Your editorial about new ideas in social work (3 September) was right to highlight the power of building relationships rather than pushing people through disconnected services. The examples you gave, and the brilliant work of the Changing Futures programme, show that when practitioners spend time getting to know people, treat them with respect and see and understand the whole person, lives can change for the better.
But calling these projects “pioneers” risks making them sound like rare exceptions. If this way of working is proving effective, why should it be left to a handful of special schemes? Relational support shouldn’t be a side experiment – it should be the foundation of all our public services.
