Certitude (Provider)

This month's blog has been written by Nicholas Campbell-Watts, our Director of Mental Health services.

Over the last nine months we've put a lot of thought, time and creative energy into piloting Individual Service Funds in some of our mental health services in Lambeth.  One of the ambitious decisions we made at the start of the ISF pilot, was to trial, at the same time, a new person centred, recovery oriented support plan, so that we could really have a go at transforming the dialogue we were having with people about their lives.

What we wanted to enable was a shift from what tended to be fairly transactional dialogue between staff and customer - we know that these are your needs and this is how we can meet them- to a more relationship-based dialogue - tell me about yourself and let's see what we can do to help. But, our ambition is that eventually, if we get it right, we will develop dialogue that enables a partnering approach between people working and living in these homes - Ok, so let's both get to know each other (and maybe some others), so we can pool our talents and resources to get things done.

So far, we appear to have made a steady start. Feedback from some staff is that a deeper dialogue is taking place with some people as they work together to develop the support plan.  These conversations have the potential to move their relationships to a new level of understanding and hopefully build trust, which in turn is preparing the ground for new possibilities and opportunities - for both the staff and the people they are working with.  No-one is describing it as easy, the new support plan takes much longer as it is an iterative process, and the depth of conversation is testing for both parties.  But we are starting to see that staff's perspectives are changing, even about people who they have known for years, as they discover new levels of complexity, frustrated ambition, nascent hope and unexploited talents.

The introduction of a person centred, recovery oriented support plan is an important step forward in providing the mechanism for deeper, more personal conversations, but it is not enough by itself.  As we continue to evaluate and learn from feedback, it's clear that great dialogue, which really builds relationships and enables genuine partnering between people, requires staff to listen more deeply and for longer periods, it requires us to give staff confidence to develop collaborative and reciprocal exchange with people they are working with around each other's strengths, hopes and aspirations.  Good dialogue fundamentally results in each person being left with a profound sense of having been heard.  I think we still have some way to go to achieve this, but we are on the way.

The Recovery and Support Plan we are using has been [1]developed to be also available as an on-line tool with read and write functionality, controlled by the person and transportable (with allowable access) across all agencies and people that make up their support network.  It will sit as part of a person's on-line health records, which means that there will be just one plan, owned and managed by the person, transportable across all providers and it will be a living document that can be updated constantly, but with the important history of annotations so that the journey of change can be easily recalled.  This is our next step.

'Plan, do and review' pretty much sums up a project's lifecycle regardless of its complexity.  Of course, the what, who and how of 'plan, do and review' can involve a huge amount of work ; but for me as Certitude's ISF project manager it's helpful to keep reminding myself in simple terms what it is we actually need to do and where we want to be.

Where we want to be is meaningful and increased choice and control to the people we support. Our journey towards more Personalised services and the development of ISF's will make us much more transparent and accountable to the people we support. For an organisation to be truly person centred, it must change in response to what people want - even if those changes are difficult to deliver.

We have put an enormous amount of work into our pilot so far. We've finished the 'plan' stage, which involved a lot of involvement and engagement from a range of people, benchmarking where things are at both in terms of service delivery and resources on a team level as well as for individuals we support and the delivery of a tailor made learning and development programme to develop teams' and managers' skills and capabilities.

We're now in the 'do' stage. We've used a range of approaches to develop plans with people and worked with teams to try and think more creatively about different non staff centric ways for people to achieve the things they want.

We are currently developing personalised rotas - this is key to delivering what people want, how and when. Done well, personalised rotas can be a real and meaningful demonstration of person centred service delivery. At the best of times, rotas are difficult beasts to tame and I've likened the development of personalised ones to playing 3D chess, but I've been impressed by the commitment of everyone involved to find a way through the puzzle.

We have held a mid point project evaluation and review with key project leads using the '4+1' person centred thinking tool, which is a simple but powerful way to take stock of where we've got to and what we need to do next.

Using the tool served as a reminder to me that simplicity in project management and delivery is important in order to keep focussed on the journey ahead and to keep everyone at all levels involved and engaged.

'Plan, do and review', sounds easy doesn't it?

This month's blog has been written by Madeline Cooper-Ueki, our Business Development Manager who is leaving Certitude after 13 years!

