Being non-judgemental

One of the things that attracts me to advocacy is the basically non-judgemental approach. We help people to make their voices heard: their own voices and their own wishes. We don't give advice, we try not to let our own feelings or beliefs get in the way of our work, we'll even help people to say things that we think are just wrong - in the hope, perhaps, that by effectively saying them they'll be able to get into a debate with other people that might help them develop more palatable aims.

I want to get away from some of the issues I've been dealing with recently, although there's some pretty good examples among these, especially among the acute psychiatric patients. Perhaps an interesting one is an example from Advocacy 2000's Key Ideas on Independent Advocacy:

An advocate works with a person wanting to be rehoused because they object to the ethnic origin of their neighbours. How can the advocate support this view without comprising the inclusive principles of advocacy?

It seems to me that today many people would be pretty judgemental about this one, and in fact I have spent so much time working with people on the receiving end of racial discrimination that I'm quite keen on these issues myself. On the other hand, this person has come to an advocacy project, so maybe things can turn out a little differently...

So the 'judgemental' people, quite possibly with the best intentions, may well say that 'we can't possibly help you express your racist views, that isn't a good reason to move, pull yourself together and learn to be less offensive.'

I would hope that most advocates would take a deep breath, combat their natural alarm bells, and start to ask this person some open questions to find out what really lies behind their basic question.

Now this is a difficult one, and I would support any advocate who felt they couldn't work with this person: we can try to find an alternative advocate (although if another person comes along later with a similar request I hope you wouldn't still find it so difficult).

The next thing I would hope is that through working with an advocate this person will develop some more clarity about their needs and wishes. I can imagine they've said this to quite a few people before they found an advocate, and I can imagine the housing officer, the police, the advice service, maybe even the social worker all getting quite offended and refusing to talk about the issue. The advocate talks though, and through this talking probably finds several other underlying issues that are translated into race discrimination through lack of communication skills. Talking to the advocate helps them to identify these issues more clearly, and sometimes talk about them, instead of the ethnicity of their neighbour.

Anyway I'm sure you can continue the argument from there. And to put this into the context of the not very ethnically diverse and mainly rural metropolitan district I currently live and work in, I have found myself supporting asylum seekers to be moved from almost entirely 'white' communities into more ethnically diverse areas, which I see as closely analagous to this example.

So this was an example of being non-judgemental. You will have noticed that the advocate took a deep breath just before they started work. This is because being non-judgemental in this way is an active process: it requires hard work and commitment. Like my recent post Humility is not a passive state, it is important to see that being non-judgemental is more than simply not doing something.

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OK. So now we've established that, I also want to say something related but slightly different about being non-judgemental. This is about the sort of statements we make, and it is a move against the sort of political correctness which is slowly creeping through society, even though we reject the term as it was popularised in the States in the 1980's and 90's.

I have a friend who is fat. Occasionally she gets fed up with people who pussy-foot around the subject and feel embarrassed to say the word fat in her presence. Some people wouldn't even say the word when she was life-threateningly obese. She thinks they should grow up and get a life. There are also people who want to reclaim the words mad or crazy or dwarf or midget. Look at midget gems after all: they're pretty sweet, so why can't I be? (and believe you me, I can be...)

On the other hand my fat friend has knocked grown men out after inappropriate comments. She's easily able to tell the difference, and so are they (when they wake up). There are also boderline cases. I have a laugh with my friend and most of the time she appreciates it, but there have been occasions where I've upset her. This is partly to do with her health at that moment, but I don't want to make excuses.

The fact is that I need to strike a balance between speaking the truth and remaining sensitive. In the end this is an impossible task, but it is a task which I feel duty bound to attempt.

This is being non-judgemental: it is an impossible task, but if we are going to acheive it at all we can't simply go in one direction towards what we think is safety - that is judging safety to be better. If we spend too much time seeking safety though we just end up in that grey world that I have already said I am working against (see Delivering the world from its exhausting boredom).