Final entry....or maybe not

10th December 2013 


Well, this is the final entry prior to submitting this blog as part of assessment for my diploma. I have enjoyed this program so much. I am extremely grateful and now guilty (as I'm leaving the organisation) for being given this opportunity. 

I have so much more learning to do but the seeds have been sown and I am interested in management, coaching and furthering my skills in clinical supervision. I reviewed my earliest blog entries and although the first session feels like it was yesterday in some ways I have developed so much. I often think about work that matters, my time management improved and my drive and recognition of the importance of reflection in my work has allowed me to take time to do this. Although I don't know if I am going to be working again soon, and what sort of work, I know I want to keep learning and keep reflecting on my self, my work and my relationships with others. 

Coaching is a really exciting thing for me and I will try to do some coaching to learn more and practice some of the skills. 2 more sleeps to get everything completed and be ready for the presentation. Ok on to it! 

So long and thanks for all the fish! 


I wonder if I will really get an A? 

Assessment

9th December 2013

Well, 3 sleeps til the final presentation of our project and submission of all the assessment tasks. I'm not nervous, yet - a little anxious about the amount of work that I still need to finish and desperate to please the rest of the team. It has been frustrating not having the whole team for the final session as we haven't all been able to get together as a group for 2 months now, so i feel like we're all a bit disjointed. 

Life is fast paced and I have had little time to reflect on anything. I'm finishing up with Scope on 23rd Dec and moving to NSW, so my head has been full of tasks that need doing. I am surviving one day to the next at the moment and trying to focus on the next most important thing. So my daughter's party is over, so is her birthday, now on to accepting application for house and organising removalists. I know some things won't get completed or handed over properly. I am trying to let that go and focus on the essential tasks.

However I only have to blink and my focus has shifted to wondering if I should be looking for jobs, or packing up the house, or completing the project or finishing off essential work tasks or getting the tax return done... 

I am avoiding talking to anyone who might give me work to do or talk to me about what I should be doing, I am grumpy. Watch out cranky pants is here!

This made me smile:

http://jamesaowen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/DOTDmeditation_fewPages.jpg

Making Great Presentations - reflection on November workshop

28th November 2013


Last weeks workshop was great we learnt about making presentations and then got to work on developing our presentation ready for the next workshop. 

These are the steps for making a great presentation, whether it is a 2 hour or full day workshop this will put you in good stead. If only I knew this in October when I presented at uni! 

1. Braindump of content - write down everything you think you might want to share
2. Write down the outcome - What do I want them to do with this info? What si the next step for my  audience? What do you want them to do at the end of the presentation? Is it to support and idea; adopt a recommendation; or think differntly? 
3. Filter your content based on what is the outcome for the audience. Dos it relate to our goal? Remove unnecessary ideas / add better ideas. 
4. Structure the presentation to create a powerful message. 


We were presented with a variation on the 4Mat system - which is a model for delivering training. 
 

http://www.4mat4learning.com.au/what-is-4mat/what-is-the-4mat

This was very powerful and allowed us to structure our presentation in a way that makes sense and focuses on the outcome we want. 

It was amazing to see how long it took to do the introduction (WHY?) - nearly 2 hours putting 7 sentences together! But boy it really introduced the presentation well.

I am really excited by this model and have shared it with some colleagues already and its made me think about getting into a developing training and finding a job where I can do this - may just be a dream!



 

Coaching in practice - GROW model

14/11/13


It was great to get the opportunity to practice coaching models with a colleague and use some of the principles of the GROW model in how I direct conversations. I have a colleague who has been working at gaining a coachong qualification this year and I have seen her communication skills develop over the year. She is now at the poitn where she is often able to ask questions to assist a persoon to reflect on their work without it being such a cognitive process. Earlier in the year I observed her conversations changing as she put her coaching hat on now she seems to do this more automatically. (I must give her this feebdack) So coaching takes pratice, like everything else in life.

The GROW model of coaching provided a really clear model for coaching and it ensured that the conversation led to outcomes and strategies to try.

http://www.blueiceconsulting.co.uk/images/GENERIC-GROWCoachingModel.png

Here is some more great info about the GROW model - also it was interesting to think about the GROW model not needing to be followed in sequence "GROW need not be linear. Whilst I have described the GROW coaching model as a linear process you can revisit any of the stages during the process depending on the needs of the client. For example after exploration of Reality you may find your coachee wants to readjust their Goal or having checked their commitment to an action may find that more Options need to be explored first. The thing to remember is that GROW provides a useful framework however, to be effective you need to understand what your coachee’s needs are at any particular point in the coaching conversation. So be flexible enough to take them to the stage that most needs their needs, and there may be times using just part of the model is appropriate."