Much has changed in the 13 years since I started with Certitude, not least: 2 mergers, 2 rebrands, and for me, 7 different jobs and hundreds of learning experiences.  At the time there was no Valuing People, not even the Care Standards Act, no Putting People First  and not much in the way of austerity - I had a very healthy budget believe it or not.  Reflective practice is something which we know is important in continually improving the support we offer to people  and also improving our organisation, so true to form now I'm leaving, I'm going to turn the focus on myself and consider what I've learned  has had the biggest impact on my practice.

The outside world is an amazing place for inspiration and information.

My first couple of years here seemed to be in a bubble, I was having fun getting creative with people, and working with families to try to maintain funding for the respite we were providing. But thankfully the local Partnership Board formed and amongst other things wanted to increase the job opportunities for people with learning disabilities and I was asked to go along and see what we could offer. (And I'm delighted to say that the jobs which came out of this still exist today). Not long after, we brought in Helen Sanderson Associates to train us in person-centred approaches and team-planning and those of you who know me can imagine my excitement at finding real practical ways to get just as person-centred with my team as with those we were supporting. This journey of learning from the outside has grown into a passion for reading, networking and looking for learning opportunities - and even finding that legislation can be exciting when you think about how to use it to improve things.  One of the most influential personal learning opportunities over the past few years for me was the NDTi next generation leadership programme, which inspired me and connected me to lots of wonderful people too.  For those of you just starting out- Twitter is the latest way to keep in the loop!

1. It's important to keep reminding ourselves of why we came into this work in the first place

I came to Certitude with a long personal history of friendships and contact with people with learning disabilities, so it's not particularly surprising I am where I am. However as I've shape-shifted through the organisation and moved further away from direct support, my own personal goal has been to do things which I know are making a difference to people. When I need inspiration to write a tender- which at face value seems not to really make a difference, I have to think of what on earth I'm here for - or rather who. (It also helps me to remember the real difference to people's lives we've made where we've won the tender!).   Having an inspiring line manager plays a huge role in ensuring I haven't lost sight of what I'm here for. Also, this is significantly helped by my regular work with, and update calls from my lovely colleague (who also receives support from us), who has kept me focused and on track with projects since the days of BreakAway fundraising. Which leads me nicely to my final point:

2. The most important place for learning is from the people we support

When I started at the ARC all those years ago, it was the people who came to activity sessions who had been described as having the most complex support needs who themselves taught me to communicate in ways I didn't know I could. It was the families who dedicated time and effort to come and support the fundraising efforts and even those open meetings I used to run who taught me what mattered to them as families and their son's and daughters as individuals. I've continued to seek inspiration from people ever since, both through chances to go and visit or through the great stories people tell me.

And my learning:  it really all amounts to listening to people, keep curious, and remembering to listen to yourself too.

This month's blog comes from one of Service Managers, Mike Bloodworth.

Archimedes had his famous 'eureka' moment when he was sitting in the bath while Newton had his when daydreaming under an apple tree. The chemist Kekulé von Stradonitz claimed to have realised the composition of the Benzene ring while in a daydream and even the plot to Jekyll and Hyde was thought up in a dream.  If these are just some of the brilliant creative ideas and light-bulb moments that have occurred when the mind is at rest and reflective, why is it then that we expect our most creative moments to come to us within our action-packed, stressed, time-poor day to day working life? We tend to be so conditioned into thinking that every problem requires an immediate solution that our working practices nearly always suppress any opportunity for reflective analysis or thinking. Our move at Certitude to using positive and productive meetings goes some way to resolving this, but it is my strong view that this wont be fully realised unless accompanied by an environment and culture of 'action learning.'

Action learning is based on the premise that many different heads are better than one, and that only the problem holder can truly be the expert of their own problem. If only the problem-holder knows exactly what is going on in their own head and can know what challenges they face, is it not true that they are also the only one who can find the solution that will work best for them?  An action learning group or 'set' as it is otherwise known, is made up of 'critical friends' who use their different perspectives and experiences to carefully question the problem-holder to stimulate them to think differently to identify their own possible solutions. It is these ideas that the problem-holder will then go away and test out in real-time between set meetings before coming back at the next set meeting to report on any progress made or on challenges faced.

As managers of teams involved in Certitude's ISF pilot, we need to be able to lead on the many changes that the project requires. Learning to understand our own influence and roles, how to give and receive feedback, how to build relationships, working with our feelings, and learning how to use all our senses when listening, are all key leadership traits.  Through facilitating an action learning set within the ISF Pilot, I am aiming to not only support members to progress with their problems, develop their leadership skills and enable improved interdepartmental working but also to improve organisational learning through the identification of key themes and challenges faced in the group's roles as leaders and managers in their implementation of the ISF Project Plan.

