Team Meetings

29th March 2018

Basic Practice

  1. AMBIT teams should meet together weekly (remember one of the Core Features of AMBIT is the idea of a Keyworker well-connected to wider team and the emphasis on SupervisoryStructures.)
  2. During team meetings the AMBIT manual can be projected (LCD projector or large screen) so that all team members can see it and refer to it, and notes can be made (for instance using + Manualize our work to add to the Local Manualization Homework Tasks for your team.)
  3. AMBIT team meeting materials should be made available.
    1. Project the AMBIT stance diagram (see Core Features of AMBIT)
    2. Shuffle and hand out cards with each major component of the stance (AMBIT stance playing cards)
    3. Have your team's Care Pathway Chart, or Assessment schedule available to support case discussion.
    4. Have paper copies of the Dis-integration grid to hand to support complex case discussions.
    5. Have paper copies of the Active Planning Map ('Egg and Triangle') available.

Why do this?

  • One of the distinguishing features of a successful AMBIT team should be the extent to which they talk about their clients, in informative, boundaried ways that are experienced by the key players as helpful.
  • The weekly team meeting is a key forum, where the team comes together to discuss cases, and is the most obvious example of a Reflective Quorum, and a key provider of Formal supervision in a group format.
  • Case discussion takes place according to agreed Rituals and Disciplines, such as Thinking Together to ensure that information has the best opportunity to be reflected upon in ways that maximise SAFETY while allowing creative flexibility:

How NOT to do it

This is crudely role-played team meeting where Thinking Together is NOT used, and the needs and feelings of the worker are poorly mentalized - obviously few teams are quite as poor as this, but consider are there elements of our team meetings which could be changed for the better?:

Two role-plays of using Thinking Together in a team meeting:



Notes:
  • Thinking together helps team members remember that their primary task is to help their COLLEAGUE who is consulting to them - the young person about whom the discussion takes place is not present, and the best hope of helping them is to help the worker mentalize more accurately.

When workers struggle with using Thinking Together:

It is not always the case that workers instinctively embrace using this ritualised or boundaried way of approaching case discussion - it is important to be able to justify and hold these boundaries with confidence - this is about helping the worker:

  • Teams will need to decide locally how their team meetings are best conducted.
  • A suggested 'agenda' is provided below, and can be Edited as required.

Suggested Agenda

Local teams may want to edit this

1. Introductions

If there are visitors, new team members.
Set the context, and possibly hand out AMBIT stance playing cards to set "monitors" for elements of the AMBIT stance - the meeting is there to help individual workers to regain balance in a working environment that leaves them constantly "off-balance".

2. Mark Boundaries

  1. How long have we got today?
  2. What cases are in the "RedZone"? (note these, and use Marking the Task at this stage, but avoid getting into discussion yet)
  3. Record cases for discussion, Marking the Task for the worker bringing them at this stage, but not moving into case discussion.

3. Case Discussion

(a) "RedZone"
(b) New referrals
(c) Existing cases

5. Manualization

(a) Service User Feedback - is this team explicitly interested in learning from its own Experts by Experience?
(b) Team reflection and manualization - Many teams find it helpful to have a separate Manualization session (perhaps monthly). However, do consider using + Manualize our work in a live team meeting (be sure to switch to Edit mode first!) to quickly add to your own team's "Manualizing To Do" list when a subject comes up that the team agrees "that needs manualizing!". You can do this quickly during ordinary meetings via the Local Manualization Homework Tasks button - just create the TITLE of a page that the team can come back to at a ormal manualizing session.
The team that manualizes itself is probably the team that is mentalizing itself!

4. Team Business

This should be strictly time-limited and teams should consider setting up sub-groups tasked with administrative work if it threatens to encroach on Case discussion time.