Concept (E-Journal)
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Young Carers in a time of COVID
Full text linkTwo weeks into my new role as a Young Carer Development Worker, I did not picture myself typing away at my home computer in my dressing gown and hiking socks. I expected to be ‘hitting the ground running’ and really getting to grips with the dynamic, face-to-face work that Edinburgh Young Carers (EYC) delivers. Like many others in our field, I feel at a bit of a loss and helpless trying to fulfil the role that I love during this period of social isolation. This time of fear, uncertainty and frustration has brought huge challenges for services, workers and communities. Perhaps most starkly for those individuals and families who are already struggling.As a new member of the team, I am in no way an authority on the issues that affect young carers. However, luckily for myself (and you the reader!), I am working with a team full of experts who have been kind enough to highlight the issues impacting on EYC’s children and young people in these, to use the stock phrase of 2020, ‘unprecedented times’
Ryan, F (2019) Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People
Full text linkThis book review is structured around a set of questions which have been devised specifically to encourage students to offer reviews for publication. Concept welcomes such contributions. If you are interested in reviewing a book contact [email protected]
In 2018 the United Nations released the findings of a secret inquiry into state-level violations of the human rights of disabled people. Its conclusion was that a \u27human catastrophe\u27 was underway. In every aspect of civil life, from employment and housing to education and social security, disabled people are hugely disadvantaged. You might easily assume this report was conducted in a country with a minimal policy commitment to human rights but, in fact, it was conducted in Britain. 
Community education in times of Covid-19
Full text linkThere is an African proverb that says ‘a smooth sea doesn’t make a skilled sailor’. We are currently on a very rough sea and it feels like we are in a rubber dinghy that bobs up and down – not unlike those small blow-up boats that refugees use, sustained by a hope for survival and arriving in a better world. The pandemic of Covid-19 has rocked the world – and while we created the conditions for its thriving, we were blind to the way we ravaged the earth paving the way for environmental, economic and human emergencies and a climate crisis from which we may not recover. There were many warning signs which we ignored, and as Mike Davis says, ‘the long-anticipated monster is finally at the door’, and global capitalism totally impotent in the face of this biological crisis
Reflections on 40 Years of ALP (the Adult Learning Project)
Full text linkStan Reeves, now retired, is keen to share his experience of Freire-inspired approaches to adult education and community development.
Dialogue is the encounter between men [sic], mediated by the world, in order to name the world. ... If it is in speaking their word that people, by naming the world, transform it, dialogue imposes itself as the way by which they achieve significance as human beings. (Paulo Freire (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed Penguin
Niamh McCrea & Fergal Finnegan (23rd January 2019) Funding Power and Community Development
No full textThis book is one of a series of edited and authored books, Rethinking Community Development, re-evaluating community development in theory and practice in light of the new challenges and localised consequences of global processes. In this volume, McCrea and Finnegan explore ways in which ‘funding relationships, structures and processes contribute to or undermine the possibility of meaningful community development.
A call for solidarity: Community support for the Tollcross Community Action Network amidst the Covid-19 Outbreak
Full text linkIn late 2019 and early 2020 the coronavirus Covid-19 spread rapidly throughout the world, resulting in national lockdowns and extreme anxiety as supermarket stock became sparse and health services were pushed beyond capacity. Amidst the panic buying on the ground and failures to react appropriately at the UK Government level, a wealth of community-run initiatives rapidly developed throughout Scotland, the U.K., and beyond. Newly motivated and seasoned community organisers quickly established Facebook Groups and appropriately-named Twitter hashtags that sought to identify those with the means, health, capacity, and time to help others suddenly faced with unemployment, homelessness, and either self-imposed or healthcare sector recommended isolation and quarantining. During this time, an organisation for whom I am the sole paid and part-time employee, the Tollcross Community Action Network (TCAN), has sought to sustain our weekly Community Hub (operated in partnership with the Tollcross Foodbank) for as long as possible, continuing our frontline support for those living in social or economic isolation, experiencing food poverty, or in need of assistance in understanding medical correspondence or bills. This article briefly describes the struggles, support, and lessons we learnt during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic
Experiencing dependance on drugs and alcohol and homelessness in a Pandemic
Full text linkI work as a relief Support Worker at a Homeless Hostel, in Edinburgh. Along with a committed staff team, I support those people experiencing dependence on drugs and alcohol and are homeless. The agency I work for is at this time rewriting their approach to such a cohort in, what I consider to be, a very enlightened, progressive and compassionate way
Informal Education as Freedom: Re-considering youth and community work through a Capabilities Approach
Full text linkIntroductionAusterity policies have failed to recognise and account for the value of youth and community work. Against a backdrop of excessive cuts since the 2008 financial crash, youth services have been disproportionately affected, with a growing emphasis on measurement, outcomes and, ultimately, performativity (de St Croix, 2018, Youdell and McGimpsey, 2015). In their recent research project, Louise Doherty and Tania de St Croix have highlighted tensions in measuring and evaluating youth work, and argue that the way practice is recognised and valued by young people and youth workers is disconnected from the way it is measured, monitored and evaluated. They argue that, rather than seeking to ‘measure’ practice, a grassroots democratic approach to accountability would attempt to create the conditions in which high quality practice can be nurtured and developed\u27 (Doherty, 2019)
Editorial
Full text linkThis is the first time we have published a supplementary issue of Concept in our almost 30-year history. We were first motivated by a \u27call for solidarity\u27 from Luke Campbell (in this issue), drawing on his work with a local community action network since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. We hastily set to, seeking contributions from organisations and individuals we thought may be interesting, or interested to respond. It was not intended to be representative of the field of practice; more of a snapshot. We are aware that alongside a general sense of dislocation at this grim and demanding time, there is also alarming evidence of differential circumstances and experiences on the ground. We hoped to capture some of this for our readers, and to offer a modest opportunity to record, reflect, express, share and, maybe even generate some small sense of solidarity, needed now more than ever. The response has been very encouraging, and the number of contributions has grown beyond our original estimate
Coronavirus, community and solidarity
Full text linkThis short piece seeks to offer a sober yet optimistic speculation on the renewal of community and civic solidarity in the face of the rapidly unfolding coronavirus pandemic. Over the last forty years, social and civic solidarity have been systematically undermined by the neoliberal project. Yet over a decade ago, a global crisis of neoliberal finance capitalism presented us with an unprecedented opportunity to break away from its orthodoxies and rebuild the solidarity necessary for democratic citizenship. Instead, we lived through an astonishing period during which the ‘alchemy of austerity’ reworked the crisis as one of a bloated and inefficient welfare state (Clarke and Newman, 2012). ‘Zombie’ neoliberalism staggered on and inequality grew, as communities across the UK organised to resist austerity and ameliorate the worst effects of brutal cuts and punitive welfare reform. Perversely, a solidaristic rhetoric of ‘sharing the pain’ was invoked to justify the very policies that undermined solidarity: the reduction or closure of essential public services, youth and community centres, public libraries, as well as welfare reforms that the UN Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights compared to Victorian Poor Laws (Alston, 2018)