Transforming lives in Christ’s name

THAT there has been much achieved over 150 years is not in doubt. The history and impact of the work of the Church of Scotland in this area has been well documented, in various forms, throughout the year. The January edition of Life and Work 2019 gave a full synopsis of progress from 1869 to the present day, highlighting the inception of organised social care in the Church as a response to the rapidly growing poverty in Victorian Scotland. A Christ led response to the need of the times.

The 150th anniversary exhibition has been well visited as it has travelled to various locations across Scotland and it was great to make it a feature of the Edinburgh Festival. It tells the story of an organisation grounded in faith, central to the mission of the Church of Scotland and responding to the needs of the communities which it serves to make a real and lasting difference to the lives of so many. We have been delighted at the feedback from this exhibition as we have from the many other events which have taken place during this year. The services have all been encouraged to mark the occasion in the way that best suits them, and there have been some fabulous Victorian themed extravaganzas as well as much more modest offerings. The staff celebration, held at the Palace of Holyroodhouse was a wonderful occasion, and it was a real privilege to be able to recognise the value of their work in that way. What the 150 year story illustrates beautifully, however, is that we are as active today as we have ever been. CrossReach remains one of the largest voluntary sector providers of social care services in Scotland.

Thousands of people, every year, experience God’s love for them through the support we deliver as they tackle personal circumstances which bring particular challenge. The nature of the work has changed as we have moved out of traditional models of institutional care and have become much more active in local communities with a presence from Shetland to Kirkcudbright and Stornoway to Prestonpans. We are widely recognised for our quality and diversity, and our services complement the incredibly valuable work done in so many congregations and communities, offering additional more formal support where local resources are unable to meet the immediate needs of the person before them.

The imperative to provide this type of care is now perhaps as urgent as it was in Victorian Britain. Douglas Hamilton, chair of the Poverty and Inequality Commission, recently commented: “Poverty has a firm grip on Scotland. The statistics show that poverty is rising. Behind these statistics, there is the reality that over one million people are locked in a daily struggle to make ends meet”. Within CrossReach we see that manifested in so many ways, affecting mental health, physical health, leading to addiction and family breakdown, visiting disadvantage on those already living with a disability and who need our support to help them live a full and active life.

The imperative to care is also perversely driven by the success of the health service. Over the last couple of decades we have seen a huge leap in the numbers of people living into old age and whilst that, in itself, is to be celebrated, it brings its own challenges to an overburdened health and social care system. And yet the older population is set to rise still further. Professor David Bell, Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling gave a presentation at a Scottish Government conference on healthy aging in October 2018 which highlighted projected growth trends from 2016 to 2041 across different age groups to give a flavour of how Scotland’s demography will change. It is predicted that those in the group aged 80 and over will experience the most rapid growth. For every 100 people in this group in 2016 there will be 180 by 2041, which equates to an 80% increase.

So how to remain fit for the future, able to play our part in caring for those in greatest need and continuing to demonstrate Christ’s love in action? How to face a future of uncertain funding where the need is growing but both the resources of the Church, which provides 2% of our funding, and of local authorities which makes up the bulk of the rest, are stretched?

Those are the questions currently material to CrossReach, the wider Church and the society we live in. It is well reported that there are many challenges to those providing social care, and that there are no easy answers, but find a way forward we must. I think that some of the solution in helping us to face the future with confidence will lie in us reassessing our administrative structure and governance, making changes which will enable us to respond more quickly to the challenges and opportunities we face both nationally and locally. That work is already well underway within the Social Care Council and will be presented to General Assembly 2020 in conjunction with the Church’s trustees, whose support we have appreciated as we have worked to fulfil the instructions of the General Assembly of 2019.

Some of the answer will lie in the work of our services, finding new ways to meet both fresh and familiar challenges. We are constantly innovating as we look at how technology can make a difference and help us to reach people who have been unable to access a service or who need a service provided in an alternative way. Our embryonic online counselling platform, for example, will change the future delivery of that service and reach hundreds more people at a fraction of the cost it would take to set up and sustain small counselling centres across Scotland.

Technology of course is only part of an answer. Building strong face-to-face relationships and helping people to make or retain strong connections within their communities and ensuring that they have choice and control over how and where services are delivered is also crucial. And so we adapt. The traditional residential respite service provided to families with a child with a disability in Glasgow now offers bespoke support which meets the needs of older children with a physical or learning disability and affords access to a wide variety of activities on the doorstep, acting as a guide into community-led support. Generous Guild support is helping us identify and address issues surrounding loneliness through the ‘Join up the Dots’ project. Heart for Art provides support for people with dementia, hosted by local congregations from their church buildings giving a welcome place of sanctuary to older people and their carers where they can get a real break, someone to talk to and be supported by others in similar situations and help break down the stigma which still surrounds this illness. It is a model which we are exploring elsewhere and are now excited to be working with a congregation in Glasgow to provide a much needed mental health service in their local community in their own building.

We can only run our current services and plan for the future however if we have the staff to allow us to do so. One of the changes which I, personally, would most like to see is a change in the way we value care staff. A report by the Fair Work convention into Social Care in Scotland in 2019 looked at some of the factors which lead to care staff not being recognised for the amazing work that they do. “One of its strongest conclusions related the undervaluing of care work to the fact that it is largely undertaken by women. Women make up the majority of those who are cared for and they are also the majority of the workforce.” To my mind there is certainly a gender justice issue at play here. However, I believe there are other factors including how we view as a society those that the carers care for. Unlike health, social care services are primarily offering a service to those in the most vulnerable and challenging circumstances, the homeless, the addicted, those at the end of life living with dementia, children in care, those caught up in the criminal justice system. Places where the Church is called to be and to make a difference. The current situation is certainly something we need to tackle if we are to find a solution to the current recruitment crisis besetting the care sector and ensure that quality care offered with kindness and compassion is there for all who need it in the years to come. And I hope we will be here for many years to come yet, perhaps even another 150. Whatever the future holds and for however long, CrossReach is here, ready to serve, embracing change, transforming lives, in Christ’s name. 

Viv Dickenson is Chief Executive Officer of CrossReach, the Social Care Council of the Church of Scotland.