My role as facilitator of this action learning set has been to enable an environment where there is a good balance of support and challenges, and to provide a space for members to explore issues that can't be discussed anywhere else.  By holding a mirror up to how we all behave and to how we communicate, we are already seeing changes in how we approach our roles and how we are developing as leaders. Feedback so far has been incredibly positive with members reporting that they are 'benefitting from hearing a mixture of things from a mixture of people you do not work alongside in your regular day job' and that they value 'the space and support it offers to reflect outside of line management supervision.'  Importantly they also feel 'invested in' by Certitude because they've been given 'time specifically allocated to just them' and don't feel pressured to 'work through an agenda of lots of things.'

In the article, 'The Busy Trap' in the 'New York Times,' Tim Kredier wrote:

'The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration - it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.'

If the most brilliant eureka moments happen in times of supposed idleness and reverie, then how brilliantly inspired and productive will our actions to fulfil the ISF Project be, when the seeds of reflection are carefully planted and nurtured by our 'critical friends' within an action learning set environment?

This month's blog comes from our Development Manager, Madeline Cooper-Ueki.

A year ago, I was sifting through the minutes of over 30 Person-centred reviews, extracting the top three things which were working and not working, and important for people's futures, and doing lots of calling around to staff teams to ask if I'd got it right, or what things meant which I couldn't quite fathom. I was also having lots of fun with paper cards and coloured pens. And all this, to try to listen better to what people tell us in their day to day lives is really important.

Changing an organisation or how an organisation does things needs an impetus. It needs a clear vision of where it wants to go, a plan, and some celebrations along the way, to remind us we're all doing well, keep up the motivation and keep the drive towards the goal.

The Working Together for Change process is one way of providing all of these factors, and one which Certitude embarked upon a year ago. So, 12 months on we can reflect on what made us want to do things differently, what were our goals and what do we really have to celebrate?

A large group of people (see previous blogs for who took part) came together to identify 6 shared outcomes which, if we could achieve them would make a real difference to people's lives. These outcomes were not rocket science, not off the wall, and quite frankly can be recognised as things which matter to us all, but are sadly less likely to happen well if you happen to have a learning disability.

The outcomes which people identified as important were:

1: Meet people who could become friends and who share my interests

2: Explore different housing options and choose where they live

3: Have a range of support staff to choose from during the week

4: People are supported by smiling, creative and skilled staff who can make the most of the resources available to offer positive opportunities to develop and grow

5: People want help to be well and to have access to a good GP

6: Everyone has a well facilitated person-centred review with clearly defined outcomes which are delivered.

A year seems like a long time in advance, and a short time in retrospect and there is still much to accomplish. The outcomes were ambitious ones, that is why some wins along the way are so important even when you haven't changed the world just yet.

So, to the celebrations!

Our new Community Development Worker is now supporting teams across Certitude to get better at helping people connect, both to contribute, be included and make friends. This has seen old friends reconnect, and people taking valued roles - volunteering in the kitchens of their local temple, where previously they were seen as "someone in need".

Our Treat Me Right Housing Reviews are being used more widely as a best practice approach to finding out what really matters to people about where, with whom they live with and the health part of the project has carried out a local survey to check out people's satisfaction with their GP's.

The ISF project which has been blogged about already is throwing up huge learning all round on how to personalise rotas, and make sure people have control over both their time and who supports them with it.

A number of people are using My Choice workers specific to the things they want to do and with someone who shares the same interest. And everyone is now involved in describing and choosing any new staff that come to support them in their home, or wherever else we support them.

These are just some of the things which we've done over the past year as a direct result of the WTfC process.  I think it may be time to get out the coloured cards and pens again - to record both the work we still need to do, and the great progress so far.

Over the past year, we've worked hard to develop One Page Profiles with every member of staff within the organisation and now over 93% of us have one; great!

However, just having a piece of paper isn't enough - and so our learning on making One Page Profiles as good as they can be continues. They are deceptively easy tools because they are a brief snapshot of someone; but summarising what matters to a person and aligning what others can do to help them achieve that takes skilled coaching and active listening.

So, what have we learned so far?

