Enabling reflective practice

Draw on PAST

Enabling

Reflective EXPERIENCE

Practice

Inform FUTURE Action

Reflect in PRESENT

Keerthana Jayagopal is a lifelong learner with keen interest in social innovation and design. Her academic background includes engineering, business administration and recently Masters in Design for Services. Her experience in the software industry as a Business Analyst enabled her to bring varied perspectives to the field of Design.

Keerthana is currently working on setting up a social enterprise which uses technology and design to address social issues. @keerthanajay jayagopal.keerthana@gmaildotcom

Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to all who made this course possible.

to work on the project and timely help whenever I needed it.

First and foremost I would like to thank the Design for Services Course Director, Ms. Hazel White for her undaunted enthusiasm and support throughout the Masters course. I would also like to thank Professor Mike Press and Professor Fraser Bruce for sharing their depth of knowledge related to design and research.

Special thanks to the managers at the individual organisations and all the team members who participated patiently in the research and made time for me in their hectic daily schedule.

Lots of thanks goes to my Study Advisor, Ms. Kate Saunderson for guiding me at every step of the project and sharing thoughtful perspectives which has enriched the project.

I sincerely thank Mr. Donald Mackensie and Ms. Kathryn Sharp from CYPPC, for giving me this excellent opportunity

I must thank also Professor Ann Hodson from the Social Work Department, University of Dundee for being enthusiastic about this project throughout and sharing her wealth of knowledge about reflective practice.

Finally, this research work could not have been completed without the help rendered by my family, friends and my classmates from the Design for Services course. My heartfelt thanks to all those concerned.

1

Contents Preface 4 Executive Summary 5 Context 7 Design Modes 8 Exploring + Secondary Research 10 + Interviews 15 + Observation in Workplace 15

+ Engagement through social media

17

+ Design Probes 17 Making sense + Personas 20 + Segmentation by Themes 22

+ Probe Analysis 24 + Problem Framing 27 Proposing + Design Directions 29

+ 5 Course Model to Reflection On Action

31

Iterating + Reflection On Action Toolkit 38 + Team Meetings and Supervision 39 Next steps 40 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 42 Appendix 45

Preface This report, Enabling Reflective Practice describes a project executed as part of the Masters in Design for Services coursework. The project was done in collaboration with two organizations in Dundee, who were keen on enabling their staff to become effective at reflective practice. The work was done over a three month period during the second quarter of 2014.

My past industry experience with facilitating retrospective sessions in software delivery projects and personal interest in reflective practice based on the works of Donald Schon made this project the preferred choice for my Masters project work.

The fact that I was able to bring together ideas and approaches from the field of behaviour change and design to come up with a framework for service organisations made this project an enlightening experience for me.

The report is intended to serve as guide post for people or organizations who are interested in taking up the journey of enabling peers or staff to develop the skill of reflective practice in their profession. It is my hope that future practitioners of reflective practice and

4

change agents will find this report providing more ideas for cross-disciplinary approach to designing and effecting change.

This report starts with introduction to the project context describing the organisations, what they wanted to attempt and the reasons. This is followed by a brief overview of the design process that was adopted for the project. The report goes on to elaborate the individual design modes, the methods & tools trialled and the thought process behind them. This will be of use for people interested in design methods and how they were put to use in organisation for behaviour change context.

The report also presents a 5-course model for reflection on action that proposes focusing on multiple levels (individual, environment, organisation) to help with nurturing reflective practice in organisations and how they were tested within the organisations.

The report concludes with the next steps that consist of the necessary factors to sustain the reflective practice effort. The reflection-on-action toolkit samples are provided in the appendices.

Executive Summary The project, titled “Enabling Reflective Practice”, was initiated by Dundee Children and Young Persons Protection Committee (CYPPC) and Dundee Violence Against Women Partnership (DVAWP) to enable professionals to become effective at reflective practice.

