‘We have no time to stand and stare’: The importance of learning from the past …

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?-

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

W.H. Davies

09.04.2021: I am Robert Cade, the Director of Strategy and Performance, and the executive sponsor of our Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) at Centrepoint, the national youth homelessness charity. I am stepping into the formidable shoes of Dr Helen Miles (PIE Lead) in writing this week’s PIE blog, as Helen takes well-deserved annual leave.

So first off, I am not a psychologist, and the furthest that I have ever delved into psychology was a lecture on Sigmund Freud as part of my history degree. However, PIE is something that I fully feel at home with. The creation of an environment that is based around the psychological needs of colleagues and young people has now become an integral part of the fabric of how Centrepoint operates, and it is crucial to our new strategy “Change the Story: Ending Youth Homelessness All Together”. This new strategy sets out how, if we all work together across society, we can end youth homelessness by 2037, the year at which a child born today would turn 16, thereby ending homelessness for the next generation.

As a historian by education, I have always been fascinated by how history repeats itself and by leaders’ reluctance to learn from previous historical catastrophes. Should Hitler not have realised he risked over-stretching himself by invading Russia, when Napoleon’s dreams of his European empire came unstuck only 100 years previously when he took the fateful decision to attack his former Russian ally? Should the world not have been better prepared for the Coronavirus pandemic given how many other pandemics have broken out in the past century? As Aldous Huxley famously said, “the most important thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history”.

As we strive to end youth homelessness, I therefore believe that it is so important that we review what has worked well to date, and equally importantly, what has not. Then we can use this insight to improve what we currently do, and even more importantly share the insight externally with partners and other organisations so that they can replicate what works well. Thereby making evidence based decisions to end homelessness, and of course, evidence-generating practice is one of the key five areas of a psychologically informed environment.

Another of the key five areas of psychologically informed environments is staff support and training, which has reflective practice at its heart. Reflective practice has been pivotal at Centrepoint in supporting colleagues through the pandemic. This is of course all about reflecting on recent situations and experiences to inform future practice. It is something that I have tried to build into my weekly routine — taking time at the end of a Friday to reflect on the week that has been and consider what lessons I can take into the following week.

So taking the time to reflect and regularly evaluating what has worked well for evidence generating practice has made me think that being a historian by education has perhaps prepared me better for my role of sponsoring PIE at Centrepoint than what I thought. So what other lessons from history do I consider are relevant for the Psychological Informed Environment that we are creating at Centrepoint?

1. “Rome was not built in a day” [First quoted in French in 1190]

Just as it took centuries to build the Roman Empire, this saying has been used for a millennium to attest to the need for time to create great things.

This is important to remember as we start our third year of creating our Centrepoint PIE. It was always our intention that it would take five years to embed PIE across the organisation, but that its impact would be felt across everything that we do. Even with the pandemic, I have been delighted to see what a difference PIE is making across Centrepoint already and it is really encouraging to see the unanimous enthusiasm for it across all of my colleagues.

Similarly, in a social media age when young people expect to see immediate benefits, it is worth remembering that a great thing takes time and effort to achieve. Therefore, whilst we want every young person to have the opportunity to achieve ‘a job and home’ — every day, and every small positive step they make towards this ultimate goal should be celebrated.

2. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” [Winston Churchill]

It is debated as to whether Winston Churchill actually ever said this, and actually I could have chosen to use the saying “lose the battle but win the war”. However, in any case the lesson from history is that a single achievement does not mean ultimate success, and a failure is not the end of the world. In other words, let’s never give up!

This is why Centrepoint strongly believes that no young person should be defined by the fact that they are homeless. Every young person can achieve great things.

Similarly, it is why our psychologically informed environment stresses the need to understand the reasons why young people might not be engaging or showing conflicting behaviours. We strive to never give up on a young person, but rather work together to overcome any challenges.

3. “The time is always right to do right” [Martin Luther King on October 22, 1964]

History shows that time and time again it takes people to stand up to make the change in society that we want to see.

As we strive to end youth homelessness for the next generation, Centrepoint’s new strategy articulates that we cannot achieve this alone. It will take individuals and organisations across society to stand up and make this ultimate vision a reality.

We can all play a part in achieving this goal by doing what is right, and I have been inspired time and time again by how colleagues have stood up and gone the extra mile during the pandemic.

Regularly taking the time out to reflect has been really powerful for me — but it is something that society does not seem to prioritise in the fast paced environment in which we live. So let’s be more PIE as we move forwards, and let’s change this together.

‘What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?’