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SeCtion one Four key approaches to change
Organisational Congruence Model. This was on the basis that it is relatively simple in design (and so could be shared more easily with staff and other stakeholders, looks at the formal and informal aspects of an organisation and was developed to support change initiatives. Data would be gathered through an on-line survey sent to all staff who worked in the community mental health team and the third sector organisations. The research team also attended a user and carer forum to ask them what they saw as the key objectives for the recovery hub in relation to individual outcomes and people’s experience of accessing a service. Talking to the forum provided helpful views on what these objectives could be as well as what was wrong with the current arrangements. This led to a number of key themes being identified which were used to develop a simple on-line questionnaire that could be circulated via the face-book page and the local carers centre contact list.
Deciding on the change
The research team undertook a number of analyses of the data including breakdowns by different professional groups. However they did not provide any overall conclusions. This is because under an Action Research Process it should be a ‘collective’ rather than ‘expert’ diagnosis of the issue in question. They fed back their findings to the Project Implementation Group in the first instance. This enabled the Group to discuss what the main issues were and agree how to then engage a wider group of people in the decision making. They identified that the issues could be grouped according to their focus –
• Individual professional issues (e.g. terms and conditions of social work team)
• Joint working between the different health and social care professions (e.g. referral and care
coordination processes and pooling of staffing budgets)
• Implementing the wider recovery hub (e.g. overall vision and the role of the third sector organisations).
The Project Implementation Group decided that issues related to individual professions should be dealt with within their line management structure. Those regarding joint working processes should be dealt with by the community mental health team management group, however these should be informed by the overall vision for the recovery hub. The setting of this vision and its subsequent development should actively engage people with mental health problems, their family carers and the third sector organisations. Two wider stakeholder meetings would be held to set the vision, objectives and joint working principles. The first meeting would involve the university feeding back their findings and those present reflecting on these, and the second one would build on these through making decisions. A series of task and finish groups would then be setup with relevant representation to discuss how to apply these in practice.
The stakeholder events were held with facilitation by the university. Manager C welcomed everyone and emphasised the importance of the days but then took on the role of participant.
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