The project was executed in collaboration with two partnering organisations and adopted the design approach suggested by Lucy Kimbell in the ‘Social Design Methods Menu’, which consists of four design modes: exploring, making sense, proposing and iterating.

Methods of exploring included secondary research, interviews, observation, social media and design probes. Making sense of the research revealed that: Reflective practice, according to (Schon, 1984), consists of two aspects: reflection-in-action (thinking while doing) and reflection-on-action (after the event thinking). Skills related to reflection-on-action was paramount in order to be effective at reflection-inaction.

Even though the staff were intuitively engaging in some level of reflection-on-action there was no formal structure to it and there was a consensus that not enough time was spent on reflection.

A decision was hence made to focus on enabling staff to formally reflect-on-action for the remaining period.

The report recommends a five course model to reflection-on-action focusing on individual behavioural aspects, team meetings, supervision, peer debriefing, and continuing professional development.

The individual behavioural aspects were inspired by the behaviour change model of BJ Fogg.

Three of the courses (the individual behavioural aspects, team meetings and supervision) are already being trialled by the partnering organisations and has received positive feedback. Further testing is needed to arrive at the details for peer debriefing and continuing professional development courses.

Next steps of the project should replicate the design process to explore about enabling reflection-in-action.

5

Stakeholders and the Partnering Organisations

Context Dundee Children and Young Persons Protection Committee (CYPPC) and Dundee Violence Against Women Partnership (DVAWP) are part of a multiagency strategy which brings together local specialists from agencies including the Tayside Police, NHS Tayside, Dundee City Council, Education, Social Work, Housing and third sector organisations for effective partnership working and the delivery of well co-ordinated services for people.

Continuous improvement through self-evaluation is a strategy followed at the single and multi agency levels.

CYPPC and DVAWP believe that the most effective self-evaluation will be done by those delivering the services (front-line professionals) and wanted to ensure that the staff from the partnering agencies were comfortable with critical self-evaluation. They were also keen to enable staff to use lifelong learning for performing better in their roles which then will impact the services provided.

Reflective practice in general is a process of learning through and from experience towards gaining new insights of self and/or practice (Finlay, 2008).

It involves three fundamental processes: retrospection, self evaluation and reorientation (Quinn, 2000).

This is understood as part of the process of life-long learning. (Yip, 2005) also states that reflective practice is a process of self-analysis and self-evaluation.

Working on enabling reflective practice was identified as the means to address the objectives of life-long learning and self-evaluation.

Two groups, one voluntary sector and other statutory sector, were selected to be part of the project based on personal interest and gain a contrast between them: 1. A voluntary organization that provides support services to women who were sexually abused. The organization consisted of the manager, 8 - 10 support workers of which some were qualified counsellors and around 20 volunteers in different roles.

2. A social services team who were part of children services within the local council. This team of 8 - 10 people consisted of social workers, family support workers, and a team manager.

The duration of the project was three months and a design process was employed for the challenge posed.

7

Design Modes Some of the design processes considered for the project were Lucy Kimbell’s ‘Social Design Method Menu’, Double Diamond Model by Design Council and Design Thinking Process by IDEO. Even though these approaches have different phases, they are linear and thus not reflecting the non-linear nature of projects. Lucy Kimbell’s method suggests a model which describes four design modes which designers operate in at various times during a project.

The different modes are: Exploring, Making Sense, Proposing and Iterating. This was adopted for the project.

The visualization below explains the different modes in the context of this project and lists the different methods used. The process followed resembled the complex and messy ‘LOOPY MODEL’ shown in the opposite page.

Exploring:

8

Making Sense:

Proposing:

Iterating:

This mode is about understanding the ingredients of reflective practice. Perspectives were explored from a diverse range of participants.

This mode is about refining insights from the research and finding patterns. The insights from the research helped to frame the problem.

This mode is about generating and sharing provisional ideas.

The participants were involved in idea generation workshops.

This mode is about testing the ideas and refining/ reworking an idea.

