Council needs a lesson in plain speaking
Take a look at the diagram below. Still awake? Or have you sunk into a state of near death.
If you work for Birmingham City Council's education services you should be very excited by it.
Tony Howell, head of the service, certainly is. It appears beside an article penned by Mr Howell in the latest edition of Brighter Futures, a glossy magazine produced by the authority that goes out to everyone working in children's services in the city, including headteachers.
The diagram is a visual depiction of things talked about in the article attended by Mr Howell which he describes as a "remarkable, groundbreaking event!".
As Mr Howell explains: "I spent Saturday afternoon with 25 young people who have been helping put together a way of working which will allow all the different ways in which children and young people engage with each other and with service providers, to come together with a redefined Young People's Parliament (YPP)".
It goes on: "The young people - from schools, councils, the rights of children group, children's fund engagement group, international young leaders and our current young people's parliament - have been meeting over the last year to suggest new ways of engagement with young people in order to contribute to a single voice for young people with policy makers and service providers in Birmingham".
Now I'm no genius, but I like to think I've got at least half a wit. And I'm struggling to understand what on earth he's going on about!
The article goes on but to be honest half way through the first paragraph I'd lost the will to live.
Birmingham City Council's education press officer attempted to put me straight on the matter.
"It is not for Mrs Jones and her four-year-old," he barked.
"It's for a professional education audience."
Will they understand it, I asked?
"It's got English in it," he replied. "It means they are all working towards the Birmingham Children and Young People's Parliament."
Oh, that's clear then. Now I realise Mr Howell is not employed by the city council as a wordsmith - but come on!
I doubt this load of council gobbledegook will have enhanced anyone's understanding about anything or been of interest to anyone who is not directly mentioned in the article.
Am I been a bit harsh here? I've talked to Mr Howell on numerous occasions and found him to be an energetic and enthusiastic driving force for education in this city with some interesting ideas.
But they certainly are not conveyed in this glossily produced, publicly-funded self-serving publication. So, Tony, if you would like to get in touch....
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Diagrams make my head hurt, especially when you get the feeling the concept behind them is less complicated than the drawing itself
It's an actualisation of a strategy for a young person's initiative that will provide the policy makers and service providers with a unified comprehension of the issues that permeate the juvenile demographic within local authority area.
What's difficult about that?
On a quick read through this it makes perfect sense to me given the target audience.
You might as well say 'particle physicists need a lesson in plain English'.
They don't. Because they are communicating to eachother with various assumed levels of understanding.
Not everything you find on the web via google is designed for your eyes and professional experience.
Seems to me he's writing about something quite important: how to get the views of young people considered with appropriate levels of respect when major decisions are being made that may afffect those people.
If a more organised structure like this had existed when ASBOs were announced we might have avoided a few mistakes.
The young people involved in the discussion with Tony Howell understood the diagram perfectly. If Shahid would like to meet with them to have it explained i am happy to arrange.
Get a life Stef
"Get a life Stef"?!
That must be the lamest response from a 'pro blogger' I've seen on here yet. Wow - that's straight from the playground.
"No you get a life"... "No _you_ get a life"...
Can someone remind me why it is worth reading blog posts by people who don't give a monkey's what their audience thinks?
Stef is right in his assertion that the diagram makes perfect sense but I am surprised he makes no comment about the fact that the design of the graphic is awful. Stef's analogy about quantum physics is also disengenuous as the providers of children's services cover a far wider range of people than quantum physics so any assumed levels of understanding should be far broader.
However, as stated, there is nothing overtly complex about the graphic, it just, along with Tony Howell's waffle, perpetuates many people's view that many in the public sector need some serious guidance on how to properly communicate with real people, whatever levels of understanding we assume.
Did this diagram not come from workshops with young people? You call yourself a professional journalist if I, a 17 year old, is capable of understanding then what exactly does this say about you!
This diagram is perfectly clear and simple - the worst you could say was they could have chosen a better colour scheme! And anyways is the whole point not about encouraging engagement with young people so I'd forget about whether or not you find the diagram attractive to the eye and focus on whether or not the system proposed in it is effective!
Shahid,
I was reading Stef's first comment and thought - yep I'm with him on that. Then I read a comment from council press officer Carol Austin and thought - this gets more interesting, a blog post which has provoked a perfectly open and reasonable comment from the council press office.
Then I read your "get a life comment" to Stef and suddenly I thought - oh yes this post may well have been written by an idiot.
Take up Carol's offer and meet those children. I'll come along and record what happens.
Nick, I think that's an excellent idea.
Mr Naqvi, are you going to show the council the same contempt that you have shown your readers?
Wouldn't it be nice to see some occasional humility from journalists, rather than the arrogance we've come to expect?
If you had any point to make, then you have destroyed it by a silly, flippant comment.
But you seem to have written some good posts in the past and I hope you learn from your mistake.
Perhaps a proper investigation into the reaction of the children working with the council might be in order.
It might restore our faith in your professionalism and, hey, it might even fill a few columns in the newspaper for you.
Oh dear, I seem to have caused offence! The "get a life" comment was an off-the-cuff one that was supposed to be light-hearted. But of course it does not come across that way in print.
Stef, I apologise; Nick, idiot's a bit harsh and Emma I'm quite nice in person really. Not at all arrogant, I hope.
The lesson I have learnt here is have a cup of tea before firing off a comment first thing in the morning without thinking it through.
But hey, it's a brave new world this blogging for some of us.
Hope this has restored your faith in my commitment to education!
God forbid I become an apologist for flippancy but the comments about Shahid's unfortunate turn of phrase seem to be losing a little perspective. Emma asks whether he is going to show the same contempt to the council as he has his readers - is she suggesting the council deserves our reverence? As for suggesting an investigation into the reaction of the children working with children - doesn't sound like that'll sell too many newspapers. And while there seems to be a general agreement that Shahid was unecessarily dismissive, is anyone out there prepared to back Stef's comment about ASBOs..and explain why?