And it made me sad.
I am the first to admit that statistics and numbers and graphs are not my thing.
And I'm not proud of that.
I look at a page full of lines and numbers and co-ordinates and immediately start dreaming of blank pages waiting to be filled with words and stories and pictures.
I see a pie chart divided into percentage pieces and start wondering if it is time to pick the apples from our tree.
Pie charts and statistics make me crazy, even when they are true.
 |
| It's a pie chart, so it must be right |
Data analysis sends me into an imaginary world. A world where we do strange things like talk to people instead of turning them into a statistic. A world where we know who people are because we have met them, not because they are a number on a piece of paper.
No, wait…...
That's the real world.
The joy of working in a Children's Centre is that you get to meet everyone who walks through your door. Whatever their background or ethnicity or needs or ability, you can welcome them, make them a comforting cup of tea or coffee, sit down and listen to them.
And maybe they have had a night of no sleep with a screaming baby, maybe they have had a row with their partner, maybe they have lost all their benefits or their job or their house.
Every day is different, every family has a story to tell.
Sometimes it takes 2 cups of tea before we can piece together what the real problem is. And when we have,if we possibly can, we help and if we can't help, we try and find someone who can.
What are the graphic co-ordinates of 2 cups of tea and a box of tissues ?
But the data shows that not enough people walk through our sliding doors, that not enough young parents, dads, ethnic minorities choose to engage with our services.
" What you need to do," say the powers-that-be, " is use your data better….At least 30 to 40% of your time should be spent inputting and analysing data.That way you can work out who isn't coming and why."
Or we could just try and find them and ask them.
There are times when our centre is so full there is nowhere to sit, when we spend our days in a whirl of problem solving for children and parents . On those days, if you walked out of your office you would meet people of all genders and from all walks of life.
But if you did that, if you left your office, you would have to leave your computer.
And if you leave your computer, how are you going to have the data to show you who you should talk to.
And what if, what you are seeing with your own eyes doesn't match the data?
What if, by spending time talking to people instead of reading the data about them, you actually find out what they want.
And what if that's not what the data is telling us?
What people need, whether they are the most vulnerable families or the most affluent, is a familiar face and a welcoming smile to help them join in.
And we can only become familiar if we are out there meeting them.
They will only recognise our smile if we have met them before.
And we can only be out there meeting them if we are not sitting in front of a computer screen analysing the data about who we should be out there meeting.
You can sit with your back to the window and look at a computer screen to find out if it's raining outside. But you have to actually step outside, to understand that rain makes you wet!
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