Tag Archives: Strengths approach

Positive Risk-Taking

Dementia and Positive Risk-Taking

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JRF screenshotSteve Morgan (Practice Based Evidence) and Toby Williamson (Mental Health Foundation) were commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to produce a ‘Viewpoint’ think piece for their published series of thought-provoking topics. The focus was to apply the concept of ‘Positive Risk-Taking’ (developed from 1994 by Steve Morgan) to the relatively new UK government initiative of ‘Dementia-friendly Communities’.

Check out the following link for the full publication, which sets out an explanation of ‘Positive Risk-Taking’, ‘Dementia-Friendly Communities’, and the benefit of taking risks to support people to live with dementia better:

http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/how-can-positive-risk-taking-help-build-dementia-friendly-communities

 

A Strengths Approach, Personal passions, Podcast Episodes

Podcast Episode 036: Blight of Bureaucracy Part 1

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2As western industrialised societies have drifted into a post-industrial service industries world, one thing proliferates more than the most infectious of diseases… bureaucracy! Now anything to do with paper, or its electronic offspring, reigns supreme. Managing, auditing and regulating have become effective barriers to creativity and innovation.

The new mantra is standardisation, systematisation, uniformity and safety… conformity ensures mediocrity will be the outer limits of permitted imagination. Do the children of today dream and aspire to become a bureaucrat when they grow up? Do they loose sleep over the excitement of their first suit and form to fill? Take with a large degree of caution any bureaucrat promising to reduce the plethora of bureaucracy. It is not in their interests to free up other people to exercise their talents, initiative and decision-making skills.

To access the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/036-blight-bureaucracy-part/id867043694?i=327153565&mt=2

“Bureaucracies force us to practice nonsense. And if you rehearse nonsense, you may one day find yourself the victim of it.” [Laurence Gonzales].

A Strengths Approach, Person-centred working, Podcast Episodes

Podcast Episode 035: Care & Support Planning

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2Why develop care or support plans in health and social care services? Isn’t it just another one of those bureaucratic requirements from the world of box-ticking, form-filling, audit-pleasing managerial culture? Well no it shouldn’t be; we need a thoughtful person-centred approach to the complex physical and psychological needs experienced by many people across all age groups and disabilities.

The strengths approach focuses specifically on the priorities expressed by the person through the vehicle of a strengths assessment, and these priority wishes will only become achievable goals if we put some kind of plan in place. The planning element is essentially about actions and responsibilities for actions. Within a strengths approach care or support planning is not limited to strengths-based wishes, we also need to plan for the difficulties and concerns that need to be managed. But the paperwork, paper-based or electronic, will have a role to play if we can keep it to the essential minimum amount.

For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/035-care-support-planning/id867043694?i=326563007&mt=2

https://soundcloud.com/stevemorgan57/035-care-support-planning

“Spontaneity is one of the joys of existence, especially if you prepare for it in advance.” [Alan Dean Foster].

A Strengths Approach, Podcast Episodes, Positive Risk-Taking

Podcast Episode 034: Planning your business Part 2

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2Putting together a business plan is vitally important but requires some caution. We are reminded that the realities of life happen to us while we are busy making other plans.

For all the well thought out plans we still need to respond to events and circumstances. This episode explores five reasons why we should be cautious about the amount of time invested in planning, as well as the danger of becoming rigidly attached to our plans. Steve Morgan uses his own experiences through the Practice Based Evidence Consultancy in response to each of the points of caution.

For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/034-planning-your-business/id867043694?i=326162015&mt=2

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” [Goethe].

 

A Strengths Approach, Podcast Episodes, Positive Risk-Taking

Podcast Episode 033: Planning your business Part 1

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2Whatever your career or business that you are involved in, you may engage in degrees of forward planning. So why put together a business plan? Whether you are ‘planning’ (i.e. the vision thing) or making plans (i.e. the detail thing), there are a number of good reasons to have a plan for your business or career in place, and also to keep reviewing that plan.

This episode sets out 6 reasons in favour of degrees of planning, and uses the presenter’s own personal experience in moving from employment in a national organisation to going it alone in self-employment as a case study to illustrate the reasons. The episode finishes with a message of caution through a reality check, life may rarely mirror your plans.

For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes or Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/033-planning-your-business/id867043694?i=324631141&mt=2

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” [Dwight D. Eisenhower].

Person-centred working, Podcast Episodes

Podcast Episode 032: Why plan?

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2This episode raises the philosophical question of ‘why plan?’, and what role does planning play in our day-to-day lives? We all have needs and wants, and it is the conscious or subconscious plans that help us to exert some control in our aim of achieving them.

