Contributions and more

Alternative Futures Group are the first provider to invest in a full time Community Circles Connector in Rochdale. It’s fantastic for Community Circles to have a dedicated post where we can develop circles of support at scale and share learning.  We know that people are asking for circles of support to be more available and we are responding to that request.  For Alternative Futures Group the Community Circles Connector post is in response to listening to what the people they support said was important to them; having friends and relationships in their lives.

For many people relationships and connections develop naturally, for others, often people with a label of disability, relationships aren’t as naturally occurring and we need to be intentional about inviting people into someone life.  We need to be consciously recognising and supporting people’s gifts and talents so they can make a contribution in their local community, developing a valued role and connections.

My role as Community Circles Connector is to work with the people supported by Alternative Futures Group, who have a learning disability and also as part of our corporate social responsibility, to work with people who are living with dementia in Rochdale.

Our work within Alternative Futures Group focuses on the people we support, enabling them to have great lives with the support that makes sense to them.  We are also conscious that the work we do creates ripples throughout our staff members and local communities

As part of our corporate social responsibility and to ensure the best possible outcomes for the people we support, we focus on working locally: with the people who use our services and their families, and with the local communities in which they live. We are conscious of our responsibilities as an ethical organisation and a responsible neighbour in the communities in which we work; it is our aim to work with our partners and stakeholders locally to increase capacity and social impact and to support communities to sustain themselves.

We recruit locally, to ensure that people are supported by staff who know the area intimately and who can truly connect them into their local communities in the way they want – enabling them to exercise their rights as citizens and to positively contribute to society and we train and supervise those staff within a clear development programme enabling them to gain in skills and confidence.

Community Circles is supported by people who are able to contribute a couple of hours a month to facilitate the circle.  We recruit facilitators from a variety of backgrounds, students, businesses, community groups and faith communities, and also from our staff within Alternative Futures Group.

Community Circles brings many benefits; supporting the people we work with to achieve their purpose and develop connections, supporting our social corporate responsibility by working with other members of the community to develop a circle of support, connecting people within their local community that benefits everyone and supporting staff to develop skills and new experiences through the role of the facilitator, knowing that their contributions are making a difference.

Kelly, an Area Manager, facilitates a circle for a man who is living with dementia and his wife.  Here she shares her experience of being a facilitator

The role of facilitator is something that interested me after hearing the benefits a circle can bring to someone’s life. In addition it was my opportunity to give something to the local community where I work. I was matched with the couple whose circle I facilitate. Their circle is made up of some life long friends and their daughter. Once we had identified the purpose of the circle, to return to the dances they enjoy, things really got moving. Once the conversation has started things really began to change for the couple. Although the people in the circle were involved in the couple’s life already it focused the conversation to enable to think about what they would like to achieve and how they were going to do this involving others. The circle meeting also enabled the couple to have a purpose to see their friends. This has further solidified their friendship and offers of help are accepted rather than thinking it’s too much trouble.

The circle has strengthen the support the couple have and creates a focused conversation every 4-6 weeks which enables them to think of different options to explore and support they can access. The couple of hours a month that I give to facilitate enables this conversation to happen, helps me to develop my skills and supports me to make a valued contribution in my local community.

If you want to find out more about Community Circles and how you could get involved, take a look at our new website http://community-circles.co.uk/

 

Cath Barton

Community Circles Connector

Alternative Futures Group Rochdale

LDOK Radio, SURFing the airwaves

Cath writes…..LDOK.net is an inclusive online radio station with a mission to inform and entertain everybody, everywhere, at anytime.

It is also an important platform for the recognition, support, promotion and development of the UK’s disabled community with an emphasis on supporting people with a learning disability.

Every month Alternative Futures Group has a two hour slot on the radio where people who are supported co-present the programme with Samina Taj, AFG’s Digital Marketing Specialist, share information about personal stories or what’s happening in the organisation, inbetween a selection of great songs.

I was invited to this months radio show to share information about Community Circles.

Community Circles is working to develop circles of support at scale using person centred approaches so that everyone can benefit.

As Community Circles Coordinator in Rochdale for AFG my role is to support the development of Community Circles for people who are living locally with dementia and for those people with a learning disability who are supported by AFG.

Despite feeling comfortable delivering training or talking to large groups, I did feel quite nervous faced with the microphone.  Luckily I’d had great support from Samina prior to the show to develop the script.

On the day I was supported by Samina, who was presenting her tenth show and Terry, from LDOK who in his own words has been around for yonks.

