Goodenough events are about building 'Open Source'*
policy. They're about turning the world on its head, and
looking at stuff from different angles. They stand to
remind people that drug policy is not just Government's
responsibility, but something that everyone should feel
they're involved in. The underpinning philosophy is that
good policy and strategy are built from lively dialogue
within a consensus focussed civil society framework.
The Goodenough Drug Strategy (below) came from the Goodenough 1 simulation event that took place in December 2006 designed and hosted by myself, David Mackintosh and the London Drug Policy Forum and with support from Peter Jackson, DrugScope and The Conference Consortium. The event took place at Goodenough College (which is why its called Goodenough - serendipity eh?). We got 30 people from across the drugs and related fields in a room together and told them they had £1.4 billion and 24 hours to pull together a framework and key principles for a new National Drug Strategy. Goodenough 1 gave us an opportunity to look at what we could and should aspire to as a field – but it also offered more than aspiration. Since completion, the Goodenough Drug strategy, with its focus on life after treatment, support for communities and young people within a mainstreamed locally driven framework, has been a significant influence on thinking across the field and in the formation of new strategy.
We're planning another Goodenough event - Goodenough 2 - for January 2009. While Goodenough 1 focussed on national strategy, this time we want to focus on a town – and look closely at the services, strategies and approaches that can help protect communities and individuals from the harms related to substance use.
We hope that Goodenough events can continue to influence the way we talk about public policy in the UK. We also hope that the drugs field can come to embrace the type of aspirational but rational, humanistic approach to public policy that Goodenough represents and that is already the way forward in so many other areas of social policy in the UK.
*Open Source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in. So there.
The Goodenough Drug Strategy (below) came from the Goodenough 1 simulation event that took place in December 2006 designed and hosted by myself, David Mackintosh and the London Drug Policy Forum and with support from Peter Jackson, DrugScope and The Conference Consortium. The event took place at Goodenough College (which is why its called Goodenough - serendipity eh?). We got 30 people from across the drugs and related fields in a room together and told them they had £1.4 billion and 24 hours to pull together a framework and key principles for a new National Drug Strategy. Goodenough 1 gave us an opportunity to look at what we could and should aspire to as a field – but it also offered more than aspiration. Since completion, the Goodenough Drug strategy, with its focus on life after treatment, support for communities and young people within a mainstreamed locally driven framework, has been a significant influence on thinking across the field and in the formation of new strategy.
We're planning another Goodenough event - Goodenough 2 - for January 2009. While Goodenough 1 focussed on national strategy, this time we want to focus on a town – and look closely at the services, strategies and approaches that can help protect communities and individuals from the harms related to substance use.
We hope that Goodenough events can continue to influence the way we talk about public policy in the UK. We also hope that the drugs field can come to embrace the type of aspirational but rational, humanistic approach to public policy that Goodenough represents and that is already the way forward in so many other areas of social policy in the UK.
*Open Source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in. So there.