Well, the first thing is the need to establish a clear purpose for the profile; knowing what it's for and what it can achieve makes it a lot easier to think about what details to include and leave out. Theming the profile helps; we've been very clear that our organisational one page profiles are people's 'one page profiles at work'. Some of our staff trainers who co-train together have developed 'one page profiles for training' to help them work smoothly together.

Second, that it's hard to start from a blank page. People need to see examples of how others have written theirs; and be encouraged by others' willingness to share details of their lives and vulnerabilities.

Third, involve a range of people in developing them to get a good mix of the person's perspective and others who know them well. Johari's window draws our attention to the fact that we have 'blind spots' about ourselves and it's through people who know us, sharing these with us, that we widen our 'arena'. One page profiles are an illustration of our 'arenas'; they declare to the world what we know of ourselves and in turn what others know of us.

Fourth, good facilitation is crucial. Both in terms of support to explore our 'blind spots' and also to help refine what we're trying to say. It was only when I looked back at the profile I have for my youngest son that I realised, that whilst it made perfect sense to me, some of the statements were at best unhelpful and at worst completely misleading. There is a real benefit in someone external to your life facilitating or at least checking what you have developed to ensure it makes sense and communicates what you need it to.

Because we can see the benefits of One Page Profiles and how they can make a difference for everyone, we've started to put our learning into practice outside of our typical comfort zones. In the last couple of months we have carried out sessions on developing One Page Profiles in both infant and secondary schools, as well as with groups of families who have children with additional needs.

We've supported families to use them in different ways. So, for one parent it was about developing a profile for their child's frequent hospital visits, for another it was about supporting their child and school to make the transition to a different key stage.

After carrying out a session with teaching staff from an infant school, the decision was made to start trying them out with children from the transition year 2 who will be moving to their new junior school in September. For the staff, it was helpful to see that developing the profiles fits in perfectly with the Philosophy for Children curriculum and for the children; one of the biggest successes was carrying out the appreciation exercise with each other. One six year old girl said excitedly "my friends think I am clever, I didn't know I was clever!"

Speaking to a large group of 17 year olds about using One Page Profiles as a base for developing a CV, raised a similar issue about not knowing your own strengths and gifts until someone close to you tells you! Involving people who know you well in developing your profile is key to getting good and detailed information.

We have carried out sessions with different family groups, and it continues to be confirmed again and again that individuals from a young age along with their families become part of the system - be it health, education or social care rather than the other way round. The need for such a tool, right from the start of someone's life, is so clear in terms of shifting the power and control dynamics.

The impact, one page profiles can have is great. After a recent session with families, a parent said "I've just finished my son's one pager ready for his drama summer school tomorrow and I must say that I'm pretty pleased with it. No longer will I be the apologetic, babbling mum trying to explain about my son to the (usually) wrong person... I'll calmly hand over his profile and feel confident that they will look after him. Smiles all round"

These new experiences have helped us learn more about how to get the most out of this great person centred tool and have really drilled home the understanding that they don't just make life easier for people who have learning disabilities, rather, they can make life easier and better for anyone and everyone!

This month's blog comes from our Operational Directors, Janette Gaffney and Mary Schumm.

We are an organisation that sees a challenge and tackles it head on! We are piloting ISF's with people who have learning disabilities, living in shared houses; both supported living and registered care. Not content with this, we are also leading the way in working with people in mental health services to develop ISF's.

We started planning this work last year and launched the pilot in March. Already we are seeing the benefit across the organisation. For this blog let's start with the top 3 things we are pleased about:

• We held a series of workshops with teams involved in the pilot to get input in developing the plan. The workshops have made such a difference, they have been facilitated by the Chief Executive and Directors but really have been led by the managers and teams involved. Our approach has been and will continue to be learning together and respecting the expertise and creativity within teams to make this happen.
• There's complete buy in and support from across the organisation. Things happen best when relationships form and this project has endorsed this. Where else would you hear managers raving about an accountant? We have a personalisation accountant who gets "it". She will remain anonymous because we won't have her poached!!!
• We can see change already! - positive and productive meetings, confidence in using person centred tools, increased knowledge of using person centred tools, person centred supervision, recruitment, the list goes on.

