Update from Nick Sinclair, Director of the Local Area
Coordination Network
Building Blocks of Better: Community
Hello! I hope you’re having a great summer and welcome to this month’s newsletter which is packed with interesting information. As it happens, information is the principle we’re focussing on this month in our continued work to shine a light on the ten underpinning principles of Local Area Coordination.
People often say “information is the key to a good life” and we certainly find that to be true within Local Area Coordination where we state “access to accurate, timely, and relevant information supports informed decision-making, choice and control”.
At our conference last December our colleague Angela Catley from Community Catalysts helped us reflect on this. In her speech she argued that “throughout our lives, we all have times when we feel the need for a bit of extra support or expertise, times when we reach out for advice or information. Times when we feel disconnected or vulnerable – times when we don’t feel very powerful at all. The exact times that the people, agencies and organisations with that information (power) need to be aware of how powerful they are.”
In her summary, Angela went on to pose us some really important questions:
- “How do we embrace the positive change that Covid has forced upon us without leaving people behind?
- How do we make information accessible to as many people as possible?
- How do we enable people to really connect with others who have what they need – and move away from the ‘distant/electronic’ approaches that seem a false economy for nearly everyone and certainly for society?”
It seems to me that in order to start answering these we need to embrace a different approach to information sharing. This needs to be one that values fact and relationships of trust rather than the misinformation and hearsay that seems to be increasingly prevalent in today’s social media focused society. During those tricky points in our lives, the confusing and often distressing search for accurate and timely information can be easily redressed by committing to an approach like Local Area Coordination. We need to have a system of information sharing that is highly personalised, well informed, locally rooted and connected to the bigger picture of rights and local opportunities for inclusion. After all, in addition to being the key to a good life, information is also power.
Enjoy the newsletter.
Thank you,
Nick Sinclair
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