Keith Danby on faith in the system
Michael Little from Ratio in conversation with Keith Danby, Chief Executive of Safe Families for Children about the role of faith-based organisations in civil society and public systems.
Safe Families for Children, a Newcastle-based charity, is one of the most significant relational innovations in children’s social care in recent years. They have shown the way to better connect public systems with civil society, growing in the last five years from one or two local authorities in the North East to about 40 across England and Scotland. There is evidence from some areas of reducing the flow of children into care of over 10 per cent a year.
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The majority of Safe Families volunteers are churchgoers. What role does this subset of civil society have to play in improving children and families’ lives? According to Keith, this is fundamentally about people helping people — and the reciprocal benefits that result:
“We’re very clear about what it means to be Christians involved in social action. We’re clear to our volunteers that this is not about evangelism. It’s not about conversion. It’s not about growing church numbers. It’s about a Christian community reaching out into the community to help. And if, as a result of that, people choose to come along to the church, then they’d be very welcome. This is acts of loving kindness….[Volunteers] will tell you that although the family benefits — it’s a deeply enriching experience for them too.”
As part of a series of conversations across the country, Michael Little from Ratio talked to Keith about Safe Families and what it says about the respective roles of civil society and public systems. Listen to the podcast on iTunes or SoundCloud here:
