29th March 2018
What is this?
- This has been referred to as the "Egg and Triangle"
- It is a simple "back-of-an-envelope tool":
- to support the stages of
- to help a worker in Broadcasting Intentions, Comparing Destinations and work towards Agreeing Waymarks
Important practice points in using this tool, which simplifies and adapts Maslow's HierarchyOfNeed, are as follows:
- A worker may develop and present their "first efforts" either in real time, during a session or between sessions, but crucially the point is to present these to the client:
- "what I have heard and understood from you, about what you need and want..." but also
- "...what you should know about what the wider system expects of me."
- i.e. The system expects proper Governance and Managing Risk by all workers
- Which is particularly focused on ensuring basic safety.
- For the worker to get quickly to the point where they are able to share this "first effort" with their client
- When sharing a first effort to articulate one's clients story and one's aims and goals, use
- Tentativeness
- Hesitancy
- Self-deprecating humour
- Invitations to "Help me get this much more accurate than I can on my own, please!"
- Understand that this exercise is all about Broadcasting Intentions!
- If these do not agree with those of your client, see below.
The Active Planning Map
Go to this link to download this in PDF format, or just use the back of an envelope!Video of introducing this to trainees
Managing Differences of Opinion
There are frequently Individual Differences and Disagreements that separate the worker's intentions and plans and those of the client. Workers come with some pre-ordained priorities, and they are inevitably (and quite properly) part of a system that is larger than them, and to which they are answerable.
1. Foundations
The foundation of any work from the professional's point of view is safety - without which any further, more elaborate building work would be liable to crumble. In Broadcasting Intentions about our work and our ideas about Aims and Goals for the work ahead, it is helpful for our clients to hear this stated in simple terms:"Above all, it's worth saying that everything I do is first of all about helping things to be safer... that is my job, and its worth understanding that this is absolutely at the centre of how I must work. I guess the reason is that if we can get things safe enough then you and/or the people around you don't need to spend so much time worrying, and can start to spend more time being imaginative, and planning, and experimenting with new ways to work things out..."
From the client's point of view Safety may be a shared foundation priority, but they may have other "Needs" aside from this that they would feel need to be the starting point (that if their worker did not show them they had recognised would leave them feeling misunderstood, or ignored.
"It's also important for you to know that I DON'T KNOW exactly what YOU see as the things that you really need right away - but I really want to get these things straight in my own head, as I am pretty sure that if you think I haven't got a clue about what YOU feel you really need right now, then I'm not going to seem very helpful to you!"