I found it really easy to have conversation and pretend to 'coach' although I need to allow pauses and wait my turn to speak. I also found that I was busy clarifying what was said and summarising what the coachee said rather than just going ahead and asking another question. It is fun practicing on someone who is also trying to learn to coach.

I am looking forward to reflecting more and practicing more with my coach and coachee.

Its done...isn't it? And now I'm off - well almost.

31st October 2013


Yay! It's done I have finally finished the literature review paper that I was working on with the team. Oh the joys of referencing I had forgotten. 

I know its not a perfect paper but I am so glad that it is done and I am happy with the standard. I just hope the other team members are too. :)

The conclusion of review actually substantiate the comments that people working in the sector were telling us about the needs of training for DSWs. All that work and we could have just asked a couple of people in the industry!

I have also made the decision to leave my position at the end of the year and move interstate with my family. It is interesting how this decision and knowing I am leaving has impacted on what work I am prioritising and being asked to complete. I have prioritised completing client work and reduced the amount of work I am doing meeting and discussing things with my manager. I realise this time talking with my manager was such ineffective use of time and did not help me to do my job better or even understand what my job was supposed to be. Its been great getting back on top of the client work and letting someone else manage my manager! 

But now the to do list is so much bigger.  

October workshop: The Manager as coach

7th November 2013


We had an interesting session about managing performance through coaching methods. Unfortunately sick children at home meant I missed the last half of the day. However I did take away some things. 
1. There is a difference in being personable and personal.
2. Be curious - help people identify their own goals / their own performance.
3. Coaching is an effective tool in many situations.
4. Being a coach doesn't mean that you lose your manager hat. 

http://sabinetobback.be/wordpress/?page_id=419

The GROW model of coaching is simple and effective and I look forward to giving it a try when doing some coaching sessions next week. I think coaching would be helpful in situations where people need to start taking on more challenges, rather than letting them be the new person 3 years later it is important that the expectations remain high and there are enough challenges to push people forward.  

I have found it really difficult going from colleague to team leader, with clashes over my role, am I a friend? a coaching team leader? a peer? 
I realise now I have allowed colleagues to become friends, stepping over the barrier into personal rather than just being personable as a team leader and peer. I've done this to ensure the relationship is established however it does make it difficult to help people who are not performing gain insight and know what to do. 

It is

Project getting it back on track.

Friday 4th October 2013

I presented a 2 hour seminar yesterday. It went really really well. I'm not sure I really covered the brief that the lecturer wanted but the feedback I received from students was that it was interesting and informative. I am so relived.

This is what I feel like.

However I think the reason that it went well is because I prepared and I prepared and I prepared. It took me about 18 hours of preparation. (A little more than the 3 hours that my boss told me he would give me for it!). I am actually really cross about having to take time away from the "work that matters" to have to do this. Now I feel behind in my day to day work and behind in my project. I know it is going to be difficult to find the time to catch up. So back to the drawing board with scheduling in tasks and preparing to do the urgent work that is needed.

I have reviewed where I am up to in the literature review and I know it is going to take me a full day or 2 days to complete it. It is enjoyable work but it does need a serious chunk of time devoted to it.

I am finding myself reviewing the team roles we learnt about in September and thinking about my team and how we all play a part to get jobs done. My manager is such a strong Coordinator that I am getting to the stage that every time I go near him I have more work to do! Delegation is definitely his strong point and I often feel manipulated in my dealings with him. I am looking forward to managing people seminar in October to explore this a bit more.

presentations - oh me oh my!

26th September 2013

I have been directed by my manager to present a  one hour seminar to second year psych students on motor development. I am freaking out about this. I was trying to work out why the prospect of doing this has unsettled me so much I believe it is because the last time I did a presentation I did a really bad job and received a complaint afterwards. Last time I was presenting to more than 60 experienced teachers about our service and I had not actually had the opportunity to work in the service. So was very much put on the spot.

