What is Active Planning?

Active Planning captures the most important aspects of one of the Core Features of AMBIT , which is: Working with your CLIENT

• It is about the process of collaborating to create your Formulation and Treatment Aims.
• It is the application of The Therapist's Mentalizing Stance to the broader field of the collaborative planning and management of 'therapeutic interventions'... which might just as well be called "being practically, safely, and effectively helpful") over time.
• Another way of describing this is to say that AMBIT is a type of pre-therapy - creating the conditions most likely to allow therapeutic work to take root:
• Active Planning is an attempt to create and hold the delicate balance between having a plan and implementing that plan, while also remaining responsive to rapidly changing circumstances and states of mind so as to maintain engagement.

• Active Planning involves Holding the Balance between three elements:

• Planning
• Broadcasting Intentions
• Sensitive attunement

Who is it for?

Among all the many aspects of working with troubled young people and their carers, why have we highlighted an idea about planning?

The main reason for this is that AMBIT is designed for young people who have a very fragile Relationship to help (they are Hard to reach).
In general the target client group for AMBIT-influenced work is characterised as being either hostile, distrustful, ambivalent or passive towards receiving help about some of their life problems. This presents particular challenges for outreach workers who may experience the young people as unpredictable, constantly changing their minds, altering the problem from day to day, etc.

Twin pillars of Active Planning:

Much of the material about Active Planning is organised into two streams; the first explains and shows examples of what is meant by active planning as an interactive process with a young person and the second links it to care planning and the young person's journey towards help.

1. Active Planning as a central part of direct working with young people	Active Planning: a core process with clients
2. Active Planning as it links to typical stages of work with a young person	Active Planning and the therapeutic journey

There are pages in the manual that gather material (Training exercises, etc ) for Learning about Active Planning.

This is a 10 minute teaching session on Active Planning by DickonBevington at a training for AMBIT Local Trainers:


Just below is a basic 20 minute video introduction to the concept of Active Planning with supporting slides and how it connects to other parts of the AMBIT approach.