As well as sharing information about Community Circles I was also able to share a little more about myself, which is great when you’re in a new role and want people to get to know you.  I really enjoyed picking my top 5 favourite songs too, which included “You’re the best thing” by The Style Council which was my wedding song.  The rest of the playlist included suggestions from our Community Circles Groupsite members, who had shared their ideas of songs about friendships and relationships.

I was really pleased to be able to share information about starting facilitating a circle for Lynda, who is living with dementia; you can read about Lynda’s journey here:

https://communitycirclesblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/lyndas-circle-starting-the-journey/

and also Mary, who is supported by AFG, click the link below to find out about Mary’s ‘cream cake get togethers’

https://communitycirclesblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/marys-circle-or-i-should-say-the-cream-cake-get-together/

Samina also asked me about the role of the facilitators;

Facilitator can come from any walk of life and need to be able to contribute 3 or 4 hours a month. The role of the facilitator is to support the circle, to create a welcoming space where members are able to have meaningful conversations around the purpose of that circle. The characteristics we would look for in a facilitator would be; a people person, very approachable, a great listener, trustworthy, flexible, has a ‘can do’ attitude, motivated and enthusiastic about making a difference in their community.

We offer full training for facilitators to be confident with their role and ongoing support from buddies, coordinator and via our online Groupsite

Corinne, one of our facilitators, is a health and social care student, you can read her blog about the training here

https://communitycirclesblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/community-circles-facilitator-training/

If you’re interested in becoming a facilitator, please do get in touch

Here’s our one page profile for Community Circles Facilitators

Community Circles Facilitator – could this be you?

What people appreciate about you?

You are:

• A people person, very approachable
• A great listener
• Trustworthy
• Flexible
• Has a ‘can do’ attitude
• Motivated, and enthusiastic about making a difference in your community

 

What is important to you

• People! Bringing people together to talk and take action
• Action! Supporting people to turn their ideas into reality- finding ways to make things happen
• Knowing that your role is making a difference to people, and to the community
• Being able to be creative
• A role where you are trusted to work on your own
• Being active in your community
• A flexible role that you can work around other life commitments
• Supporting people to make positive change within their lives with the people who care about them most
• Taking opportunities to learn through your experience

 

How we will support you

• We will support you to develop your one-page profile that describes what people appreciate about you, what is important to you and how best to support you in your role as a facilitator
• We will provide training for your role to be a Community Circles Facilitator
• We will match you to a person within the area you wish to travel and the times outlined on your one-page profile
• We will match you up with a buddy facilitator
• We will provide you with a mentor to guide you through your learning as a Circle Facilitator
• We will provide support through our annual gatherings of Community Circles Facilitators
• We will provide online support in the form of Facebook, Twitter, Groupsite and website
• We will provide you with a resource pack and online resources

Another interesting question that Sam asked was about the current challenges within social care and the economic climate as a whole and how could Community Circles be of benefit during challenging times.

I do recognise there are challenges but truly believe that money doesn’t give us the richness and quality we get from having natural relationships in our lives and people who value us.  Community Circles aren’t to replace paid support but to enhance the quality in a person’s life through developing relationships and supporting people’s gifts and talents to develop contributions within their community.

Martin Routledge, Head of Operations at In-Control believes that, “Circles of Support are a way for us to bridge the gap between people, communities and the state. At a time when services and communities are having to find ways of doing more with less, Circles seem to me to be the answer to so many of our challenges.”

To develop circles of support at scale, we need to be able to show the benefits, not just for the individual, their families but for the wider community.  We need to be able to demonstrate the economic case for circles.

In 2013 Circles of Support and their economic impact was added to a wider piece of research being undertaken by the PSSRU at LSE. The aim of the research is to look at a number of community projects and determine their ability to draw upon the resources that exist within communities, promote capacity, build connections and ultimately reduce the pressure on formal services by meeting or delaying the need for them.

The study based on five families, with a young person with a complex disability highlighted these benefits;

• Circles can offer a very powerful, effective and personalised way of supporting a young person with disabilities to have a good quality of life.
• The young person was seen to be much better integrated into the local community and able to be involved in activities as people of similar age would.
• Circles have potential to develop and harness community resources to promote greater social inclusion and improved wellbeing for young person and family.
• Circles may delay or prevent need for specialist health and social care support.

• Circles were described as ‘natural’, using the important people in the young person’s life and the networks that Circle members have.