There is some useful info here from mindtools. It is hard to prepare for a presentation when you don't know what to expect and the brief changes. Already we have been given 3 different emails with 3 different request for information. So today rather than working on my project I am working on a presentation!

I like this mind map for preparing presentations.
http://www.presentation-skills.biz/images/Planning_a_Presentation.jpg

Well at least I will have researched and practiced this prior to learning this in the last unit in November. Wish me luck!

Teamwork: Thought from the September workshop

19th September 2013

We had a great session on building innovative teams and understanding how teams work. I found this unit really interesting and enjoyed the Belbin Team Role's identification and think this is a useful tool to apply at work. Mindtools has info and links to the self perception inventory at this link. I also learnt about the situational leadership model which I think is a useful tool. So will try to get my hands on a copy of The One-Minute-Manager Builds High Performing Teams. Applying this to my own team I can see the constant struggle we have experienced as we have had 10 out of the 12 people in our team join in the last 2 years. Our team has been forming and re-forming and re-forming since I started nearly 3 years ago. This has meant that it has been really hard to think of us as a team as we still tend to work parallel with each other, occasionally coming together but not really working on our services together.

http://leadershipsolutions.co.nz/images/TAP.jpg

In our team we have lots of 'people' people and struggle with the action and thinking roles a bit more. We are about to embark on a new round of recruitment so will take this info with me during that process.

Leadership revisited.

I had a good session with my manager this week who has provided me with some good models to work within. 

Allocating tasks and action plans:

RACI - Who's responsible? Who's accountable? Who needs to be consulted? Who needs to be informed? 

Helping to prioritise team leaders roles / tasks 

 Review of book: Strengths-Based Leadership

Presents Followers' 4 basic needs

Trust, Compassion, Stability & Hope

Therefore as leaders we need to meet that need by making sure the work we do is work that matters and work that can build trust, show compassion, provide stability and /or create hope.  

The other 7 factors introduced to me when making decisions for the team are:

1. Is this a compelling case?

2. Do I have a clear vision?

3. Is there a defined plan?

4. Do we have adequate resources?

5. Does the team of the capabilities and capacity?

6. Is there sufficient motivation?

7. What is the feedback and communication needed/expected?

So now I need to take these models and start using them everyday to see if they fit me and my leadership style. 

Stress belief - make it healthy!

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend



Check out this great reminder in how to be healthy and make stress your friend in the above video. 

This was timely as I have a uni seminar to present in a month and I hate public speaking.

There are also some good tips about preparing for presentations here. 

August Workshop: Budgeting & Financial Plans....ughhhh

Well there was a slight change of plans and this week the workshop schedule was changed and lucky us had the very dull topic of financial planning and budgets. I'm not sure how this topic can be delivered in an interesting and relevant way but I certainly found it extremely boring and poorly prepared. It would have been more relevant if a team member could have presented it to us and shown us an actual budget and balance statement. 

ipad_team.jpg

This great article on the mind tools website, pretty much covers everything that we learnt. I may need more Excel training down the track. 

However it did make me think about my personal spending habits and how bad I am at sticking to the family budget. 

Following the workshop my project team got together and nutted out the next phase of our project. It is really great having such a great team of people to work with. My job is to finish off the literature review. So I must schedule this in. 

Culture, delegation, and stuff.

Well, my head is spinning trying to collate and make a report from 2 different drafts so thought I would review what I have learnt lately: 

I just came across this article and thought these 6 points are so relevant to all of our work. I think I need to find ways to train staff in the 'soft' skills. These are the things that I often call personality, but in doing this I am allowing myself to think I cannot influence and support that person and I am not giving the person the feedback they need to learn and develop. For example when a person has anxiety about their work and has a tendency to be a perfectionist, preventing them from working effectively, I need to be helping them to develop strategies to make faster decision and allow them the time at a later date to refine the work. 

I had a great session with my manager on Monday and he imparted information about another great tool to use to help lead and manage: the RACI model to help delegate tasks. He uses this all the time and once he makes someone responsible he then checks to make sure that the action occurs, remaining accountable. It is probably useful to think like this when sending info to the team- who needs to know? How should I manage this information? Often people are overloaded with information emails and therefore they are unable to use and absorb the information. 

http://thepaceofservice.com/is-your-social-media-strategy-raci/

So I have left the meeting with a few new responsibilities. 

