Developing, improving and changing practice does not happen quickly. Training events on their own are unlikely to make much impact on routine practice unless such training is complemented by a range of on-going activities that encourage learning and development. Most teams have existing systems around this, e.g. supervision, mandatory training, appraisal and individual training plans. If AMBIT practice is to develop and grow, it is essential that it is connected to these systems. This requires a plan!!

The plan should include the following:

Specific objectives

This refers to the Post-training outcome goals that we encourage teams to start to set at the very beginning (or before) any formal AMBIT training.

• Following AMBIT principles, these are best if they are SMART goals (objectives) which are realistic to the teams work and practice. Some examples are shown below.
• During the first six months, to establish thinking together as part of case discussion in teams.
• To use the AIM on a 10 cases and review its usefulness.
• To practice manualizing once a month as part of a team meeting.

Agreed on-going training activities

• Most teams have some meeting structures and support time. It is useful to be clear whether any of this time can be used for on-going development of AMBIT practice. Again, modest plans likely to work best.

Relationship of AMBIT to supervision

• It is helpful to consider how supervision links to AMBIT. If the team members are receiving supervision from supervisors unfamiliar with AMBIT this is likely to make progress more slow. One suggestion would be to have a meeting with all supervisors to consider their ideas about how to use AMBIT in supervision.

Relationship of AMBIT to wider training activities

• There will be a range of existing on-going training activity including, for example, child protection training. It is useful to consider how AMBIT sits alongside this. It is not intended that AMBIT should replace all of this but there may be some creativity as to how different training tasks can become more linked up.

Team Induction

• AMBIT needs to be part of the induction programme for new team members.

Methods of reviewing progress

The Implementation Plan should be reviewed by the Implementation Team periodically. This should be explicit in the plan itself.

We provide a template for an Implementation Plan that should be edited by the team. It contains a range of headings that the Implementation Team may wish to consider.