• The cost of the various packages of care, while high in some cases, was notably less than if young people had been placed into a specialised residential setting.
• The Circles were argued to have prevented admission to residential care.
• Circles potentially reduced the need for mental health services by primary carers as they reported that their mental health was improved.

Info taken from Martin Routledge’s blog for In-Control

http://www.in-control.org.uk/blog/economic-pen-pictures-of-circles.aspx

I very much enjoyed my time on LDOK Radio and hope to share more information about Community Circles with you all again very soon.

 

To find out more about Community Circles

Follow us on Twitter @c_circles

Like our Facebook page Community Circles

Follow our blog www.communitycirclesblog.wordpress.com

Join our Groupsite www.communitycircles.groupsite.com

For further details or if you have any questions about Community Circles please contact Cath on 07824096056 or cath@community-circles.co.uk

Canadian models of Circles and supportive social networks

Over the next few weeks, we want to share with you how Circles are working in other Countries.  We want to learn from them how we can help Circles to be developed at scale here.

Several of the UK initiatives refer to their basis in a Canadian Circle of Support Model developed at the Plan Institute for Caring Citizenship which was originally founded to support families of disabled people plan for the future.

Other UK Circles developments particularly for disabled people and people with learning disabilities refer to other social network development projects by the Inclusion Network, based in Toronto.

How do we consider who to invite to a Circle?

So often, people who are interested in a Circle will say “I wouldn’t know who to invite or where to begin.”

The Family Service Toronto describes their approach to creating and sustaining Circles of Support which describes concentric circles, starting with intimacy in the centre and then moving though friendship, participation and economic exchange:

• Think of those closest to your heart; those you can hardly imagine living without. Identify them in the circle closest to you, the circle of intimacy. 

• Think of those you count as true friends; those who hold an important part of your personal story; those you can call on and count on; those who can call on and count on you. Identify them in the circle of friendship.

• Think of those you meet – or have met – because you belong to a particular association, or work in a specific place, or live in a particular neighbourhood. You share some time or activity or interest. You might call or be called on for engagement in projects related to your shared association or interest or for information or for connections to others.  Identify them in the circle of participation.

• Thinkof those you count on because they provide a paid service to you. Identify them in the circle of economic exchange.”

 

 

This 2003 Toronto Star article via Family Service Toronto illustrates the challenges of supporting disabled people to live independently, including building and sustaining Circles of Support.  In the article, Judith Snow, who lives independently with a Circle of Support, has outlined the following learning points:

• Don’t wait for a crisis like a blackout; build Circles for life.
• The biggest struggle is inviting people into your life. People are embarrassed because we live in a culture that doesn’t accept different abilities. Get over it. Often people you’d least expect it from say they are honoured to have been asked.
• Remember, you know more people than you think.
• A family may think that a teenager who doesn’t speak, can’t connect to the community. But if you follow him for a day, you’ll see he’s a regular at a local burger chain, where they know he likes gravy on his fries. Try building on that connection.
• Your Circle may contain a mix of family, friends, community people and people in health care services.
• Celebrate people for who they are. That means connecting by recognising strengths and building on them.  For example, more than 80 per cent of those who know people with Down’s Syndrome say they have the ability to make other people happy.  Think of turning that into a job, like welcoming visitors to a community
• Bring everyone in your Circle together so they can get to know each other. That helps empower them.
• Learn how to ask for what you really want, not what you think you can
• Challenge and stretch. Circles aren’t about being nice, but about helping
• people thrive and survive.
• Take the time to build trust.
• Prepare people for disappointment. Not everyone you approach will follow through. Your Circle may expand and contract. At different times people can have as many as 50 and as few as five in their Circle.
• If at first you don’t succeed try and try again.
• Don’t be afraid to give voice to dreams.

How can you help Community Circles to look at how we can develop Circles at Scale?

There are many ways you can engage with Community Circles.  

We would love to hear from you with your top tips on facilitating a Circle, creating a Circle or the benefit that Circles have made to you or how being part of a Circle has worked for you.

Also let us know the questions you have heard being asked about Circles so we can produce “Frequently Asked Questions” to help Circles to evolve.

Who could provide Facilitation and Support for Circles?

The following is an excerpt from Circles of Support and Personalisation (Helen Sanderson and Max Neill 2012)

So, who could provide Facilitation and Support for Circles?

Existing circles: Where existing circles have been working successfully, the people who have been part of this success can share their learning with others who face similar situations. 

Family members who participate in courses like “Partners in Policymaking” could apply what they learn in to supporting their own relative, but also to someone else outside their family, spreading and sharing the learning.

