What is hyphen-21 ?
Hyphen-21 is a UK charity. It was set up in 1994. The idea behind calling it ‘hyphen’ is very simple : a hyphen is a line which connects. For more detail on that, see below. The charity’s aim : in the first place, to articulate and advocate for the qualities, skills and conditions required for helping people in emotional or other kind of difficulty, particularly people on the edges and outskirts of society ; in the second place, and more generally, to affirm the centrality of empathic connection between person and person, I and Thou, I and Other, as the bedrock of civilised community and humanity’s best and perhaps only hope for a future in the universe.
How the charity began
It was formed at the suggestion of the late Phyllida Parsloe, then Professor of Social Work at the University of Bristol. She proposed it as an independent voice for a principled “social work” stand-point, in response to different events and developments in our fractured society, as these occurred. Through the consistency of its responses, offered over time, it would aim to establish and clarify, and establish a platform for, its stand-point and approach. Abstract statements of aim or intent, or codes of conduct set out in absolute terms, would be insufficient.
The Underlying Questions
The implications of this approach seemed more general and more central than the status or purpose of the particular profession of social work.
Take the following questions, for instance : Does relationship matter ? Can relationship of its own be healing ? Are skills required in that process ? If so, what skills ? Are they innate, or can they be taught, developed, improved, through training and practice ? And does empathy play a part in this ? We say that word, and perhaps yearn for it, but what really is empathy ? Is it powerful ? But how so ? And, again, does it matter ? What helps it be effective, a positive force ? What hinders it ? And does that list of questions apply only to social work ?
The Charity’s Title
The above is just a list of questions. But of course, the small circle of people responsible for setting up the charity had some of their own answers and saw a prioritising of empathy, for instance, not just as necessary to a healing relationship, but as central to any healthy community. The charity’s very title derives from that notion – the hyphen is a between construction. I and you others, or other, create it, or arrive at it, together. It connects us and makes something new. For “Hyphen-21” is actually a reference to a book by the late Martin Buber called “I and Thou.” Throughout that book, he posits two necessary human positions and forms of relationship, like the two poles of one planet ; he names them “I – It” and “I – Thou.” It is the precarious hyphen between I and Thou with which this charity is chiefly concerned, as being the more central and difficult and the more grievously under threat in our time. (The number “21” in our title refers of course to the present century). Truth must be served and told on the hyphen between I and Thou. The lie and puerile slogan are only possible on the hyphen between I and It.
Shifting Priorities
The charity’s founders never conceived of it as an agency that would actually own or run anything, as such. Instead, it would seek to do its work by highlighting particular initiatives associated with good practice, excellence of approach. Let these make the case and do the real talking. The charity would identify, stand for, promote, seek to support.
And thereby, we hoped, it might help in some tiny way to shift priorities, from the quantitative to the qualitative, from the Me ‘n Mine to the Us and Ours, from the left hand side of the brain to the right, from the rigid to the flexible, from the increasingly regressive and oppressive to the increasingly creative.
This Home page has been revised at the beginning of 2025. This winter, it cannot be said, of course, that the shifting of priorities we had hoped for nearly thirty years ago has taken place. Quite the contrary. The tendencies we saw and feared in the early 1990’s have carried on growing in strength, ever more rapidly. In the meantime and always present, the threat of uncontrollable global warming looms larger and closer. Political structures capable of dealing coherently with contemporary events and developments continue ever more incapable and ever more anachronistic.
So this charity cannot claim to have been a significant change-agent or even presence. That, however, does not make it a mistake or irrelevant.
What the Charity Does
Over the years since its founding, Hyphen-21 has changed a great deal as well, in some ways unexpectedly.
For instance, we thought it wouldn’t run anything. In fact, for more than 20 years, it has been running an international project supported by numerous funding bodies, including the UK Arts Council, the NHS, the King’s Fund, the John Lewis Partnership and the UK Foreign Office. The project began off being called “Poems for the Waiting Room.” Now it is called “Poems for…the wall.” For a fairly succinct description of what the project now offers, this link will take you to an information sheet.
For a while, “poems for the wall” shared this website, but then, in 2008, the UK Poet Laureate of that time, Andrew Motion, launched a website designed specifically for “Poems for…the wall.” Now, all the poem-posters presently available can be downloaded from there, free of charge. Many of them are bilingual, with over fifty languages represented. The site’s address is https://poemsforthewall.org. Here is a link to a fairly succinct description of the material now available on that site ; it comes in the form of a basic information sheet. For examples of some of the poems, here are some photographs of an exhibition of some of the bilingual poems. The exhibition was held a few years ago in Clifton Cathedral. And here is what the late David Hart (poet) had to say about that bilingual collection : ‘We have the chance here to open people’s lives to each other.’
Also, for a while, this website featured and promoted particular initiatives in the community. These were often under the heading of mental health social work. But we have decided that, for maximum effectiveness and clarity, these too should have their own website, to be called “Better mental health working.” Eventually, that site will go live and this one will link to it.
And this Hyphen-21 site will continue in that role – on the one hand, as a set of general statements of principle (see “Background” above) ; on the other hand, as a kind of doorway, or antechamber, or directory, to the various topics and initiatives with which Hyphen-21 is now concerned.
Mary Young
Finally, I want to refer here to the late Mary Young, a psychotherapist and historian. She was also a Hyphen-21 Trustee – from the charity’s launch to her own death in 2012. At some stage in her life, unbeknownst to many of her friends, Mary’s wrote a biography of Augustin Robespierre, younger brother of the famous/notorious Maximilien. It was a relatively short, meticulous and beautifully written work of original and ground-breaking research. It and its quality were only recognised a few months before Mary died. Just in time, it was published as a small paperback and afterwards and for a while, the text was also available on the website of Kingston University. But then that university made radical cuts to its history department and Mary’s work was taken down from the site. With the permission and assistance of Professor Marisa Linton, here is a link to Marisa’s updated pdf of Mary’s book.
Hyphen-21 is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee.
Rogan Wolf, Founding Director of Hyphen-21
roganwolf.com