Dealing with Ambiguity – how can I be sure?

‘Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.’ 

Sir Winston Churchill

If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything.

F.Menger.

United Nations Peace Monitor• DEATHS BY VIOLENCE PER 100,000:

• 1. SPAIN/GREECE 1.3• 10. MALTA 2.5• 11 ICELAND 2.6

• 13. CANADA 2.7• 16 NORTHERN IRELAND 3.5• 22 ENGLAND AND WALES 4.2• 29 ROMANIA 5.1• 37 ALBANIA 6.2• 40 SCOTLAND 7.3• 42 UNITED STATES 7.9• 44 ISRAEL 8.3• 77. COLOMBIA 77.1

Wicked Problem

• The challenges we face converge, intertwine and often remain largely beyond our understanding. Most of us suspect that the “experts” don’t really know what’s going on and that as a species we’ve released forces that are neither managed nor manageable.”

– Thomas Homer-Dixon (Paper by Prof Phil Hanlon University of Glasgow 2009)

VRU Trainee’s

VIOLENCE

IS A CONTAGIOUS PROCESS

Violence makes you ill

HOW TOSTOP EPIDEMICS

1. Interrupt transmission

2. Change behavior

3. Change norms

Question:

How do you know when an idea is innovative?

If you give people a choice between tough or soft policing

they’ll choose tough.

If it’s the choice between tough or smart policing –

they’ll choose smart.

10 Year Plan

Primary PreventionKey Prevention Strategies

1.Developing safe and stable relationships&

2.Developing life and social skills&

3.Challenging cultural and social norms that support violence

4.Reducing access to lethal means

5.Reducing availability and harmful use of alcohol

TEACHABLE MOMENTS

• EARLY YEARS / PARENTING– (The most important job in the world)

FACT

Parenting and early years support is the foundation of the violence reduction .

Reducing risk factors for violence

Youth Violence

Intimate Partner

Child Abuse

Elder Abuse

Sexual Violence

Increased access to pre and post natal care

Home visiting programmes

Parenting programmes Social development training for children Child abuse victim treatment programmes Training health staff to identify / refer victims Alcohol / drug use reduction strategies

Secondary Prevention

BYSTANDER

OPINION:We need to jail those we are afraid of,

and not those we are mad at.

Rather have mandatory programmes than mandatory sentencing.

NEWSRadical change in the design and delivery of public services is

necessary to tackle the deep-rooted social problems that persist in communities across the country

FLASH!

DISCIPLINE 1: COLLABORATE

DISCIPLINE 2: INNOVATE

Risk Mitigation in Innovation

• Empathy – deep connection and understanding of the people you are trying to serve.

• Prototyping – development of solution – so ‘failure’ becomes something that is learning that’s built on quickly.

• Openness – transparency and openness allow for quick understanding of problem.

PROBLEM

In most cases, STRATEGY

is separated by ACTIVITY by a wide gap.

Leadership on the line

• Leaders need to have the stomach for conflict, ambiguity and uncertainty.

• Holding steady in an adaptive context is critical.

• Set the ‘mood music’ - This is more than running an organisation its about making children and young people’s lives safer.

• Political Will – attitudinal and ideological readiness to bring down violence – may be far more important than the choice of concrete means to achieve the end.

• A successful plan will require the key actors – health, CJ, Police, prisons etc to commit to this aim.

• Information and education – changing society’s view about the nature and causes of crime and the way ahead.

• Public opinion and the role of the media – engaging them to retain a sober and reasonable attitude to violence reduction.

• Constructive Crime prevention alternatives – if nothing else is offered, the law and prison will be used as the primary shield against crime.

THE FOCUS TEST:

• Who are you?_________________

• What do you do?________________

• Why does it matter?_______________

Theory of Moral Sentiments

• “How selfish soever a man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortunes of others and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”

Adam Smith

THANK Q

“Work as if you live in the early days of a better Nation”

Feral pig ‘drinks 18 cans of beer, fights cow and then passes out drunk under tree’