Local Social Enterprises, Voluntary Groups & Community Organisations:  These groups seem at the same time to be invested by our social care system with increasingly high hopes and increasingly sparse resources. They have immense advantages from the point of view of building circles, in that they are often more willing and more free to experiment and innovate. Their footprint in the community means they are capable of deep local knowledge which could be a huge asset to the circles they support.

We all know however that despite a pervasive rhetoric of ‘stronger citizen control’, such organisations typically live a perilous ‘hand to mouth’ existence, from funding application to funding application, surviving often on grim determination and the strength of people’s hearts. Providing paid facilitation services to people could become an important revenue stream for these groups. The crucial social capital that these groups embody would thus be sustained.

Existing providers could release certain staff for a few hours every month to help facilitate circles. The experience and skills they gain through this activity will be beneficial to the organisation, and be a method of them exercising corporate social responsibility. Organisations would need to undertake this with the expectation that this will have a big impact on the people they release. Such people are likely to benefit from deep learning from the circles they engage in, and bring that learning back to their organisations, challenging them to grow and adapt to the new person-centred paradigm. Some organisations have positively embraced the change this brings. Others might find it more difficult. Provider organisations could be involved in circles of support in other ways, for example by providing paid services to Circles of Support, for example, book-keeping or training is another possibility.

IAS (a provider in Greater Manchester) actively supports staff and managers to be involved in circles of support. They worked with a family-led organisation to train circle facilitators, and make these available to local families who wanted to set up a circle around their son or daughter. As well as this, they brought together local established circles in the area to ask what would help more circles develop. One of the issues that came from that was how hard it can be for Circles to manage the ‘business’ side of employing and supporting staff. IAS responded to this by developing a costed ‘offer’ to Circles and people who have personal budgets listing the support that they can offer. This includes management support for Circles, where a manager supports the staff on behalf of the Circle, or mentors an existing manager.

 

Trainee social work students, trainee nurses, AHPs, as a key part of their training (and possibly beyond this time).

There exists a whole layer of young enthusiastic people wishing to gain a professional qualification, and hoping to use it to make a big difference in people’s lives. We also know that many family carers already appreciate the opportunity to support students on placements with them as this is an opportunity to share the reality of life from the point of view of people and their carers. A radical shift in how future professionals are trained could give them even more potential to meet and engage with people and their families in a meaningful way. Introducing a requirement to participate in a circle as part of a student’s training would shift some of focus of training from the Office, Classroom and hospital directly into the community; it would provide the student with a person-focused point of view of how services are delivered. As both social and health care aspire to become increasingly focused in the community and at the community level, it makes sense to change the way students are trained in order to reflect this shift. It will be important here however that the circle itself is able to choose who should facilitate their circle, and to change this if it is not working for the person.

If you would like to get involved, please get in touch

 

What is the contribution of Circles of Support to delivering personalisation?

The ‘circle of support’ is a model that has enormous potential to enhance the lives of many more people, and to increase the capacity of the community to welcome people with disabilities and other social and health needs.

Circles harness human warmth and human creativity and apply it to a purpose. In enabling improved support and improved lives so that more people can contribute to our communities they also enhance community connections and capacity; they help us build the interconnected, interdependent, resilient communities that must sustain mutual human support through these challenging times.

People organising and thinking in circles have a wide variety of impacts on the person, as diverse as the people they focus on.

By thinking outside the more limited options presented by traditional service delivery, people can think in a more practical problem solving way. At their best they enable people to sustain responsibilities as well as rights, and to contribute to their families and the wider community.

Circles organised across North West England provide us with learning around this:

• In Lancashire a report written on the initial impact of circles at ‘West Lancashire Positive Living’ recounts stories that include how a person was enabled to reduce the number of personal assistants he uses from 2:1 down to 1:1, and is now thinking of launching his own small business, another person was helped by the circle to move into a supported living environment, with the circle acting as a control over how his support is delivered. His parents report that this has massively increased his self-confidence.

Impact on others 

• Another person already had a person centred plan, but nothing seemed to be happening with it. Getting a circle started meant that the person and his allies were able to thrash out important family issues, and they could now start movement on wills and trusts.
• Other people are reporting that meeting in circles has helped them do the thinking they need to obtain an individual budget and organise genuinely self-directed support.

Have you had a Circle of Support or been involved in one?  What was your experience?  We would love to hear from you.

If you want to learn more about Community Circles, or get involved, then Contact Us.

The above post is an excerpt from Circles of Support and Personalisation (Helen Sanderson and Max Neill)