I have been interested in the ways that some of my colleagues are working. As a team leader I seem (although this hasn't been identified) to need to be on top of what everyone is doing. I work with a number of female colleagues that have recently moved from India to Australia to work and my manager is a man of Indian background (although he did not grow up in India). I came across the work of psychologist Dr Geert Hofstede today and his website here provides his understanding of culture based on  five demensions. It is really interesting to look at the differences between India and Australia, especially in the area of power/ dominance and I have noticed the formal attitudes my colleagues have towards our manager. I thought this may be  because he is a man and the more patriachial society they have come from, however reading this has made me think that it is more about power. Where some of the team have an equal and jovial relationship with the manager, he often chooses to set himself apart from the team. I thought that this was his way of keeping a distance so it is easier to have the difficult performance review type conversations, but the work of Hofstede has been useful in providing me with alternative view points.   

I am entering overwhelm again so today I will take the time to do a mind sweep and schedule in time to complete all the tasks that I need to do. Returning to using the time management tools I am familiar with. I know that consistency is not my strength and I need to revisit tools and keep consciously using them to develop new habits. 

I am looking forward to the workshop next week, especially as the topic is Teamwork. 

Project chug-chug

Well it is with great relief that I write this post knowing that I've just collated all the information from our journal searches. The literature review so far, although brief is informative, which considering the lack of literature available is quite exciting. It has been rewarding sitting at the computer this morning just writing and summarising. The literature also validates all of our own opinions about providing training to direct support workers. we need to make sure they have the underpinning values and attitudes, then the skills and knowledge, then mindfulness training, and time to apply to the individual using person centred planning and then onsite support, mentoring and supervision.  So it seems that there is no point doing any training if you are not doing all of this. Wow, this makes training an expensive exercise - not what the execs want to hear! 

Oooh, I like this article about mindfulness. 

Thoughts from July workshop - Customer Service

It's funny I hear the words customer service and start feeling very guilty. I think as therapists we often feel guilty if we haven't been able to find the time to provide the service that we think someone needs. We are often stretched very thin and respond to the most urgent cries for help, leaving the quieter families waiting for us to call them. 

Todays workshop gave me 3 great tools to help in my role to provide good customer service. 
1. Empathy Mapping
2. Journey Mapping 
3. The FISH philosophy


Empathy Mapping. I think this is something that I do quite intuitively. Although actually writing it down helps. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs has been adapted to think about customer service. WIth basic needs as the bottom of the pyramid before the expectations, desires, and unanticipated needs. 

http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/27/maslows-hierarchy-of-customer-service/

Here is an empathy map:

http://uxempathy.com/2012/10/digital-empathy-map/

Our group actually found using this quite tricky. It is really hard to see all of these things from someone else's persepective. It would be great to ask one of our clients to fill this in for us. 

A Journey Map follows on from an empathy map, in that it is done from the customers perspective and maps out every touchpoint that the customer has with your service. 

http://www.amplify-interactive.com/blog/events/love-at-first-website-2011/

I found this website with more details. 

customer journey mapping: 10 tips for beginners

We worked in teams to create journey maps and this was a really valuable experience and will help us develop some more streamlined processes and procedures to be followed. 

We also talked about tracking the clients satisfaction using a customer heartbeat diagram. 

 This website has lots of good info about customer satisfaction. 

And lastly this is how we finished off the day. 

http://www.charthouse.com/content.aspx?name=home2

I am looking forward to trying to apply some of these tools to work. 

Rhythms and routines: the link between time management and lifespace theory

Reviewing my self management
I found a review of this book 
http://99u.com/workbook/16527/why-emailing-gives-you-a-false-sense-of-progress

I'd be interested to read the book and it has reminded me to review how I am going with my time management. I re-did the time management test here and scored much higher. Last month I scored 40 this month I scored 46, right on the cusp to a score of effective time management. Procrastination and managing interruptions are still areas I need to work on but there has definitely been an improvement by just trying to meet my goals, scheduling better and trying to be accountable to my team and manager. Yay for me :)

Project

Our project seems to be swimming along nicely thanks to my great team who are so motivated. I am enjoying the work as we made did a good job with the proposal and thus developed realistic goals and tasks. It is so clear and so able to focus on one task at a time. Its great doing some EBP for the first time in a while. 

