Joint Third Sector SIG, SORG and CORMSIS Seminar - Systemic Intervention: Developing Services with Young People Missing from Home or Care Event
- Time:
- 16:00 - 18:00
- Date:
- 16 June 2016
- Venue:
- Room 3041 Building 2, Southampton Business School
For more information regarding this event, please email Dr Yuan Huang at yuan.huang@soton.ac.uk .
Event details
Abstract: In this presentation, Gerald Midgley will discuss the methodology of systemic intervention that he has been developing for over twenty years. He will focus on key aspects of this methodology, such as the need for critical reflection on ethical and boundary judgements, and the value of mixing methods from a wide variety of sources to ensure that intervention is flexible and responsive to stakeholders’ concerns. The methodology will then be illustrated with a case study of an intervention conducted in Central Manchester, in which young people (under 16) and a variety of agencies developed new ideas to support children missing from home or care. The emphases will be on (i) how systemic intervention directs attention to the need to amplify the voices of marginalised stakeholders (such as, in this case, homeless children); and (ii) the value of mixing a variety of problem structuring methods to promote co-operation and mutual learning in a situation where multi-agency working was highly problematic. For those wanting to read more about systemic intervention prior to the presentation, you might like to have a look at Gerald Midgley’s book—Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice (Kluwer/Plenum, New York, 2000). This not only contains details of the methodology, but also presents four case studies of practice, including the one to be discussed in this seminar.
Speaker information
Professor Gerald Midgley,Business School, University of Hull,Bio: Gerald Midgley is Professor of Systems Thinking in the Centre for Systems Studies, Business School, University of Hull, UK. He also holds Adjunct Professorships at the University of Queensland, Australia; the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Mälardalen University, Sweden; and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He was Director of the Centre for Systems Studies at Hull from 1997 to 2003 and from 2010 to 2014. From 2003 to 2010, he was a Senior Science Leader in the Social Systems Group at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), New Zealand. Gerald has had over 300 papers on systems thinking, operational research and stakeholder engagement published in international journals, edited books and practitioner magazines, and has been involved in a wide variety of public sector, community development, third sector, evaluation, technology foresight and resource management projects. He was the 2013/14 President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, and has written or edited 11 books including, Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice (Kluwer, 2000); Operational Research and Environmental Management: A New Agenda (Operational Research Society, 2001); Systems Thinking, Volumes I-IV (Sage, 2003); Community Operational Research: OR and Systems Thinking for Community Development (Kluwer, 2004); and Forensic DNA Evidence on Trial: Science and Uncertainty in the Courtroom (Emergent, 2011).