Methods: • Secondary research • Interviews • Observation in workplace & Team Meetings • Social Media • Design Probes

Methods: • Individual/ Organisation Personas • Segmenting by Themes • Probe Analysis • Problem Definition

Methods: • Design directions • Triggers Ideation • 5 Course Model

Methods: • Live Testing individual courses within organisations

Loopy Model 1

Secondary Research and Social Media connections with other local authorities

2

Interviews and Field visits with the staff from the two teams

3

Transcribed Interviews, Extracted key insights and segmented by themes

4

Created Individual and Organizational Personas

6

Interviews with Regulatory bodies, academicians from the field of Social work and Workforce Development Team

7

Design Probes Reflective booklets, Service blueprint, Behaviour exercises, Immunity Map

5

Produced Design Directions

10

Proposing the 5 course model

8

Probe Analysis including generation of Motivation/ Ability Matrix

9

11

Live testing individual courses within organisations

Problem Definition

9

Exploring

Different Forms of Reflective Practice

10

As part of the exploring mode, the different aspects that make up the project context were explored.

Appropriate research methods were employed in this mode and this section will detail them:

1. Secondary Research Reflective Practice: Origins of reflective practice trace back to the works of John Dewey (1933) which served as the basis for the concept of reflective practice introduced by Donald Schon (1983). Reflective practice, according to (Schon, 1984), consists of two aspects: reflectionin-action (thinking while doing) and reflectionon-action (after the event thinking). For Schon, reflection-in-action was the core of professional artistry and contrasts it with the technical-rational approach prioritized in many professions. It has been suggested that for social work to be effective it must move beyond the rational-technical practice agenda to an approach which takes far more cognizance of responsivity and reflective practice.

Within different disciplines and intellectual traditions what is understood by ‘reflective practice’ varies considerably. “The term reflective practice carries multiple meanings that range from the idea

of professionals engaging in solitary introspection to that of engaging in critical dialogue with others.

Practitioners may embrace it in formal, explicit ways or use it more fluidly in ongoing tacit ways” suggests (Finlay, 2008). Various techniques are also used based on individual preferences to reflection like writing, conversation, audio and video. Moon (1999) affirmed that reflection draws on past experience, reflects on it in the present and uses it to inform future practice.

Reflective practice is overall considered a cornerstone of professional development.

(Ruch, 2000) Differentiates between kinds of reflective practice: technical, practical, process and critical. While each kind is important, practical reflection which seeks alternative responses, enhances professional understanding and affords personal insight seemed to address the objectives of this project.

Reflection Models: A number of models of reflection have advanced in different fields of professional practice and education.

The different models include cyclical, list and phased (Ingram et al, 2014).

11

Reflective Practice in Social Work

Kolb Learning Cycle

12

Social Work Practice: (Ingram et al, 2014) suggest that social work practice is contextualised by a number of key hard features such as legislation, policy, procedure and theory. The situations that social work professionals deal with are complex and require moving beyond the rationaltechnical and being aware of softer sills of reflective practice and relationship building.

Continuous Learning Framework: The Continuous Learning Framework (CLF) was published in December 2008. It was developed by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) in partnership with the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS). It sets out the shared commitment needed from social service workers and their employers to lifelong learning and continuous improvement. The Personal Capabilities which involves reflective practice are:

Lifelong learning - engaging in the continuous learning of self and others (embeds critically reflective practice as a routine approach to their work) Accurate self assessment - knowing one’s own strengths and limitations (is able to critically reflect on their own practice, learn from this reflection and apply their learning to improve their practice)

Learning Process: Reflection is a key part of the learning process as per Kolb’s learning cycle. The most widely used learning theory is Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.

The Kolb model relies on four abilities to learn from experience that stem from thinking on reflective practice.

