and without exploitation or extraction. We will also seek out values-aligned partners who bring knowledge, skills, networks and resources needed to achieve our goals, and pursue new sources of funding and resources with them. We estimate that a budget of �1.2 - 1.5 million through direct or aligned funding over the 3 years would permit us to lay these foundations. While detailed costings will be subject to the way the plan is developed and implemented, we anticipate it broadly breaking down into: Core staffing and running costs - 30% Partners and expert support - 60% Convening - 10% These percentages may shift, dependent on how the programme develops. For example, work on community organising and movement building might be wholly led by a partner organisation, reducing core staffing costs but increasing partner and expert support costs, via either direct or aligned funding. To these ends, we would particularly welcome a relationship with a group of trusts and foundations that would be prepared to collaborate strategically in support of this initiative. Governance and oversight Social Care Future is hosted by the charity In Control, which will receive, administer and account for any funding received for this programme. While In Control's Board will be formally accountable for the programme, we will establish a programme board, drawing together people who draw on support and experts on narrative change, movement building and campaigning, to provide strategic oversight and accountability. Conclusion Our country, people who draw on social care today, people who work in the field and those working hard to keep the show on the road face the hardest of times. But despair is not an option. The challenges we face are both the spur, and the opportunity to think differently about the future we want for ourselves, our families and communities and for future generations, and about how we can act intentionally to bring that future about. We believe that the strategy and plans outlined in this note could help lay the foundations for a brighter future, where common concern for everyone's wellbeing and the right of everyone to lead 'gloriously ordinary life', guides how we live together, what we do together and what we build together. 1 Tricia Nicoll, as quoted by the House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee (2022) in its report 'A "gloriously ordinary life": Spotlight on adult social care' 2 Social Care Future (2021) How to Build Public Support to Transform Social Care https://socialcarefuture.org.uk/by-changing-the-story-of-social-care-we-can-build-public-support-to-transform-it-for-future-generations-heres-how/ 3 House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee (2022) 'A "gloriously ordinary life": Spotlight on adult social care' 4 Laybourn-Langton L, Quilter-Pinner H and Treloar N (2021) Making change: What works?, IPPR. http://www.ippr.org/research/publications/making-change-what-works