Community and Connections in the Specialist Advice Sector
A Blog By Jayne Butler
A short story about running a legal advice centre, about solidarity and about why, if you’re an advice sector manager, you should apply for the Management and Leadership Programme.
Back in 2010, I took over what was then Newcastle Law Centre. Running an advice centre was already a challenge and then, just weeks later, came a General Election, a change of Government, and a wave of uncertainty.
I remember wondering how on earth we would survive. And, more importantly, how our service users would.
We did survive, but only because we were part of a supportive network of Law Centres where people genuinely showed up for each other. A fellow manager spent an entire train journey helping me get my head around legal aid. Another turned up, pitched in to sense check my budgets, and fed me cake. I phoned Law Centres Network with my head in my hands more often than I can remember.
And every time, they stood with me, guided me, and connected me with others.
That wasn’t an exception in our sector, it was the culture. It still is. And it has shaped how I work to this day: you stand with people. You show up. You help them find the next person, the next idea. Sometimes you just buy them cake.
Fifteen years later I’m a consultant in the sector, I’m the Interim CEO of North Wales Community Law, and I’m chair of Rights of Women. I also help support managers across the sector through Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) Management and Leadership Hub.
And again, we’ve had a change of Government. And I find myself wondering how the sector will survive and how our service users will survive. I’m not sure many of us thought it would feel like this now. But here we are.
And we will survive - if we hold onto the ways of working that have always sustained us: connection, solidarity, and community.
I’m lucky to have those connections. I know I can pick up the phone to people. I have colleagues across the sector I can talk things through with, bounce ideas off, or turn to for advice and support.
The Management and Leadership Programme is about creating more of those opportunities - more relationships, more shared learning, more spaces for solidarity, unfortunately not quite as many opportunities for cake.
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