How to Embed an Appreciative Focus in Your Reviews
Donna Ohdedar - Review Consulting Ltd
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Embedding an Appreciative Focus in Your Reviews
Appreciative Inquiry (AI), when applied to reviews, encourages learning from strong practice. When we begin our review conversations with consideration of strong practice we:
(1)?increase motivation & engagement in a review setting
(2)?encourage greater performance
(3)?enable teams to be more effective in managing change
How Can We Learn AI in a Way Which Will Effectively Embed the Approach in Our Reviews?
4 Stage Process..
Do you remember when you learned to drive? You had to learn it to unlearn it. You start off doing it consciously then with time you don’t have to think about it.
?When we want to execute reviews in which strong practice is given a higher priority. There are 4 stages along the way.?
1.???Unconscious Incompetence?— This is the phase where you don’t know what you don’t know. There is a skill that you are missing but you don’t know what it is yet. This may well manifest as a desire to leave behind notions of blame in reviews, accompanied by some frustration at the lack of progress we sometimes achieve despite having the best intentions.
2.???Conscious Incompetence?— Now we realise there is a gap and identify the skill we need to develop. If we want to learn and grow. we set to work to close the gap. In a review this may look like an intention to begin the review with an appreciative focus, finding areas of it which feel impossible to convert to an appreciative style & / or finding the approach of others brings us back to deficit focus.
3.???Conscious Competence?— This is where the learning begins. Now we are actively working on the skill but we are yet novices. We try some things, we fail, we learn some lessons and try again. We keep getting better. Our new style terms of reference may feel like a game changer, but the appreciative recommendations still feel like a stretch for example. The key here is to be persistent and determined and keep practising & trouble shooting with colleagues & mentors.
4.???Unconscious Competence?— The final stage where we’ve mastered the new skill or behaviour such that its instinctual. We are not practicing anymore. While we’re still learning and growing, we’ve established a strong foundation and can be confident about our competency in that area.
The SILP Approach to Appreciative Reviews
The appreciative focus we adopt in SILP reviews comes from three intertwining strands – appreciative inquiry, solution focused practice, and strengths focus. In the case of all these three approaches, we prioritise learning from what went well.
We use scripts when we teach this. Scripts enable you to practise with examples from reviews. They also help you to see what kind of responses throw you off track.
When you come from a starting point of being a naturally strengths-focused individual or team, you have a head start.
Would you like to assess how strengths focused you or your team are?
Take our assessment to discover your score & what it means here: https://bit.ly/StrengthsFocusAssessment
My Own Personal Journey
After practising with a script & applying the approach to a number of reviews, I am still in my comfort zone when viewing practice with a deficit focus, but I have the insight & the tools to reverse my instinctual position. My confidence has increased a lot, and this is due to me having completed a number of reviews with an appreciative focus.
In my upcoming 90-minute masterclass on Thursday 15th September at 1 pm I will share the techniques, and how and where to apply them in your next review. I am joined by Karen Wright, Senior Manager, Safeguarding Adults, who will share more about a recently completed SILP review where this approach was used.
Sign up here: https://bit.ly/AIlalsept
SILP School is open for enrolment.
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Are you an independent reviewer or in-house practitioner who is looking for a more effective, proportionate review practice?
Whether you are new to reviews or established and ready to grow your practice around reviews, SILP School will challenge you to execute at the highest level.
SILP School is an innovative 18-week interactive video-based training programme that teaches best practice in reviews and doors are now open for the next intake.
SILP explores the professional’s view of the case at the time the events took place. It analyses significant events and deals not only with what happened but why it happened. SILP can show us what affected the practitioner’s actions and decision-making at the time and what needs to change.
SILP School is designed to change your thinking around where we can achieve more by doing less in reviews and requires you to understand what it is like being involved in a review from different viewpoints.
For more details about training with SILP School as an individual visit: https://bit.ly/SILP2022EB
or if you are interested in training a team visit: https://bit.ly/SILPTeam1
Reserve your place now to avoid the price increase and pay the 2022 rates.
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What else is coming up at Review Consulting?
Monday 19th September 1pm. - Podcast Live!
I am inviting you to join Jonathan Dickens & I on 19th September from 1.00-2.30pm for a free live online workshop called ‘5 Misconceptions About Recurring Themes in Reviews’. Whether you are involved in Domestic Homicide Reviews, Safeguarding Adults Reviews, Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, or other learning activity, the discussion will be relevant to your practice.
Click here to sign up for your place: https://bit.ly/lalsept
Thursday 6th October – 1pm – Podcast Live!
You are invited to join Nikki Holmes, CEO of Safer Together, and I for a free live workshop called Reviews Which Analyse Exploitation in Children. Join us on Thursday?6th October 2022 at 1pm. Click the link below for the details & to reserve your seat - ?https://bit.ly/laloct
Thursday 10th November 1pm. - Podcast Live!
I am pleased to be able to inform you of the new date for the postponed June Podcast Live with Liane James (Project Lead, Single Unified Safeguarding Review, Welsh Government) and I. Join us on Thursday 10th November for a FREE live online discussion called ‘The 5 Features of the Welsh Single Unified Safeguarding Review’, Click the link below for the details & to reserve your seat - https://bit.ly/laljune
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Donna Ohdedar, Head of SILP
Donna has 16 years public sector experience, including her last role as Head of Law for a leading metropolitan authority. Now a safeguarding adviser & trainer, Donna is involved in serious case reviews in both children’s and adults’ safeguarding, domestic homicide, and is a SILP Reviewer and Mentor. Donna offers ‘SILP School’ her university accredited training course, CPD for reviewers & a free online network for leaders in review practice. Click here to join. Click here to hear the latest episode of the Safeguarding & Domestic Abuse Sector podcast.
Find me on Twitter: @LtdReview
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