In my search for relevant articles about training DSWs to support adults with autism I found a theory that is used in residential child care called "lifespace", ·       “Lifespace theory suggests that everyday life events, from getting children up in the morning to putting them to bed at night offers opportunities which can be as powerful as more formal interventions to enhance children’s development”.    “Lifespace can be described as the therapeutic use of daily life events in residential settings…Daily life events, which are shared by care staff and young people in residential settings, are exploited by the care team to help the young people gain an understanding of their life experiences. This understanding then becomes the foundation from which support is given to the young person to help him/her gain control over his/her daily environment” (   M Smith 2005 “Working in the Lifespace” in “In Residence” Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.)

This theory is encompassed in what we call the keyworker model in ECIS and therapy in the natural envionrments. I think we can also apply this to adults in residential care. This theory has been adapted for career development here and I think it would be useful to apply to my own career development. SO i might explore this further. 

Do it Better: Thoughts from the June workshop

20th June 2013

I enjoyed this workshop and now need to think about how we can implement continuous improvement. I think most members of our team are good at trying to find more effective processes and there are only a few people who do things because they've always been done that way and are resistant to change. As a team we share ideas about how to work more effectively, how to manage time and caseloads and think we need to keep doing this on a regular basis. There are not enough processes/ policies in place to make sure everyone know what is expected so I will work on these, then we can measure performance based on this.

(Taken from http://sarjeevansainbhi.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=136220067)

In this cycle it is important to move quickly to the next step and not get stuck planning. It is an ongoing cycle for continuous improvement.

We can also use the theory of Kaizen; the Japanese term meaning to 'change gently' which means we should build on changes bit by bit for continuos improvement.

It was also good to think about how a team can be innovative and I like the idea of developing a challenge statement and thinking about what do our customers want more of? There needs to be a benefit to any work we do and there needs to be value in it for somebody who matters! It would be excellent to sit down as a team and brainstorm answers to a challenge statement like "In what ways can we work in mainstream schools?" I know we'd come up with heaps of stuff.

Project reflections: We are up to executing - this is where I need to knuckle down and get that reading done. We're working really well as a group.

I had the opportunity to sit with my manager and a colleague to come up with a project proposal relevant to my role. I found it really difficult to put his into the project proposal format and this is where I left it. I am looking forward to being able to talk through this further with my manager and seeing if we can expand the project.

I think our team is at a stage where we are looking to develop more consistent and more effective processes and it has been useful to think about processes and ways to develop a philosophy of continual improvement.

The Literature Review. PICO and databases...eeek

30th May 2013

As part of our project Emily, Val and I are conducting a literature search. We are lucky that recently a guide has been developed by our organisation to do this. One of the ways to develop a good research question is to use the acronym PICO. There are lots of good sites explaining this however I am wondering how relevant it is to our research when using PICO is most effective for medical and patient based searches.
Here is a great link explaining how to use PICO to formulate a research question
http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/file/0011/85196/Finding-the-Evidence-1.swf
And here is another link to a worksheet for PICO http://www.usc.edu/hsc/ebnet/ebframe/PICO%20Worksheet%20SS.pdf

Well as a team and with the experience Val and Emily had in already trying to use PICO we came up with a great question and PICO for search terms.

THE PICO SYSTEM

WHAT DO I WANT TO KNOW (Practice Question):   What education do dsw need to support people with **

Area	Terms	Alternate Terms
Population	People with ** and living in supported accommodation	Alternate terms for each client group Residential services, residential facilities, institutions, group homes, facility, share home/house, nursing home, continuing care unit, transition unit, in home care, out of home care, respite care, day centre, day service, day programs
Intervention/ Exposure	Education or training for direct support workers	Staff education, staff training, competency based training, upskilling, professional development, learning needs, accreditation, disability support workers Support workers, residential worker, attendant carer, staff carer, personal care assistants, worker,
Comparison/Factor
Outcome/Observation	quality of life, stress, incident reports, wellbeing, job satisfaction, staff turnover, absenteeism, illness, least restrictive environment	Participation, independence,

 ** Autism or mental health conditions or BOC

So tonight I have tried to follow the guide and search databases. It was so so difficult to access the databases. Having access to a uni library I found it much easier to just get on to the cochrane database and do my search. Once I had access the searching was easy, the terms we had come up with helped and I started finding articles that seem a little bit relevant. So now lots of reading to do!