13

Color coded conversation cards

At a team meeting

14

2. Interviews In order to better understand the context in which the social workers and voluntary workers perform their service, it was essential to understand them as individuals (their background, values, attitudes and aspirations), the environment in which they serve, the organisation they are part of and the ecosystem of other agencies they work with. To get as much perspective as possible, it was decided to interview staff members, team managers, practice supervisors, regulatory bodies, academicians and the Workforce Development Team for the council staff.

Interviews were scheduled as much as possible in their work areas. Various conversation cards, colour coded based on topic themes, were used during the interviews to explore various perspectives. The interviews were recorded in an audio system and later transcribed. After being transcribed, they were analysed for patterns and key quotes. This was used to draw out hypothesised solutions.

3. Observation in Workplace/ Participation in Team Meetings Chris Argyris, in his Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness, suggests that people have espoused theories (what they claim to do and how they do in various situations) and theory-in-use (what and how they actually do). His work also suggests that people are not aware of the theories-in-use. Understanding, theories-inuse is useful for any change effort. Guided by this perspective, immersing self in their workplace and observing them in their work helped to understand the gaps, between their espoused theory and theory-in-use. It also helped to become aware of the processes followed within the teams, the IT systems that were used, a day in the life of the staff and the constraints they faced.

Participation in the weekly team meetings helped to understand about the services offered, the culture within the organisation and the challenges that the professionals were facing in their work. The team meetings acted as an important forum for engaging with the staff with design probes and coming up with ideas.

15

Conversations through Twitter

Reflective Booklets

16

4. Engagement through Social Media Based on the secondary research and interviews, it was understood that reflective supervision was a key aspect in enabling reflective practice. In order to understand the level of reflective supervision happening in other organizations and the factors involved, social media was used to reach out to senior managers in other geographical areas. Inputs revealed that authorities in some parts of the UK were also struggling to improve supervision and shared their perspectives on the reasons for the state of affairs. Some of the common reasons cited were: • lack of skills, experience and training • resource constraints • attitude and lack of acceptance as professional need

5. Design Probes Design probe is an interactive qualitative method for collecting data about people and their activities. The probe tool in practice is an ‘action package’, which includes material for constructing the answers to the necessary questions.

Different design probes were introduced and this technique helped the staff to self report.

i. Reflective Booklets For gauging the staff’s comfort level with reflection and to understand the real barriers, reflective booklets were created based on the Rolfe et al.’s (2001) reflective model (Appendix i). The reflection sheets contained three simple questions: What happened? So what? Now what? Each booklet had 3 - 5 reflection sheets, which the staff were requested to complete for any professional activity of their choice. The three sections had probing questions to guide the reflection. Examples and necessary descriptions were provided to help understand. After a couple of weeks, the reflective booklets were collected back and analysed, followed by a discussion with the individual/ team.

17

Service Blueprint

Motivation/ Ability Graph 18

ii. Service Blueprint

In order to step away from the case based reflections that most of the practitioners engaged with, service blueprints (Appendix ii) were introduced as a tool for designing and reflecting on the entire service in a structured manner.

The blueprint also helped the staff to see the different activities that they were engaged in, to deliver the service and the scope for reflection across these different activities. Templates were shared with the staff to try out for the different services provided by the organisation apart from the core service.

iii. Motivation/ Ability Graph

Fogg’s behaviour model states that behaviour change happens when three factors (motivation, ability and trigger) are all present at the same time. To understand the motivation and ability levels with respect to reflection, the practitioners were asked to plot their levels on a graph and fill in further details about that.

19

Making Sense

1. Personas i. Individual Some of the overarching points about the individuals interviewed were that they were very busy because of high levels of service demand and were also passionate about their work. They felt privileged to be working in a place where they can make a difference in other peoples lives. They also expressed that they are keen to learn more to help them in their role and are open to try out new things. The staff gave more importance to learning through trainings rather than learning from reflecting on an experience.

The interviews also revealed that they had different levels of understanding about reflection.

