Informing Strategic Change

Information from person centred reviews and support plans can be used to inform strategic change.

Podcasts

This is a really inspiring film,sharing how using the Working Together for Change process can make a positive difference in the lives of people who uses substances.

Papers and Articles

Co-producing change with older people: How person centred reviews can inform strategic commissioning by Sam Bennett, Helen Sanderson and Gill Bailey.

Working Together for Change (WTfC) is a simple, systematic process using person centred information from reviews and support plans to drive strategic change in commissioning with and for older people. It collates and analyses person-centred information to provide powerful insights into what works and doesn't work in peoples' lives; as well as their aspirations for the future. The Department of Health's Putting People First Programme worked with Helen Sanderson Associates (HSA) and four councils in early 2009 to test and refine this method. The experience has shown the approach to be flexible, transferable and effective. Here we describe the process and why it is important through the story of Dennis, 82, who alone and has carers that support him every day from a domiciliary agency.

Please click here to view this paper

From Individual to Strategic Change: Driving Change with Person Centred Information. by Helen Sanderson and Max Neil.

with Gill Bailey, Helen Smith, Lorraine Erwin, Alison Short and Charlotte Sweeney.

The drive to personalise services is becoming intense. The big issue facing services of all sizes, and people who commission services, is finding ways of listening to how those people who use services wish to live and change their lives, and adapting the way our services are commissioned and delivered accordingly. Putting People First expects that person centred planning will become mainstream, and that the use of person centred planning and thinking will gradually become common practice. Research evidence shows that person centred planning can lead to successful, direct changes in the way the person is supported that immediately improves their quality of life. It has been problematic to find a process that can translate the information from many person centred plans and reviews to information that can be used by commissioners and other strategic decision-makers. In this paper we describe a simple, and practical way to address this challenge, and illustrate how we have used this process with both providers and commissioners, and in schools.

To view a copy of this paper see the downloads box on the left.

Working Together For Change. by Sam Bennett and Helen Sanderson.
Working together for change is a structured approach to engagement with people using services to review their experiences and determine their priorities for change. It is a systematic process for planning change with people, which provides powerful insights into what is working and not working in their lives as well as their aspirations for the future. It can be used to ensure that co-production with local people and families is at the heart of social care transformation programmes, as a vehicle to improve community engagement in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and as a tool for strategic commissioning.

It is compatible with work conducted by the Department of Health in parallel to this project to design an outcomes-focused review process that works for people and provides performance information for councils, i.e. it is this information in individual and aggregate form that drives the working together for change process.

Helen Sanderson Associates (HSA) designed the six stage process that has been built upon in this work. The Department of Health's Putting People First Implementation Programme worked with HSA and several Local Authorities in early 2009 to test and refine this method for collating and analysing person-centred information for use in strategic commissioning.

Whilst this is not a detailed evaluation, the experience of testing working together for change with four councils has shown the approach to be flexible, transferable and effective. Commissioners have begun to identify ways in which it can improve local commissioning, in some cases are planning to extend its use into other service areas, and are considering what it might take to embed the approach within council systems.

The following sections explain what working together for change is, why it is important and what it can add to the current range of information sources available to commissioners.

To view a copy of this paper see the downloads box on the left.