{"id":1065,"date":"2014-08-21T15:28:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T15:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/keepingitpersonal\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2017-03-02T11:56:47","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T11:56:47","slug":"third-meeting-20th-august-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/keepingitpersonal\/2014\/08\/21\/third-meeting-20th-august-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting to plan…"},"content":{"rendered":"
This was the first session where we started to move from learning about each other and our locality, to thinking about what we may plan to do together.<\/p>\n
You can vew our programme<\/a> for this day and our goals were:<\/p>\n At this meeting a few were unable to attend. One group member with lived experience, was being treated for an unrelated illness, and another had suffered a close\u00a0bereavement and would most likely not be returning to the group. This meant there were only\u00a0three people with lived experience of heart failure, or of caring for someone who has a heart failure.<\/p>\n Two of our professionals who had made it to previous sessions couldn’t make it either, one was on holiday and the other person’s\u00a0work commitments\u00a0meant she could no longer attend.<\/p>\n This meant eight people attended this session when we had anticipated 13 or 14. It’s easy to say, expect the unexpected and be prepared to be flexible – and we were. What’s less easy is dealing with the emotional impact of this, as a group and as individuals.<\/p>\n Personally, I also wanted to let the group know that I was pregnant and\u00a0due at the start of November. This meant that I would only work with the group for\u00a0one more session. After that, one of my colleagues at IRISS would be taking over my role as project leader and co-facilitator for the group.<\/p>\n Our plan had been to get the group to share in pairs (then move onto a new partner) top tips for staying well. However, in response to the smaller group size and the emotional impact some people’s absence had on the group\u00a0we formed a circle by drawing our chairs together in a ring. We used this time\u00a0to share what positive experiences we had experienced over the summer, those that had made us feel positive about being alive and that we had drawn strength from.<\/p>\n Rikke and I (the two facilitators) included ourselves in this conversation. Should you always remain neutral and outside the group? Possibly not, as the group has a relationship with us too.\u00a0We bring ourselves to every meeting,\u00a0while conscious that it is the group’s job (not ours) to provide the content \u00a0for discussions that will shape and drive forward what\u00a0it is they do.<\/p>\n Sharing our stories felt very personal for me, and I believe was part of a process in building trust and relationships where boundaries become blurred and broken down. People later commented that they particularly liked this part of the day and preferred sitting in a circle.\u00a0Strangely, we do that with the other Keeping it Personal group, not this one… Note to self…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We felt it was important to ground people in what was understood by person-centred care and support before moving on to identify improvement ideas we wanted to trial.<\/p>\n At the last meeting<\/a> we devised a task to get people to come up with their own person-centred campaign, using the ideas and words to express these that were most meaningful to them. Partly, it was about owning the language. So, we re-played the videos of the groups presenting their campaign ideas. Below are the posters each group created.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In this session we used\u00a0pictures to sharpen and personalise the meaning in these posters.\u00a0\u00a0To do this we gave people a choice of 20-30 images and asked them to choose which one which ‘spoke to them’ about person-centred care and support.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n After people had chosen a\u00a0picture,\u00a0we asked them to share what it meant to them. Kerry has written – \u00a0insert videos.\u00a0<\/span>This proved quite powerful and was also a task that people enjoyed.<\/p>\n For homework, everyone had agreed\u00a0to identify resources and supports for the community mapping exercise that had been planned. Rikke and I\u00a0shared the information provided by those not able to attend. This included\u00a0information about the Motherwell Locality Support Service (Disability) and\u00a0Making Life Easier\u00a0<\/a>– an online service offering advice, information and direct access to simple pieces of equipment and adaptations for people living in North Lanarkshire.<\/p>\n Several in the group agreed that these looked to be useful services and questioned why they had never heard about them before, directly (from practitioners) or after online searches? We discussed whose ‘job’ it was this to make sure people knew this information, and how we could improve access. \u00a0Questions from this discussion\u00a0included: Should we have named contacts for particular services? \u00a0How could these services be more effectively identified online? And how do you figure out a good source of information from one that is not so relevant, full of jargon, may have out of date information or describe heart failure negatively? This conversation supported the group to raise issues of importance to them. Such as needing trusted and relevant\u00a0information. Consequently everyone seemed keen to get to the community mapping.<\/p>\n During this exercise we set out to map the assets people perceived in their locality. But what do we mean by community assets? These can be resources, places, activities, businesses or services \u2013 as identified by the people who use them to stay strong and well.<\/p>\n We broke the group into two and asked them to use a traffic light system, writing down \u2018assets\u2019 and plotting these on large printed maps of the North Lanarkshire area:<\/p>\n Both groups explored the existing assets in great depth, with people learning from each other what assets make a real difference in other people’s lives, and what types of services and activities were perceived to enhance the area. Post-it notes were placed accurately on the maps to provide an overview of the assets in the area.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n After completing this exercise we brought people together and looked at similarities and differences on the maps. \u00a0They looked quite different, and maybe one thing they were telling us was that different group members were\u00a0expert about ‘their own patch’ but not others.<\/p>\n Alison\u00a0mentioned that\u00a0Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Voluntary Action South Lanarkshire<\/a>\u00a0had completed a mapping exercise for voluntary organisations which was available online with searchable\u00a0information and locator tools. We decided we’d\u00a0look at this at the next meeting.<\/p>\n During our discussion we also spoke about how and when this information could be used. Exploring issues of access, mediation maintaining up-to-date information, and who’s responsibility it may be for doing this. We also talked about\u00a0ALISS<\/a> as a tool to support sharing this kind of information. ALISS \u00a0describes itself as a \u2018local information system for Scotland\u2019 for health and wellbeing resources. It is searchable by keyword, location, or within a certain mile radius. Plus everyone can add to it, describing resources as\u00a0they choose. Exploring whether North Lanarkshire Council\u00a0could host a similar online map was also mentioned as a possibility.<\/p>\n We divided our group into two mixed groups of four and set them the\u00a0Marshmallow Challenge<\/a>. This is described by its inventor, Tom Wujec, as<\/p>\n a\u00a0design exercise that encourages teams to\u00a0experience\u00a0simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation and creativity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The task is simple: in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing\u00a0structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.\u00a0There are also some\u00a0rules<\/a>\u00a0to adhere to- such as not cutting the marshmallow up or holding the structure up when the time runs out! Here’s how our two groups did!<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n It’s been repeated many times with different groups, revealing surprising lessons – highlighted in these\u00a0summary slides:\u00a0marshmallow challenge- lessons<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Who tends to do the worst or best? Why? Try it yourself and see what your group finds out about itself and discuss what improves or hinders\u00a0you being successful at the task!<\/p>\n According to Wujec, the marshmallow challenges\u00a0reveals a number of lessons\u00a0:<\/p>\n We also asked the group to watch this video.<\/p>\n\n
Attendance<\/h3>\n
Connecting up<\/h3>\n
Recap on person-centred care and support: the power of pictures!<\/h3>\n
Last session’s homework<\/h3>\n
Mapping\u00a0community\u00a0assets<\/h3>\n
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Introducing approaches to improvement<\/h3>\n
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