20

ii. Organisation The teams had different meetings which included regular team meetings, Support Supervision and Counselling Supervision (shown in the adjoining visual). Different changes were happening in both the teams. The voluntary organisation had just then undergone a change in the management structure and new IT systems were being introduced. The children services team had recently moved to a new location and the role and responsibility of the family support workers was in flux. There were no formal knowledge sharing forums within both the teams. The service demands were consistently increasing and the voluntary organisation was facing the challenge of obtaining funding to address the new demands.

21

2. Segmentation by Themes The insights from the exploring mode were segmented under different themes.

i. Reflection:

Reflection activity itself was considered time consuming. The process need to be kept simple and time need to be allotted officially.

Even though the professionals were intuitively engaging in some level of reflection there was no formal structure to it and there was a consensus that not enough time was spent on reflection.

The cases were transferred to other teams too and this made it difficult to reflect since the after effects remain unknown to the staff who initially worked on the case.

There was a need for both case related reflections (embedded in the staff’s work-flow) and also space for general reflections focusing on self, practice, organization and service context.

It was felt that service level reflections and incorporating the changes based on those reflections could be done more effectively. It was found that there was difficultly to take reflection back into practice and acting on it. Reflection leading to change and action is very essential.

22

Reflection, when done, included criticism more often than appreciation. Such imbalance is neither helpful nor healthy.

ii. Interpersonal:

iii. Ecosystem:

The research revealed that the informal peer support was highly valued by the staff. They felt peers can help to see and point out their blind spots.

Scottish Social Service Council (regulatory body for social care in Scotland) is revising the professional development framework for social workers.

Presently, the social workers are required to meet the Post Registration Training and Learning (PRTL) requirements to ensure their continued suitability for registration.

The debriefing to peers after facing challenging situations were immensely useful. Following the move to a new location, the children services team were hotdesking (multiple workers using the same computer during time periods) which was not conducive for the peer support factor. Time sharing and space sharing was constraining the peer support process that used to happen.

The SSSC faces a dilemma whether to enforce a minimalist approach regarding PRTL requirements or to nurture good practice more forcefully. It is felt that there are trade-offs for both approaches.

Practitioner forums (practitioners across different teams met and discussed) were not well understood and attending it was not prioritized within the team.

This means that the value of this concept is not well understood in the organization culture in order to sustain it.

23

3. Probe Analysis i. Reflective Booklets Given that people felt that reflection activity was time consuming and people had different levels of understanding about reflection, it was decided to use reflective booklet as a probe to gather information, guide people and also as an avenue for dialogue.

Gather Information:Considering the Kolb’s learning cycle for analysis, the reflections did not contain enough abstract conceptualization that can be actively experimented for the future.

The instructions mentioned in the booklet lead to case based reflections rather than practitioner based (what could the practitioner have done, what have they taken away from the experience). The feedback was also received from the professional about the instructions associated with the booklets.

Email reminders from the team manager served as a

24

trigger for the team members to attempt the reflective exercises.

Guide People:Some of the practitioners felt that the second part (So What?), present in third step of the reflection template, was confusing. Vocabulary aids in the form of probing questions were then given to aid them in their reflection. There was a general consensus about the usefulness of the probing questions.

Source of Dialogue:Engaging in dialogue during and after the reflection booklet activity provided more insights.

Some people preferred to have reflection as part of the work-flow (assessments and contact forms) rather than being a separate piece of work.

Rather than writing down reflection content, some people preferred to discuss or talk it through.

There was general consensus that reminders for reflection was preferred rather than it being forced.

ii. Motivation/ Ability Matrix

• Reflection was perceived to be difficult

The data from the motivation and ability graph filled in by the practitioners were transferred onto a matrix which then showed visually the difference in levels amongst the team members.

• Some people didn’t see themselves cut out for doing reflection.

Further discussions and insights from the interviews lead to possible explanations for the difference in the levels. People with high motivation levels had good experience with reflection in the past and had found it useful. The reasons for people having low motivation included: • Bad experience in the past with respect to reflection. Mostly, it was the case of over analysis beyond a point that provided no benefits and at times turned out unhealthy.

