A Strengths Based Approach - so much more than training staff
The case for adopting a strengths based approach to delivering public services is compelling. Shifting from a deficit approach of what’s wrong to a compassionate, enabling approach that starts with what matters improves lives and increases our independence. It’s no wonder that public services are increasingly looking to adopt a strengths based approach as not only does it improve outcomes, it reduces demand for costly public services which after more than a decade of austerity feels like a no brainer.
This can sometimes translate into a primary focus on training staff to change how they work but if we only focus here, we’ll fail to change. A systems approach isn’t a nice to do, it’s imperative if we’re serious about shifting to a strengths based approach.
A strengths based approach is grounded in building relationships that enable us to get to what matters, not just what’s the matter. At its core, it has to be about the relationship between residents and the people who work at the front line of public services. But if we only focus on changing the way staff work, we won’t get the impact we need. I have worked with hundreds of staff to support them to adopt strengths based approaches and there are key themes that emerge that if we don’t act on will mean we’re not successful in shifting our approach.
In my experience, staff welcome and want to work in a strengths based way, it fits with their values and their sense of purpose for working in public service. Equipping them with practical tools and techniques to put the approach into practice is imperative. But equally valuable is to listen to the stories they tell that give insight into what happens in practice. These stories are like gold dust for leaders to understand where to focus their efforts to drive change in the system. Being responsive and driving these changes builds the confidence of staff and residents that you’re serious in your aspirations and fundamentally makes it easier to do. And as behavioural science tells us, if something is easier to do, we’re more likely to keep doing it.
These stories are like gold dust for leaders
to understand where to focus their efforts to drive change in the system.
So what are some of the themes emerging from listening to staff stories of trying to work in a strengths based way? They are numerous, and varied and sometimes surprising and with every group of staff I work with, I learn something new. So I want to share with you a flavour of the system challenges that I hear playing out on a routine basis.
Time. It takes time to build relationships and work in a strengths based way. It takes time to enable and support people to do things for themselves rather than doing things for them. But if we know that we are going to achieve better outcomes, shouldn’t we be allowing staff the time they need? Doesn’t this come down to how we choose to measure performance? Are we measuring performance based on task and time eg. number of assessments completed, number of visits undertaken or time to complete tasks? Or are we measuring the impact we have been able to make to someone’s quality of life? Staff will naturally place their focus on how their performance is measured so what messages are we giving through what we are measuring?
Community. Connecting people into their communities is pivotal to a strengths based approach but ultimately if staff don’t know what’s available locally, how can they give choices to people that move away from traditional services? How do we support staff to spend time developing knowledge and connections in their local community? Or do we invest in new roles like community connectors or prescribers whose job it is to get to know their local patch inside out and to help people connect?
Technology Enabled Care. I think people can be a bit scared by Technology Enabled Care (or TEC as it’s known) and I think the fear comes from not really understanding the art of the possible. TEC can be instrumental in changing people’s lives and enabling them to be more independent. For me, one of the earliest stories I heard, still stands out the most. How the introduction of technology to someone's night time routine meant that carers and loved ones could be alerted should something go awry in the night removing the need for a person to be paid to sit in the room with someone while they sleep. TEC is a growing industry with new innovations introduced all the time giving people back their independence to function more independently at home and out in the community. So how do we show people the art of the possible? How do we remove the fear? How do we equip staff with the knowledge and confidence to build TEC into care options?
Positive risk taking
A strengths based approach requires a different approach to risk.
Risk management. She’s safe but is she happy? A strengths based approach requires a different approach to risk where we seek to balance the social and emotional risks of not doing something with the often physical risks associated with doing it. We replace, what if Julie goes wondering while she’s out in the community with, what are the risks to Julie’s mental health and happiness from not being able to go out, and how can we manage the risks of her going wondering when she does? With this comes the need to accept that we won’t always get it right first time but that we will manage the risks so nothing goes horribly wrong. How we respond when things go wrong is key to creating a culture where people feel able to take a more balanced approach to risk - do we blame or learn?
Commissioning. This is a huge issue and I’ll come back to it in a future blog but for now I’ll give you a flavour. Fundamentally, if we are not commissioning the type of support that people want in order to live the lives they want to lead then we won’t deliver a strengths based approach. If the relationships don’t exist between commissioners and front line staff and residents, how will we know what we should be commissioning? If we commission like we’ve always commissioned, how will we stimulate the market for new types of innovative support? And how will we remove perverse incentives that can arise? For example, if I’m a provider of care and you pay me for the hours of care I provide, where is my incentive to reduce the care needed? What if we shifted our commissioning models to pay based on maximising independence and quality of life?
Moving to a strengths based approach is complex and that’s why we need a systems approach if we’re serious about changing how we work. Strengths based leadership driving strengths based culture across multi disciplinary teams with what matters to the resident at its heart. I think of it like a pepper mill - we need to sprinkle strengths based through everything we do, constantly asking ourselves the question, does this support and enable a strengths based approach? I’ll be getting into some of these issues in more depth in future blogs. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences of what makes the biggest difference to strengths based working.
