You are, and I think it’s also an absolute total privilege of the job, actually, is to… I mean, you know, when somebody’s, following a death, the last thing you want to do is take into your space a stranger, you know. And nobody would choose that, and to be with people at a point where they’re going through the worst time of their life, you know, you’re in this intimate space of painful grief with them and that, and the privilege of being trusted to be in that space and to try and be an ally for action is, you know, is what also makes that job the hardest and the most profoundly, you know, incredible job as well, just being so intimately close with people who are extraordinary.
I mean extraordinary people. The thing about, I think, the work with INQUEST is just the spectrum of seeing the very worst of humanity and the very best of it. And it’s the two together that I think, you know, it’s, one keeps the other going and, you know, I think, yeah, I mean, you know, terribly difficult and there’s a part of you that has to disconnect in order to do it. And I probably also, you know, but also not so much that you cease to feel because that, you can’t not feel, because otherwise it doesn’t matter and if it doesn’t matter, why are you doing it, you know. I think in the end such a driving force for me is at the heart of so much, you know, care, you know, care. How is care given, how is it not given, how is value attached or not attached, who is value given to or not given to, how are these decisions taken, how are responses informed, you know.
And whether it was working at Brent Community Law Centre or working at INQUEST, they feel so profoundly, you know, important to me, that care has to be the driving force, you know. If care is given or denied, depending on who somebody is, what race they are, what power they hold or don’t hold, what status they hold or don’t hold, that feels at the heart of all difficulty in society for me, and if that can be combatted and that we work together to push back against that, then I think that’s kind of the best that you can do, really, in terms of bringing out a kind of an equality, you know. And so I think, I think in the end you have to be disciplined working at INQUEST, you just can’t be a bleeding heart, you know, you’ve got to be a resource and, you know, and you’ve got to be a useful resource because, you know, families don’t have time.
They don’t have time, you know. So when we would invite families to a Family Listening Day, I mean I always think that’s a funny name, a Family Listening Day, more like a family evidence sharing session, whether it was with Angiolini, you know, or with the Hillsborough, the Bishop’s Review, or, you know, with the IPCC, the families can’t be conned into going to something and reliving trauma unless it’s going to do something. And I think the thing that, you know, the relationships that we developed with families is one of trust, that actually if they were being asked to do something it was to good effect, it was going to go somewhere, rather than it was just a talking shop.
Talking shops are no point, just maintains the status quo. It has to just be, you know. So I think we would all be, always be very careful as well, what is it that we’re doing and why are we doing it. Is this actually going to serve the families or is this, you know, it can’t be about INQUEST, it’s got to be about the family, you know, and so I think this thing about, you know, as a caseworker, that thing, you know, about helping families know how and where to direct their very limited energy and resource at a time when they had none is a really key thing. And, you know, I think that applies across the board, actually.
