Getting it Right in West Lothian
Child’s Planning Meetings - Autumn 2013
Learning Intentions
By the end of this session you will:
• Have an understanding of how a Solution Oriented
approach can be applied in Child’s Planning Meetings
in order to lead to positive outcomes.
• Have had an opportunity to discuss and experience the
process of a Child’s Planning Meeting in detail.
• Have a plan for how to take this forward in your school
/ agency
Outline of the Session
1. Introduction to the strengths based approach /
principles
2. Child’s Planning Meetings
– Preparing for the meeting (child & family)
– Roles in the meeting
– Stages of the meeting
– Practical Activity
3. Action Planning
1.
Introduction to the strengths
based approach / principles
Solution Oriented Principles
• A focus on future possibilities enhances change
• The problem is the problem, not the person
• Everyone has their own ways of solving problems. Co-operation
enhances change.
• In all situations, there are strengths and resources that can be
used to effect change
• Small changes can lead to bigger changes
• If something works, do more of it. If it doesn’t work, do something
different.
Why a Solution Oriented Approach for
Child’s Planning?
• It offers principles and a structure for identifying
creative solutions
• Helps us develop goals and solutions rather than
analysing current problems
• Focuses on the present and future, on goals and how
to achieve them
• Recognises the importance of involving the person in
the solution process
• Focuses on ‘what works’ and amplifying strengths
rather than analysing weaknesses
Background to Solution Oriented
approaches
Milton Erikson
MRI
Ioan Rees
SO
Approaches
Sycol
Solution
Oriented
Approaches
Bill O’Hanlon
SO Brief
Therapy
Steve de Shazer
Insoo Kim Berg
SFBT
Jasmin Ajmal
Harvey Ratner
Brief Therapy
Practice
Solution Oriented Approaches
Whole school improvement
/ self-evaluation framework
Child
Planning Meetings
Class/group
Planning
Whole
School
Meetings
Class /
Groups
SO processes
within school
Meetings with
parents
and carers
SO Circles
Reflective
Team
Individual
Staff professional
reflection and coaching
SO policies and
paperwork
Pupil Planning
Pupil Coaching
Focus and purpose of Child’s Planning
Meeting within the Continuum of Support
• To establish a shared understanding of needs and/or
concerns
• To understand the impact of strengths and pressures
on an individual child / family
• To help children and families and the practitioners
working with them agree what needs to change
• To identify solutions and ways forward
• To jointly construct the Child’s Plan
Strengths-based Child’s Planning
Meetings
How much do we currently focus on strengths in
our planning meetings about children?
What would be different about a meeting that is
mainly focused on strengths and solutions?
Problem Solving
Solution Building
9.30 am
Problem Talk
Problem Talk
9.45 am
10.15 am
Solution Talk
Solution Talk
10.30 am
2. Child’s Planning Meetings
Preparing for a Child’s Planning Meeting
• Only professionals already working with the
child/young person should be invited to a Child’s
Planning Meeting
• Relevant professionals will have already been involved
as a result of the Assessment of Wellbeing (AoW)
process.
• The AoW process will have identified areas of concern
that can be shared at the meeting.
5 Key Questions
1.
What is getting in the way of this child or young person's
well-being?
2.
Do I have all the information I need to help this child or
young person?
3.
What can I do now to help this child or young person?
4.
What can my agency do to help this child or young
person?
5.
What additional help, if any, may be needed from others?
Participation in the meeting
• Genuine engagement of the child and family in the
meeting is dependent upon effective preparation
• The views of the child / young person should be
gathered before the meeting in order to support their
engagement in the process. A variety of tools are
available for this purpose.
• Consider whether this approach would be helpful for
use with parents too
• Consider how this might be used with other agencies
My Views / What I think
My Views / What I think
Activity: Participation of children and
young people in meetings
Discuss your thoughts on the participation of
children and young people in meetings.
What do you do currently to support this?
• What are the strengths of supporting children to
participate in meetings?
• What are the challenges?
• What are the solutions?
Roles in the meeting
Facilitator
Timekeeper
Child’s
Planning
Meeting
Scribe
SO Meeting Stages
6.Action Plan
Construct a Child’s
Plan. Agree what,
who, when and
review (10 mins)
5.Goals/Desired
Outcomes
Use well-being
indicators for desired
outcomes
(10 mins)
4.Current Strategies
What is currently
working well? How
could we do more of
this? (10 mins)
1.Explain
the
Meeting
format and
agree
purpose
(5 mins)
2. Strengths/
Protective
Factors
What’s going
ok?(10 mins)
3.Concerns/
Risk Factors
Listen to the
concerns
(immediate and
emerging)
(5 mins)
1. Explaining the meeting format
Facilitator:
Use 5 minutes at the start of the meeting to
outline the stages of the meeting and the
purpose of this approach to a Child’s
Planning Meeting
(see suggested script)
2. Strengths / Protective Factors
Facilitator: open a discussion about the child’s
strengths
– What strengths does the young person have?
– Explore areas of interest/activity
– Invite everyone to share something that they consider
to be a strength of the child/young person
– Invite the child/young person to contribute to this
discussion
3. Concerns / Risk Factors
Facilitator: open a discussion about the reasons why
the meeting has been convened.
What is not working just now?
– Discuss the current concerns
– Take everyone’s views into account
– Take time to agree on the top priorities
This discussion will be used to identify goals for the
meeting.
4. Current Strategies / Exceptions
Facilitator: explore what is currently working well. Explore times when the
issues are not as challenging.
Strategies
• What strategies are currently working?
• What should we keep doing?
• What could we try to do differently?
• What has worked or made a difference in the past?
Exceptions:
• When is the problem not so difficult, what is different about those
times?
• When was the last time things were even a little better? What was
different then?
Use Scaling to identify the most effective strategies
5. Goals / Desired Outcomes
Facilitator: open a discussion about what people at the meeting want
to be different / where do we want to be?
‘If things were a little better over the next week, what would John / his
teacher / his parents be doing differently?’
How would we know?
• Which exceptions can be developed/expanded?
• Which strategies can grow, be altered or re-tried?
• What can we try to do differently?
This information can also be used to identify possible goals for action
6. Constructing the Child’s Plan
• Agree the priority goals jointly
• Goals should be worded positively
Then agree:
• Who will do what?
• When will it be done?
• When will we review?
Providing a Constructive Summary
Facilitator provides a 5 minute summary
including:
•
•
•
•
Key things that have been discussed
Review of the Plan
Thanks for attending and contributions
Take time to reflect on the usefulness
of the Child’s Planning Meeting process – use
Scaling?
Feedback from pilot schools
BREAK !
Activity: Child’s Planning Meeting
Prepare an Action Plan for Jamie
3. Action Planning
Practicalities
• Consider what, if anything you will be required to do
differently to facilitate meetings in this way.
• Consider how you might communicate differently with
children/young people and their families regarding this type
of meeting.
• Consider pre-meeting preparation.
• Handout with prompts provided for Facilitators
• Recording the meeting:
Use smart board if familiar?
Use flip chart if preferred
Use the relevant documents to record the meeting
• Take time to evaluate the meeting.
Follow up Support
•
•
•
•
•
The Additional Support Needs team
Educational Psychology Service
Edweb resources
Revised Continuum of Support
Ongoing evaluation