‘The Strengths Revolution’ weekly podcast show was launched on 22nd April 2014. Just go into iTunes Store, click the ‘Podcast’ link on the top menu, then put ‘The Strengths Revolution’ into the search box.
Listen, subscribe, and add a review if you feel able to. Remember… listening, downloading or subscribing to the show is FREE!
'Working with Strengths' was published in May 2014 as a comprehensive resource for reviewing the literature and reflecting on strengths-based practice as applied to people in contact with services, as well as the strengths-focused development of practitioners, teams and organisations. It draws on the wider business literature as well as health and social care references to broaden the applicability of the ideas.
'Risk Decision-Making' was published in 2013 to help shift the focus from a tick-box culture to the realities of what good practice should be about. The manual and cd-rom provide the resources that should engage senior management in organisations, as well as the practitioners and multidisciplinary teams.
June 2007 saw the publication of the Working With Risk Trainers Manual and Practitioner Manual through Pavilion Publishing. The Trainers Manual provides a flexible two-day training programme, with the option of using any of the individual sessions as stand-alone training resources. The Practitioner Manual provides a set of practice-based risk tools with supporting guidance on how and when to use each. These materials also aim to discuss some of the wider risk issues and identify a key part of current research and literature. The practice-based tools are also supported by completed case examples.
To make contact either send me a message via the 'Contact Me' form or (if it's urgent) you can call me on 07733 105264.
Jointly written by Practice Based Evidence & ARW, this resource is of importance to everyone in mental health, social care and learning disability services, including primary care.
Primarily aimed at developing assertive outreach, but its focus on a strengths approach is applicable to all parts of the mental health system.
Sunday, October 11, 2020 at 1:57PM Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 10:06PM The following files are presentations Steve has made regarding the implementation of personalisation.
Powerpoint: Personalisation and the art of coordinating care (147kb)
Powerpoint: Personalisation Opportunities and Risks (113kb)
Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 9:12PM The article linked within was first published in Openmind 159, Sept/Oct 2009) and is made available as a PDF with their kind permission.
The current driver for the transformation of all UK public services is the concept of personalisation.
But haven’t we been here before, and if so what have we failed to learn? Case management, the National Service Frameworks, Valuing People in learning disability services, and recovery are but a few of the recent designs on service delivery sharing some common characteristics. They all lay claim to service user-focused or person-centred ways of working, and all are intended to transform the way services are delivered. Personalisation may just be he latest catchphrase for the same messages. If so, is it the aims or the message that we are getting wrong?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 9:36PM As the National Service Framework (Department of Health, 1999) completes its 10 year plan there is cause for cautious optimism that the path has been set for a national standard in delivering responsive mental health services through functional teams. However, this is tinged with concerns when we scratch the glossy surface and examine the depth of quality and consistency. The focus of attention has been about getting structures and systems consistent, but at the ground level it is arguable just how much attention is being paid to nurturing and developing the complex arrangements we call multidisciplinary teams.
The framework, and accompanying NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000) set the scene for establishing a national network of assertive outreach teams, crisis resolution & home treatment teams, and early intervention teams to complement the existing network of in-patient psychiatric units and community mental health teams that constituted the statutory sector service provision. These are now largely in place, and underpinned by the overarching mantra of ‘working to principles of recovery’ and ‘promoting social inclusion’.
This latter statement can be used to illustrate the gap between the rhetoric of policy and the reality of practice, as many practitioners and service users express anything from confusion to concern about what these statements mean; particularly where teams are re-branded as ‘support and recovery teams’ with little to illustrate what the change actually means. For some service user activists this has come to represent yet another usurping of their good ideas, as the service providers find another change of language to liberally sprinkle over their latest policy initiatives.
Pockets of good practice have undoubtedly flourished, providing a genuine service user-focused approach to delivery, and this has to be a tribute to determined practitioners and team managers who have finely tuned their values and attitudes to shape the way they provide a service, even while being bombarded with an avalanche of initiatives, targets and measures. We need to hear more of the voice of the service users experiencing these types of services, so that the new policy agenda can be driven by good experiences rather than the more usual need for change predicated on failures in services.
The next step in UK policy seems to raise the profile of what I would consider to be good practice in isolated initiatives, seeking to set a service user-focused agenda for all public services (not just social care and health, but housing, leisure and welfare benefits, etc) under the banner of personalisation. It is an agenda supported by all major political parties, and is already being seen as the picture of what the 21st century service imprint will look like. However, it is worryingly caged in grand gestures about ‘radical reform’ and ‘workforce transformation’; not particularly motivating mantras to people on the ground already giddy from the constant process of change proffered by the policy makers. The following sets out ideas and challenges underpinning this concept of personalistion.
What is personalisation? (1)
What are the potential barriers to implementation? (2)
1. Carr, S. and Dittrich, R. (2008) Personalisation: a rough guide. Adult Services Report 20. London: Social Care Institute for Excellence.
2. Bird, A. and Wooster, E. (2008) Personalise this! Openmind, 153: 6-9.