As ever with new ways of working there are challenges. There have been 2 in particular that have tested us:

• Working out the "in my personal control hours". We thought this would be so simple, use the Care Fund Calculator (which we have been using for a while) and out pops the hours. It took us time to debate and then define what's shared, what's core and then get to "in my personal control". We needed to do this because if we couldn't describe it to ourselves consistently we wouldn't be able to explain it to people we support.
• Capacity to manage the change, develop different ways of working and have the time to learn, read, reflect. Giving "permission" to take a bit longer where needed has been important, it's better to get this right. We had a Manager promoted who was leading ISF's with a team and we needed to build in time to get a new Manager up to speed.

What are we learning?

• It's big, it's organisational change and project management and the project infrastructure keeps it together. We have a Project Board, Project Manager and defined work stream leads. It sounds boring, but with transformation of this size and scale, having a clear, defined structure and plan, means change will happen.
• Teams are really up for doing things differently so people they support have Choice and Control. We asked teams how to talk to people and their friends/family about ISF's. In truth we thought they would want the Service Manager/Director/Manager to do this. Wrong again….! Support Workers told us very eloquently they could do this; our job was to provide a guide to explain ISF's and leave them to get on with the communicating!

We are moving on to Planning Live with individuals and their teams - we will keep you updated on our learning from this next phase.

This month's blog comes from our Development Manager, Madeline Cooper-Ueki and our Person Centred Services Manager, May Lee.

It happens to many of us at some point or another; you think you know someone and you find out something new about them or something happens which means you suddenly see them in a different light.

When we work closely with people, we sometimes need others outside of the circle to help us see people in a different light and change the way we support them. Person centred thinking tools can be invaluable to that process - but how do we as facilitators create a light bulb moment with teams?

One mental health team invited us to both help them develop their person-centred practices using team planning processes, and also to help them think about how they were supporting individuals.

The team is a very established one. Members said they were clear on what was important to each person and had clear support guidelines through both the Care Programme Approach, and through using the Recovery Star for Mental Health. However one day, - off the cuff - we decided to support the group to look in detail at an "Important To and For" for one person they had mentioned earlier in the day.

As they warmed up, everyone began to call out what they knew about the person and observations about their behaviour and : "He always checks that we have locked up properly at night" "He always has to have £10 - £20 in his pocket when he goes out" "He doesn't like to eat in front of others" "He always wants to know who's in the building and why" "He won't go to the bank if he hasn't had a bath", "He likes to talk about his past and be praised". Our questions and replies kept the flow, and the reflection "that's interesting, what do you think it might mean or tell us about what matters to him".

We had over 15 of these statements by the time it became clear that behaviours which had been seen separately, could actually be themed together and actually had a common core. It also became clear that these behaviours were seen as solely part of the person's mental health issues, rather than a 'normal' reaction to some universal human needs, albeit more heightened perhaps.

For example , checking the house is all locked up, needing a minimum amount of money in his pocket when out and knowing who's in his house and why, all point to someone for whom safety and security is an issue. Not eating in front of people, not being able to leave the house unless he's had a bath and needing to hear regular praise, shows us a person who has low self esteem and is very self conscious. We know from Maslow's hierarchy that security and esteem are fundamental needs; our individual responses to how we think those needs are being met are crucial to our understanding of ourselves and others' of us.

All these observations are the sum of their parts - each on their own may not tell us what matters to a person; it's the common core themes about what's important to someone  which helps us understand them better and therefore provide better support. With this particular team, seeing the core themes for the person they support, led to the light bulb moment:

"I've known him for years, but never saw it that way before!" (Team member)

Behaviours and words only tell us about the person if we explore deeper, keep questioning and wonder what it might be telling us. So as facilitators that's what we have to do - be inquisitive, keep asking "why" "what" "could it mean …", use the tools as a framework and take nothing at face value.

When we called for an update, a team member told us that the people they support have become more trusting and open with staff, who have been trying to see things more from the individuals point of view, not deciding what is right and wrong, but supporting them the way they want. Now that's a result!!

Certitude has always supported adults who have learning disabilities and/or mental health needs. Over the past couple of years, people seem to be getting younger and younger (or am I just getting older?) and we are starting to support more people in that transition stage of moving from using children's services to adult services.

I am not sure whether it's our increased working with younger people or the fact that the forced separation of families due to institutionalisation is coming to an end, or that individuals and their families are truly having more choice and control - but our work with families is becoming more significant.

This has made us stop and think about a couple of things - firstly, how we support and work together with families as part of our role in supporting the individual and secondly, what are the families of younger children saying about the support they want in the future. This thinking is helping us make sure we are providing the right support both now and for the future.

