Remember that classic sketch parodying the British class system with Ronnie Corbett as the working class man, Ronnie Barker as the middle class fellow and John Cleese as the upper class chap? It goes something like; ‘I look up to him because he is upper class, but I look down on him because he is lower class.’ and all the other permutations… (If you’re not old enough to have heard of it google ‘the class sketch 1966’.) It’s just brilliant.

And it got me thinking: What might the caricatures be amongst our professional tribes in the public sector? Please grant me some poetic license in my exaggerations…

The psychotherapist looks down on him because he merely intellectualises with rational thought, and on her because she runs around sorting out problems.

The doctor looks down on her for her hysterical fixation on emotion and on her for her menial tasks.

The social worker looks down on him and her because they’re both out of touch, and not doing any real work.  

In truth, it seems to me that doing, feeling and thinking are all important and none is superior nor inferior to the others. It is wonderful that we have a variety of professions in the public sector which all accentuate the doing, feeling and thinking differently. In my work, multiagency partnership approaches affirm to me continually that it is in the blending together of different professionals and organisations that something greater than the sum of its parts is generated. When we put this elixir to work for children and families then great things can happen.

Jael 2020