• Lack of clarity on the importance of reflection &reflective practice and why its a priority for the organization and what are the benefits for them • Lack of knowledge and prior experience with reflective practice

25

26

4. Problem Framing Donald Schon in Reflective Practitioner talks about framing the problem of the situation which includes determining the features to attend to in a given problem situation. He suggests that this process will help to identify both the ends to be sought and the means to be employed.

Building reflective practice into the day to day of the staff involved enabling them with skills related to - Reflection-on-action - Reflection-in-action Since it was understood that reflection-on-action lead to reflection-in-action (Redmond, 2004) it was decided to focus the efforts on enabling practitioners to use reflection-on-action formally.

27

Proposing

Desgin Directions

28

The proposing mode is a generative mode. It is about working up and sharing provisional ideas – new activities, processes, systems or touch-points which address the issue identified.

(Moore, 2014) suggests that any significant change can be effected only by addressing at multiple levels.

(Yip, 2005) mentions that a supportive environment is required for constructive self-reflection. The research insights also revealed that intervention was needed at individual, environment and organization level. Based on this, design directions were produced to influence change at multiple levels: individual, environment, organization and ecosystem.

Design Directions Individual level:

The understanding about reflection among individuals differ and they also have varying levels of motivation and ability. Fogg’s behaviour change model fits well for this purpose.

Environment level:

The debriefing session with peers, formal supervision sessions with managers and service user feedback collection are useful situations to trigger reflection.

Organization level:

The organization culture and processes can play a huge role in enabling an individual. Reflective practice leading to change and development only happens in learning organizations with necessary supportive mechanisms in place and other detractors minimized.

Reflective practice could also be introduced as part of the initiatives towards organisational challenges. The challenges get prioritised and the employees also get to practice their reflective skills.

Ecosystem level:

The individuals need more training and support towards reflection and reflective practice. There are many external agencies who provide support and guidance related to the professional development of the staff, who can be reached for reflective practice training.

The design directions were shared with the different stakeholders and the final deliverable was agreed to be a framework to support the workers in reflectionon-action skills. The framework must clarify the individual’s role and at the same time clarify how to accommodate that organisationally, in a structured manner. It must include the reflective practice tools integrated with existing mechanisms/ processes within the organisations and also suggest other things that are not in place.

29

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

TEAM MEETINGS

INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURAL ASPECTS

SUPERVISION

30

PEER DEBRIEFING

5 Course Model to Reflection-On-Action The following framework is called the 5 course model to reflection-on-action. The focus of the model is to enable individuals to design their own behaviour change to engage in reflection-on-action and the changes that needs to happen at the other levels (environment, organisation) to support the behaviour change. Given the focus of the project, the target behaviour for the staff is to involve in externalising reflection with a formal structure.

Externalising reflections and documenting it makes it easier to refer back to previous reflections which will help in coming up with a solution for a current situation or look at old reflections in a different light.

During the initial stages of learning to reflect, using a formal structure provides the necessary guidance to approach reflection. Everyone in the team using the same structure provides ease of comparison

and opportunity to help each other to improve their reflection skills. As people become better reflective practitioners they can choice a model that makes sense for them or come up with their own model.

Ethical Considerations In order to come up with the framework, an overarching ethical question arose about what extent can people be persuaded to follow reflective practice and should a person’s voluntary desire for change be the starting point. (Fogg, 2002) clarifies that it is important to think about the intentions, methods used and the outcomes produced. Co-designing approach that involves users in the design process through ideation helped to address the issue to some extent. Further more (Spahn, 2011) suggests prior consent and granting as much autonomy as possible to the user, which was also adopted in the project.

31

32

1. Individual Behavioural Aspects:

i. MOTIVATION

This course is the first and indispensable part of the framework. Once this course is implemented it is recommended to start with the other four courses.

