This is one of the
Core Features of AMBIT, relating to the use of
Mentalizing to help you in
Working with your TEAM, and is what underpins the distinctive
SupervisoryStructures that are a Core feature of AMBIT practice. Accordingly, there are
Training Exercises for Keyworker well-connected to wider team to support teams and workers to practice this.
It involves the active use of
Mentalizing skills - not only directed towards the young people and families (our clients) but ALSO, and quite EXPLICITLY, towards one's colleagues within the team.
We assume that the work of anyone working therapeutically with young people, especially but not only in outreach settings, is stressful, and this constantly challenges the mentalizing capacity of the worker - who needs connection to trusted others in order to restore or sustain his or her balance. The metaphor of the climber is frequently used - the worker needs to know some skills about what do to when she is out there, alone, but she also needs to know
who is holding her rope and to feel confident that communications between her team member are reliable, trustworthy and secure.
Why?
We assume that the foundation for change in a young person is the development of some security in their attachment to an individual Keyworker (see
Secure Base). In order to support this there is a team-based commitment between practitioners
to sustain each others’ mentalizing practice which we refer to as the "
Team around the Worker", as opposed to the conventional "Team around the Child".
Video of
Liz Cracknell teaching on this for a group of
AMBIT Local Trainers - this video goes on to describe the core activity that we use to help supported the "connectedness" that we are promoting,
Thinking Together:
Using this:
On a day to day basis other team members provide a fundamental supportive role to the keyworker in the field (see the sub-topics under
Working with your TEAM, but particularly
Thinking Together.) At its crudest, this means that
AMBIT team members talk to each other a lot about the work that they are doing:- They use mobile phones and other technology to do so at a distance it necessary.
- There is a very strong emphasis on innovative and precise ways to deliver and use this peer-supervision however, deploying the concept and practice of Mentalizing to this end. This is best illutrated in the process known as...
Thinking Together is a set of structured "steps" (We sometimes call it the "fourstep dance") that offer a
deliberately ritualised way to talk about casework, so as to
Mark the fact that we are attending to mental states at that time - especially that of the worker asking for advice, support, or help.
Ideally...
The intention is to develop a strong culture of team members
sharing responsibility for, and supporting, each other’s practice, including how to
sustain best and positive practice in the face what are often highly invalidating social ecologies. Accordingly, much of AMBIT can be seen as a mentalization-based organisational approach to the challenge of
Working with your TEAM.
But what if...? CHALLENGING colleagues is a crucial part of being "well-connected"
At times, a worker may notice something concerning in the practice or behaviour of a colleague in the team, which does not appear to have been recognised or acknowledged by them. Inviting them to into
Thinking Together might be hard to do. In these circumstances, it may be necessary to use
Graded assertiveness in challenging a team member.
Clearly, the ability of a team to fulfil the AMBIT stance principle of
Managing Risk, there needs to be a structured and agreed framework for allowing workers of all levels to introduce challenge and inquiry to each other - regardless of relative seniority, etc.
Training exercises
See
Training Exercises for Keyworker well-connected to wider team