How should we live: how should we care for one another; grow our capabilities to work, to learn, to love and fully realise our potential? This exciting and ambitious book shows how we can re-design the welfare state for this century.

'The most important book I have read in the last decade. A must read for everyone who believes that we can make a measurable and lasting difference in the lives of our fellow human beings, even those who may seem hardest to help'
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Former Director of Policy and Planning for the US State Department and CEO of New America


'Cottam's ideas could transform the way we all live. She is onto something exciting in her insistence on the potential of both relationships and new technology to sustain long-term human prospering'
Melissa Benn, New Statesman.

'One of my very top reads. If you care about the future of the welfare state and the role of human relationships, I deeply recommend it. Set in the UK, relevant everywhere'
Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics

'One of the principles behind great design is to be radical. In this indispensable volume Cottam explains the approach she has pioneered - Social Design'
Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator MoMA

'In the great tradition of British social innovation - from Robert Owen to William Morris - Cottam's optimistic vision shows how we could reinvent the welfare state. Not a utopia but a real promise'
Nicolas Colin, Le Monde

How should we live: how should we care for one another; grow our capabilities to work, to learn, to love and fully realise our potential? This exciting and ambitious book shows how we can re-design the welfare state for this century.

The welfare state was revolutionary: it lifted thousands out of poverty, provided decent homes, good education and security. But it is out of kilter now: an elaborate and expensive system of managing needs and risks. Today we face new challenges. Our resources have changed.

Hilary Cottam takes us through five 'Experiments' to show us a new design. We start on a Swindon housing estate where families who have spent years revolving within our current welfare systems are supported to design their own way out. We spend time with young people who are helped to make new connections - with radical results. We turn to the question of good health care and then to the world of work and see what happens when people are given different tools to make change. Then we see those over sixty design a new and affordable system of support.

At the heart of this way of working is human connection. Upending the current crisis of managing scarcity, we see instead that our capacities for the relationships that can make the changes are abundant.

We must work with individuals, families and communities to grow the core capabilities we all need to flourish. Radical Help describes the principles behind the approach, the design process that makes the work possible and the challenges of transition. It is bold - and above all, practical. It is not a book of dreams. It is about concrete new ways of organising that already have been developing across Britain. Radical Help creates a new vision and a radically different approach that can take care of us once more, from cradle to grave.