What have we learned?
We put each person at the centre of their own life and build our support around them, using our person-centgreen planning tool, The Way We Work.
But in 2007 we wanted to take this further. And so, to build on the Way We Work, we rolled out a pilot project, Good to Great, to provide our staff with the very best working techniques from around the world to enable them to provide the best possible support to every single person we work with.
Working with international experts Michael Smull (USA) and Helen Sanderson Associates (UK), we developed a highly innovative training and dissemination programme which was piloted in our North West division and then rolled out across the organisation. A key goal was to empower staff, by giving them a set of simple and clear tools to help them take a creative approach to problem-solving.
Both people we support and staff were involved in every aspect of the programme. Staff led the programme, by participating as leaders and coaches, and by guiding the programme forward with their ideas and best practice. But none of this would have been possible without the full and engaged involvement of the people we support, who shaped this best practice directly.