Gloriously ordinary lives

What does a gloriously ordinary life mean at FitzRoy?

We caught up with Warren Ingram, East Midlands area manager – who along with Turran, who we support in Derby, and a team of FitzRoy colleagues – is working with Tricia Nicoll as part of the gloriously ordinary lives programme.

Warren said: “We want to understand what gloriously ordinary means and why we should all care. Tricia, who first came up with the idea of  ‘a gloriously ordinary life’, tells us it is about the mundane and day to day stuff we all do, whether that is a freshly made bed, your first cup of tea of the day or finally getting around to emptying an overflowing bin, as well as those heart sing moments, swimming in the sea, a beautiful sunset, or listening to your favourite song. These moments make up our day-to-day lives. And instead of something special – and different – people we support want the same. We all do.

I can already imagine you saying: “Yes, that sounds amazing and we support people to do that already.”

But we can get caught up with our language – with frameworks, outcomes, access, assessments – the social care sector language that we all use, that is neither glorious nor ordinary. It can be dehumanising.

Hear what Turran has to say about language

At FitzRoy, we want to start challenging ourselves and how we talk about our work, and we need your help.

Tricia asks us to be curious about the words we use. To ask ourselves, would we use that word about ourselves. Do we access the community at the weekend? Do we meet up with friends and call it a meaningful activity?

She calls it the Kitchen table test. 

If you wouldn’t use the word at home, talking with your family around your kitchen table, try not to use it when at work.

Tricia and her colleague Bryony Shannon talk about words that make you go ‘hmmmmm’.

Bryony writes a blog about it,  and they have come up with their list of words that make them go ‘hmmm.’

We are definitely ‘on a journey’ with our work with the amazing Tricia and the Gloriously Ordinary Lives programme. Our two key focuses being how we get better at supporting people to be the CEOs of their own lives, where they are in charge, as well as how we talk about people we support and the work that we do.

“Read more about the Gloriously Ordinary Lives programme.  Please let me know the words that make YOU go Hmmm.”