"If Not Us, Then Who?" Transforming Social Care

It was a strange place to find myself – and it felt unexpected, risky and I knew I was out of my depth. But I found that I knew what to do and how to conduct myself, as these feelings of overwhelm were now familiar – in part, because it was for this which my Churchill Fellowship prepared me.

My proposal for my Churchill Fellowship had outlined two organisations that I hoped to visit in the USA to learn about trauma-informed approaches for people with intellectual disabilities. However, listening to the webinars and reading through the preparatory documents and advice, I realised that I could afford to aim high in terms of my contacts: the title of being a Churchill Fellow would open some doors that I would not dare even knock on before.

Thus, my initially modest proposal turned into a veritable tour of the East Coast states as I moved between some of the most reputable trauma institutes, trauma specialists, service providers and experts across thirteen states in five weeks.

Some of these moments felt surreal: like driving down to Boston for a meeting with the Head of Bioethics at Harvard – a meeting arranged for me by a peer at the House of Lords. Even as I wondered what I was doing there, this extraordinary leader opened her laptop and emailed the heads of all the places I had hoped to go to next, requesting that they welcome me and make available to me anything I needed. They did.

These sorts of moments felt wonderous to me – and even so, I learnt that people are people, and many of them are kind and want you to be connected inside your sphere of influence and expertise. And in my world – in which we broadly all want the lives of people with intellectual disabilities to be gloriously ordinary and spectacularly equitable - the connections between us both strengthen the vision and build us all up.

And so, as the invite from the BBC came in, I knew what to do – who to turn to for help and advice, who to make the decisions with and how to feel the fear and do it… maybe not anyway, but rather because. Because the fear indicates the weight of the responsibility, and the responsibility needs to be stepped up into, not shied away from. And because if I don’t speak up, stand up, move forward in the furthering of patterns and models of social care that facilitate love and belonging, and address trauma and oppression – who will?

This is what I say to imposter syndrome these days: if not me, then who?

So I said yes and joined the debate. These moments are predictably anti-climactic: I was on the pavement waiting for a taxi within ten minutes of being on live TV.

But these moments sit within a wider journey that moves incrementally (sometimes imperceptibly!) forward. Our organisation, Unique Connections, still in its infancy, moves slowly and determinedly towards sector-wide transformation, persuaded that the UK social care sector can be built on love and belonging, that people with intellectual disabilities who are traumatised can heal, as can the organisations which support them. It will be overwhelming at times, but we will feel the fear and do it because. Because if not us, then who?

Beverley appeared on 'Sunday Morning Live' on 13 April 2025, available to view on BBC iPlayer.