As part of this course, the focus is to address the behavioural aspects necessary for engaging in reflective practice. The main purpose of this course is for the staff to administer their own behaviour change.

The focus is on understanding the motivation levels of the individual followed by detailing out their individual motivator categories (sensation, anticipation, social cohesion). Under each category there are two factors which include:

According to Fogg’s Behaviour Model, the three aspects that need to be addressed are motivation, ability and triggers. To understand these aspects for an individual, it is important to try out the target behaviour (involving in externalising reflection with a formal structure) before deciding the interventions.

Sensation: pleasure, pain Anticipation: hope, fear Social Cohesion: social deviance, acceptance Based on the motivator category that influences the most and how it influences the individual, further steps can be taken. For staff who are not highly motivated it is important to provide with external motivation like organization encouragement, time and space.

33

34

ii. ABILITY The focus is on understanding the capability levels of the individual to engage in reflective practice and their perception about the demands of the task. Once this is assessed there are two paths to increasing ability.

1. Train people thus giving them more skills to do the target behaviour.

2. Make the target behaviour easier to do

Train People

As part of the training sessions it is essential that the core aspects of reflection-on-action is well understood and the various models and tools are made available.

This will require organisational commitment in terms of budget and time.

Individuals perceive a task as simple or complex based on the scarcest resource at any given time. This will vary for different individuals in different contexts and hence it is important to start by understanding that. Based on the individual’s resource constraints, necessary measures can be taken to address them

iii. TRIGGERS Once the motivation and ability aspects are addressed, then the focus must be to determine effective triggers.

Triggers are aspects in the staff ’s environment that can be used to remind the staff to reflect. Some triggers can be commonly useful for everyone in the organisation, at the same time individual involvement is necessary for figuring out triggers effective for an individual.

Make target behaviour easier

In order to make the target behaviour easier it is necessary to understand the resource constraints (time, money, brain cycles, physical effort, nonroutine, social deviance) of the individual.

35

2. Team Meetings: Team meetings must include discussions of the case based reflections that are captured through individuals reflections. Along with the knowledge sharing that happens with others, it will also help to improve the reflective skills of the entire team.

Collective reflection session using service blueprints conducted at regular intervals will help the team reflect on the effectiveness of the service provided and how the support activities are serving the purpose. This also helps to communicate that reflection is valued by the organisation.

The team meetings, how they are conducted and what is being discussed, themselves could serve as an object of reflection. This can lead to meetings conducted effectively and relevant issues addressed.

3. Supervision: Both literature review and insights from interviews suggest that experiences with supervision have a profound impact on the attitude towards reflection.

Effective supervision is important to support individual staff members to explore their feelings from interactions with service users and establish good standards of practice.

36

Supervision contracts can be used to gain a better understanding and setting expectations related to supervision. Effective supervision contracts have three elements according to (Morrison, 2009) • Administrative (frequency, location, recording) • Professional (purpose, focus, principles, accountabilities) • Psychological (motivation, trust, commitment, ownership, investment).

(Morrison, 2009), in his 4*4*4 model of supervision talks about the 4 primary functions of supervision along with 4 elements of supervisory cycle.

The primary functions of supervision session are: • administrative case management function • professional development function • personal support function • mediation function, in which the supervisor acts as a bridge between the staff member and organisation.

Supervision must balance all the four function mentioned above instead of being predominantly case management. Trust between the manager and staff is an important pre-requisite for effective supervision.

The elements of the supervisory cycle are: • Experience: engage with/observe user’s experience • Reflection • Analysis: enable user to explore context of experience • Plans and Action: identify goals, plans and action

4. Peer Debriefs: While reflection can be captured in many forms (journal entries, visualisation, sticky notes, audio/ visual recordings), it can be also be done by conversing with a peer. It takes less time and can be done in an informal setting as well. The peers need to be coached to listen well, prompt with effective questions thus helping the other person to reflect on their actions and experience without feeling challenged or criticised.

The necessary training and expectations need to be set by the organization.

5. