COVID-19: Vulnerability and the Fear of Vulnerability

Event overview

Join us for a special Tavistock Policy Seminar about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on vulnerable children, adults and older people.

We are all vulnerable, one way or another and the crisis has exposed this to us at many levels. Those who work with the most at risk in society are also vulnerable. Am I helping protect people, or simultaneously putting them, and myself and my family at risk? We are vulnerable most obviously to external forces over which we have little or no control. Viruses, being no respecter of boundaries, present a problem to the assumptions of omnipotence that underpin so many of our actions. The upsurge of conspiracy theories is a testament to the depth and prevalence of current social anxieties, even if we don’t all reach for the same explanations. Governments take on responsibility for the management of epidemics, but they may not be best equipped to manage the ways we respond to such a threat with our sense of vulnerability. This is work that we have to do for ourselves. 

In this seminar we will explore both the wider context of mass vulnerability, and the particular situations of vulnerable children, adults and older people. Children at risk have become harder to reach, domestic violence referrals have escalated, child and adolescent mental health referrals are hard to manage effectively, older and at risk people are facing a lengthy isolation period, and dependant older people are dying unnecessarily. The longer term impacts on our NHS ‘heroes’ and our less sanctified social care workforce are hard to gauge at present. 

The seminar will start with presentations by consultant and author Tim Dartington followed by Fostering and Adoption Policy and practice leader John Simmonds and psychotherapist, author and consultant Angela Foster.
Online discussion will be facilitated in smaller ‘breakout rooms’ on Zoom, and there will be a chance for some final plenary reflections with the whole seminar group. 

Online discussion will be facilitated in smaller ‘breakout rooms’ on Zoom, and there will be a chance for some final plenary reflections with the whole seminar group. 

Speakers

Tim Dartington and John Simmonds

Schedule

18:00 - 20:00: Talk 

Venue

Zoom

Cost

Free but booking is essential. Book your ticket on Eventbrite now.