#includem

Its been a busy few weeks here, with lots of progress! Unfortunately this has meant that the Now Including blog has suffered! So here is a little update:

One young person, in Glasgow, is working with me on the Participation strand of our project. Two young people, in Glasgow and Fife, are helping me to develop the ways in which Transitional Support communicate who they are and what they do to a variety of audiences.

We’ve taken over a wall in Includem’s Glasgow office, where we are documenting some of our thoughts, and have invited others to contribute (first picture).

A little more detail on each project strand:

Understanding:

We have identified a number of problem areas and barriers within this area, and have begun to develop a few solutions too;

Problem: Young people not feeling informed about TSS. It takes time for young people to build trust with their worker and Includem when they first move over from Core to TSS, or when they first begin with Includem. This will always be the case, but we want to ensure that road is as smooth as possible, to prevent young people from disengaging early on, before trust has had time to develop.

Potential solutions: A leaflet or ‘referral pack’ which a worker can deliver to a young person on their first meeting. Something similar already exists for Includem’s Impact team. This would include business card sized profiles on each worker a young person is likely to meet. These would be casual and personable in nature - to allow young people to feel they know a little about each worker before they meet them all. It would also contain a short synopsis of the TSS service, how it differs from Core, how it is the same and the helpline number would be clearly visible. The main page would contain the words of young people who have worked with TSS, explaining how TSS helped them and what it is they can do.

Problem: Young people can struggle to explain Includem and TSS to other services they link in with. Effectively explaining Includem and their work can be useful to young people when plans are being made regarding outside agencies they might also work with.

Potential solutions: A document which can be supplied by Includem workers to young people, who can then pass it on to outside agencies. This would need to be very clear and concise, and young people would be supported to make sure that the recipient read it there and then - to make sure the information is taken in, understood and that any questions are answered.

Problem: Outside agencies not fully understanding Includem’s work and taking this into account when making plans for support. Whilst work is done at a senior level to have Includem’s work recognised across the sector, young people would benefit from better understanding and stronger working relationships across agencies at the worker level.

Potential solutions: Something which helps workers to get the message about Includem out to other agencies they work alongside. This might be a well designed business card, a leaflet, or even a teabag. We’re not sure yet!

Problem: Includem’s website is not built with young people in mind. It can be hard for young people to find out information about Includem independantly. It is natural that those with internet access will “google” Includem - but all current results are aimed at professionals and can be quite inaccessible, or even off putting.

Potential solutions: The Includem website should be redesigned to function for young people. From this central page, professionals would be able to navigate to a “backstage” site, containing the same resources and information as the current one. The new young person’s website would also include information about what to expect when working with Includem, some information about teams, information about other young peoples’ experiences of Includem, information on how else to involved with Includem and an area to leave feedback on the service.

Participation:

As well as identifying areas in which both young people and Includem would benefit from young people’s involvement, we are developing a framework for participation going forward: How should Includem approach the involvement of young people? What are the principles of good participation?

Problem: How can we meaningfully involve young people in Includem recruitment and induction training?

Potential solution: A well constructed structure for Includem to follow when inviting young people to take part in recruitment sessions. They should be given the chance to contribute to the design of recruitment and training sessions, and be equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary. There should also be time for reflection afterwards - both on the process itself - what worked, what didn’t, and on skills developed and gained by those involved.

Problem: How can Includem gather meaningful, honest and valuable feedback on their service, as young people exit? The current “Your Views” questionnaire is not effective. It is not always completed, the purpose is not clear, and the information gathered is not well used.

Potential solution: We’ve taken time to consider a few different options for this. Should it be a game? Should it be face to face? Online? Paper based? On the phone? Who is the right person to deliver this? Should a young person do this in isolation? After a lot of consideration, we feel that the best course of action is that there are a range of “delivery agents” who can collect this feedback from young people. This is a decision which should be made on a case by case basis, and in consultation with young people, workers and team managers. “Delivery agents” could refer to workers, team managers, senior managers, support staff or self-driven. This is all still under review, but we are excited to develop a great solution for this!

Problem: How can young people and workers find out about participation opportunities? Opportunities for young people to participate in a variety of ways, both inside and outside of Includem, are presented to Includem frequently, and from lots of different places. How can we get this information out into the open, and ensure that young people are properly supported to take part?

Potential solution: There are a few solutions here. One: Participation in service development, or in another project should fall under “Eduction, Employment & Training” within the ABL programme. Two: opportunities should be included in Includem’s monthly newsletter. To gain readership, team managers should read these aloud at team meetings; this allows workers to discuss which young people might wish to take up the opportunities. Three: these should also be posted in a public space within Includem (perhaps in the “resource room” - where computers etc are available for use by young people) so that they are visible to young people and workers. Four: Again, these should be published on the Young Person website.

Sounds good. What else? How are we going to make this happen? How are we going to make this last?

