Why though, as with the Manchster homelessness services (also covered recently in CC) and previously with the CANDI assertive outreach team for the homeless, do we test out or experiment with people marginalised and excluded. And, why is this solely focused on neurobiology as the panacea to structural inadequacies. More biases, no?

Maybe, as Eileen Munroe said, that social work is a Complex Adaptive System (btw ~ it is) and from within the hermeneutic of psychology the research inferences now being made hold true. Afterall, there’s nothing more powerful as demonstrated in this (and the other) article than having referential power. The approach speaks for itself, right?

I, ever curious, wonder about the s75 NHS Agreements and the how of arriving at such services development, and at what scale, and the replication of such elsewhere.

I wonder about ‘cherry picking’ too; 60% of success is, in ‘selling’ attributed to increasing visibility of the product ~ it’s called shelf positioning ~ and the ‘rise’ again of the languages of dual diagnosis and complex needs.

I also wondered, following comments made in CC about the contributions made by David Howe on Attachment Theory and Core Principles and Knowledge, about the enduring power of postmodernism within the profession. Is this merely a rehashing of ‘the social inadequacies’ model (see Peter Archard: The Mad, Sad and Bad: Societies Confused Response to Vagrant Alcoholics cica late 70s early 80’s) ~ afterall, the, late, Sheila McKechnie of Shelter said ‘people are homeless because they have nowhere to live’ and prompted by the poetry of The Trouberdore of Verse who painstakingly writes about homelessness across the US from the lived perspective and the repeated exclusion of those who won’t do as they’re told ie behavioural agreements of abstinence.

I wondered about the longevity of the Peterloo Project, also (historically) a pioneering Manchester service offering ‘wet houses’ ie drinking permitted, and I wondered about the basis of neurobiology in the philosophy of Keirkegaardian notions of abandonment anxiety, and the nervous system and brain responses to such.

I wondered whether transcranial magnetic stimulation to assess brain plasticity is likely to see a resurgence (Leeds University around 2003 lead a research team looking at abnormal or disruptions to intentionality in brain plasticity amongst a cohort of people who experienced major psychosis but mainly schizophrenia)

I reached for a go-to reference ‘Mind, Meaning and Mental Disorder: The Nature of Causal Explanation in Psychiatry and Psychology’ by Derek Bolton and Jonathan Hill. And, as I ponder the recent ‘selling’ of Leon Brenner’s ‘The Autistic Subject’ and his introduction of the ‘dermic drive’ as an addition to the sex and death drive, I minded towards Brenners, and almost throw away comment, that his signifier for writing was the economics emerging from the neoliberal’selling’ of neuro-diversity.

So, just as I am heartened by Sara’s achievement I am also watching the Governments reaction to the recent petition by 100 Councils (across all-parties) to turn the tide and stop the rot of Social Housing. In 1997 the Homeless Alliance, formerly CHAR, championed the idea of ‘conviviality’ of working at grass roots, you know estate based work, as the way to prevent youth homeless at source ie at home.

Homelessness, is a cash cow and, perhaps, the quickest way to make a million. So, while ‘we’ celebrate the inclusion of NDers lets also keep an eye on the financial pictures and environment.

NHS CANDI used the majority of their ‘Supporting People’ allocation, which ran into the tens of millions, to secure the financing of becoming a Foundation Trust ie 1yrs operating surplus while actually spending about a sixth ie 500k on direct delivery. VolOrgs have exploited the financial gains of Housing Benefit to move away from local delivery to become regional and national providers ~ the same is true of All drug and alcohol services.

Maybe it’s time to ask that s75 NHS Agreements are the norm? Although, I’d guess that it’d take an NDer to see the patterns and a neurotypical to make the case.

Together is better, right?