We engage in relationship plans, financial goals, career planning, and chosen uses of leisure time. It is a natural human activity that can become quickly mired in the bureaucratic jargon of goal-setting, care planning, support planning, where we talk of being person-centred when our systems are imposing service-centred solutions on people.

It can be a conflict between a requirement for order and a way of managing chaos, even though some people claim to prefer chaos. Plans can’t guarantee success but they can help to build confidence, apply order and structure, focus our energy, provide a road map. In the event of a crisis we have means of responding with our own personal crisis plans; and in anticipation of something desired going wrong we should have some kind of contingency plans.

For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/032-why-plan/id867043694?i=322813027&mt=2

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” [Alan Lakein].

A Strengths Approach, Personal passions, Podcast Episodes, Podcast Interviews

Tables turned

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Steve @ Hydra 2Well, it was only a matter of time. Your host and occasional interviewer was recently approached by Nicola Cairncross, who runs the Business Success Factory podcast show. So, who am I to turn down the possibility of being interviewed by a successful business source?

Here I discuss a little bit about my career falling into and out of things, and why I focus on a strengths perspective in my own work. Nicola is also interested in business success and money success tips, though why ask me about such things I have no idea… certainly not because I am coming to you weekly from a sun-drenched tax haven in a particularly exotic part of the world (don’t be fooled by the background in the picture above!).

Click on the following links to hear the full interview:

http://TheBusinessSuccessFactory.com/iTunes

http://thebusinesssuccessfactory.com/tbsf-070-steve-morgan/

“What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.” [Robin Williams].

 

A Strengths Approach, Person-centred working, Podcast Episodes

Podcast Episode 031: Say hi to Dave

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2Dave is a reported case example (not interview) of someone advancing in age and who is not only coming to terms with complex health problems, but is also adamant about exerting his own views of what a plan for his life should look like when in contact with health care professionals.

Dave has recently lost his wife in a road traffic accident, and his children are concerned about his care needs as he is now diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. Dave puts his strengths to work, using skills he has developed over many years as a financial advisor, as well as his passion for reading up about his condition and the way services should work for him, not making him fit into a standard bureaucratic process. He challenges his local services to be genuinely person-centred and flexible in the way they meet with him, listen to him, and document his wishes. He also makes it very clear that he will not become a token gesture to service user involvement by refusing an invitation to join a local strategic committee.

To access the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/031-say-hi-to-dave/id867043694?i=321218937&mt=2

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” [Gabriel Garcia Marquez].

A Strengths Approach, Person-centred working, Podcast Episodes

Podcast Episode 030: Age of experience

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2One of the main challenges of the widely recognised ageing population is how we tap into the deep well of resources in older people, as well as identifying more resources in order to support older people with specific needs.

This episode will explore the idea of ‘care capital’ from the perspective of contributing through voluntary work. An emphais is placed on the baby boomer generation, with a wealth of skills and talents alongside a desire to contribute something back into society.

What do others gain from our charitable contributions? The flip side of that coin is that we also gain enormously from making contributions of time and effort; not least the protective factors that come from structured physical and psychological activity. There are a multitude of opportunities in local communities, but our more flexible way of thinking about work should also be reflected in more flexible ways in which we may be able to shape our voluntary contributions, so that we tap into the strengths of the many. A good neighbour befriending scheme is identified as one personal example.

For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/030-age-of-experience/id867043694?i=320358977&mt=2

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” [Mark Twain].

A Strengths Approach, Person-centred working, Podcast Episodes

Podcast Episode 027: Identifying values

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TheStrengthsRevolution_albumart_2-2What are values?

This episode highlights the importance of reflecting on these largely unseen influences on everything we think, we do, we decide, they inform our core beliefs, they are the sum of who we are. Nothing more than that! So, if they have such a significant influence we would be well advised to be more aware of what they are.

They come dressed up in almost endless lists of good words, but this episode argues for spending more time examining the impact they have on the ways we behave and act in particular situations. Steve Morgan poses a series of questions to help us explore our underlying values, offering examples from his own experiences by way of illustration.

Core personal and corporate values are contrasted, and examples are identified of where conflicting values can contribute to better decisions, or even disasters. As a strengths approach, the examination of values is one way of demonstrating how we are putting genuine person-centred practice into action.

For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/027-identifying-values/id867043694?i=319716735&mt=2

“Living in a way that reflects one’s values is not just about what you do, it is also about how you do things.” [Deborah Day].