I have to admit, I have a personal interest in this area - my youngest son has Down's syndrome and whilst he might be a toddler now, one day he will be a fully fledged adult and both he and I are likely to need support from organisations like Certitude.

As part of our thinking, we have asked a number of families who have children with additional needs about what is working for them as a family, what is not working and what are their hopes for the future ( Working Together for Change strikes again). The responses we have had have been powerful and thought provoking. In terms of our learning to date, some themes are definitely emerging:

Early intervention is cited in policy and guidance as key to improving people's life chances but in practice this support is variable. Our families are telling us that Portage is a key early service which has a big, positive impact on their lives but Speech and Language support in particular continues to be underprovided.

As children become teenagers, support tailors off particularly as social and emotional needs can start to become more of a focus. Logistically, transport becomes more of an issue fuelling the challenge for independence and finding opportunities for developing and maintaining friendships becomes harder and harder.

Benefits and in particular DLA, make a big difference to the whole family and what they can do together.

Being able to spend time with other families who have similar experiences provides invaluable emotional and practical support. Knowledge and information is passed on through these relationships and forums.

What meaning does this have for Certitude and what can we do differently as a result? Well, one thing that is apparent - the potential for tension to appear between families and professionals providing support starts early. Significant factors for this include not having a shared purpose, lack of clarity around roles, as well as communication not being clear and understood. If these issues aren't resolved early however, it is no surprise that families may be disengaged and mistrustful by the time we start supporting their child/sibling as adults.  Increasing our use of one page profiles, communication charts and decision making agreements will hopefully help. As will our continued use of person centred reviews, which support the active involvement and partnership of families.

For the future? We plan to meet with a smaller group of families next month to look at the findings from this work in more detail, and co-produce some signs of success for families that can both influence Certitude's work over the coming years, as well as provide meaningful support to families now.

This month's blog comes from the Director of Development at Certitude, Marianne Selby-Boothroyd.

Back in October, I wrote about how we had started our journey towards Individual Service Funds, with Certitude's Leadership Team assessing support we provide against the 'I' statements. This was the start of our commitment to developing ISFs. It was also the start of our pilot of doing this with over 30 people who use both our mental health and learning disability services and who are living in shared accommodation (both supported living and registered care homes) across three London boroughs.

A couple of weeks ago, Mary Schumm, our Operations Director, gave a presentation summarising the work that has happened to date in the pilot - it was great for 'Team ISF' to come together and reflect on the work they have achieved over the past few months.

We have taken a project management approach to introducing ISFs with various phases. A lot of time has been spent on the start up phase - making sure everyone involved in Team ISF has the same level of understanding, competence and confidence about what it is we are trying to achieve - no small feat! There are over 7 staff teams involved, as well as leads from our Human Resources, Finance and Development departments.

First, we brought managers together to explain the background to the project, the key features of an ISF, the scope of the project and its benefits, objectives and outcomes. Follow up workshops with managers focused on getting to grips with the Care Funding Calculator - understanding shared support and 1:1 hours; getting an appreciation of the options for planning with people and what would work best - Planning Live? Person centred reviews? As well as understanding some of the principles behind Just Enough Support and what that means in relation to the support we currently provide.

We then started off the beginning of the year by carrying out workshops with the wider teams involved in the project. - again explaining the reasoning for the project, giving examples of how the project is working in action and doing some work around current knowledge and confidence within teams in using person centred thinking tools.

So, what have we learnt during our start up phase?

Being able to give practical examples of how one staff team started 'the personalisation journey' a few months prior to the pilot starting, having the manager of the team present at the workshops, talking about her experience and being able to answer questions based on reality has been invaluable.

Using 'frequently asked questions' to share information across the wider staff teams has been helpful. Not everyone has been able to attend the workshops, but everyone has thoughts, queries and sometimes concerns about what will happen both during the pilot and afterwards. Being able to answer some of these questions such as: If people we support are going to choose who they want to be supported by, and I don't get chosen, what are the implications for me? Will we have more paperwork? How will Individual Service Funds make things better for the people we support? And doing so in writing for people to refer back to has ensured everyone has the same information.

Using Progress for Providers has been vital in terms of establishing where teams are at, in terms of confidence and competence in using person centred thinking tools. It has enabled us to tailor ongoing support to individuals and teams based on need.

It feels like a lot has happened over the past few months and that has just been getting ready! The commitment and enthusiasm of those involved is increasingly apparent - so onwards we go…