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I had another one of those moments yesterday....I get them quite often.....

At work we do a lot of work with people with a range of special needs: domestic violence, physical disability, brain injuries, young homeless, asylum seekers and the like. I think we do OK at it but, when I look at other housing associations, I don't think we are the best. In fact I know we are not. We've got over 23,000 properties and only 3,000 of those are care and support (the bit I head up) so it's not a massive part of what we do.

Well I got asked to go to an event yesterday with 30 commissioners (the people at local authorities and PCT's who have the cash and decide who's getting the cash via various contracts. I was asked to go to them to do a presentation on our 'innovative work with people with learning disabilities....'

Now we do a lot of stuff with people with learning disabilities. We tend to provide the housing and we have a number of care providers who deal with the support. I think we do it OK but then to be asked to talk to all these big wigs on our 'models of best practice' was all slightly surreal.

On the train back I refelected on the day and came to the conclusion it was just 'another one of those moments'. I get loads of them. Moments where the organsation (or even, dare I say it, myself too) get massive praise for things we are doing that we think are rather naff at times - well at least  not as good as others do!

What's that all about eh? Are we being too humble? Are others just worse than us at stuff? Have they misunderstood what we are really like? Are we just brilliant and hadn't spotted it?

My conclusion is a little bit of all of the above! That mixed up with an ability I seem to have to spin what we have well (maybe I should join a political party??!) That's not saying we are not good but I think I can show it in an even better light I think, whilst trying not to exaggerate?

This principle seesm to apply with me not just at work but at other times too i.e when we were in India doing the blog (we didn't think we were doing that much but others really did) at home with family (we are just a regular family but others say.....) etc etc

Who knows what the truth in it all is really! What I have learnt to do not believe the hype (!) work hard (so it may be true at least!), soak up as much knowledge as possible, develop the art of knowing a little about a lot and mixing that with a massive dose of blag (!).

It's got me where I am now!! Not that that's anything too special

All little musings......
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