We are prototyping several of these ideas already; this will lead to further development, and hopefully implementation! By working alongside different people and different parts of Includem, the word of the project is spreading, and buy-in is building!

Staff Supervision (short taster version) – Karen McCulloch, Includem

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Thinking about how to explore both strands of the project with young people.

How do different people know who Includem are, and what they do?

In attendance were representatives from Care Visions, Falkirk Council, Hot Chocolate Trust, Includem and Kibble.

Participants were asked to consider some barriers they face when working with young people and to submit these as part of the application process. The organisations chose to look at the following barriers:

· Workers feeling judged if they choose to remain in contact with young people when they leave a service

· Workers not knowing if they are allowed to offer ongoing relational support

· Getting love right for every young people - what does love look like in a professional context?

· Understanding and enacting the boundaries of professional and personal relationships

· Supporting young people to have confidence to continue to seek support when they experience difficulties in life. (Includem)

Facilitators, visualisers and helping hands were provided by IRISS, Young Scot and Who Cares Scotland. Includem were teamed up with Young Scot’s Toni, who partnered with us on several projects in 2014.

When young people exit Includem’s service, they are always reassured that they can still use the Helpline – a service which is available to provide support to young people 24/7.

However, experience shows that in practise, young people are reluctant to do this. Even those who have made good use of the Helpline whilst working with Includem fail to use this service after exit. We wanted to understand why this might be, and how Includem can best support young people beyond their initial service delivery, whilst not imposing on the independence (or interdependence) of the young people in question.

We were able to bring together a great pool of Includem brain power on this issue: two young people who have been working with Includem in Fife; sister/brother team Alana and Gavin, their Transitional Support worker Kathleen, frontline Core worker in Glasgow Kim, Briege who has been undertaking PhD research with Transitional Support and myself, Keira, Includem’s embedded service designer from Snook.

Alana and Gavin had helped me look at this issue during the first phase of our project, and took this opportunity to share and discuss their experience of the issue with the wider group.

Fuelled by pastries, tea, coffee and Parma Violets, we delved deeper into what some of the underlying reasons might be that young people are reluctant to pick up the phone at the very moment they need help most.

We were all in agreement that one of the biggest revelations from the day was our rejection of the word “Exit”. The group felt that this word implies a very final action. “You don’t come back in an exit,” as Kathleen put it. We wanted to support young people to lead interdependent lives, without needing Includem by their side, but to truly feel that the door is always open, and to have the confidence and ability to walk back through it.

We wondered if the problem might lie within the method of communication – Alana and Gavin spoke about being reluctant to pick up the phone – “We were too proud to make the call”. In reality, when they found they had hit a bump in the road, and didn’t know where to turn, it was a call from Briege that prompted them to get back in touch with Includem. Briege had phoned to arrange a follow up interview for her research, and on hearing that they were struggling, urged them to make the call. That prompting voice reassured them – Gavin told us he had worried (needlessly of course) about being rejected if they did place the call.

So we explored the idea of Includem making the initial contact – a solution identified by young people during phase 1. We wrote out a series of different communication methods; phone, text, face to face, letter, email, Facebook, Twitter, pigeon and considered the ways in which each could be used and the advantages and disadvantages of each; both with Includem initiating contact, and young people doing so. We identified a range of different ideas which might be explored in the future, but all agreed that a phone call was still the most powerful and overall, the most effective.

Brains and bodies refuelled with soup and sandwiches, we thought about a simple blueprint for the service. What were the potential outcomes and how were we going to get there?

We found it useful to start talking about a young person’s journey with Includem as a literal car journey. At the Includem driving school, young people are given confidence on the roads and the skills needed to navigate on the “highway of life”. They aren’t left to drive alone; Includem ensure they have a good network of support around them, and also reassure them that they can always pull over and give Includem a call if they need an MOT. We started talking about Includem calling a young person, for example, two weeks after “exit”, then two weeks after than, then a month, six months etc. just to check they are still happily and safely driving down the road - or that they aren't struggling and perhaps needing more support, or even just a small amount of helpline based support. This metaphor really helped us think about the problem in a new way – with young people coming up against potholes, or bumps in the road, traffic lights and roundabouts. The team never quite landed on the correct language we wanted to replace “exit” with, but we talked about “moving on”, “next steps”, “getting your license”, “being certified for the road”, “P-plates”.

To put our idea across, we wrote a short play (staring Gavin Gell and Kathleen Malcolm, coming to the Kings soon), in which we told the story of Gavin’s experience with Includem’s School of Driving – getting to grips with the road, with worker Kathleen supporting him in the passenger seat.

Having explored the barrier with young people and workers prior to the Jam, we relished this opportunity to investigate it further, with a diverse group of minds and perspectives around the table. This gave us the chance to look at some alternative solutions. This resulted in us feeling even more confident in the idea that periodic check-in calls after exit are simultaneously the most supportive, but least intrusive solution. The jam gave us the opportunity to develop the idea to such a stage, that we can easily begin to implement this on a prototyping basis.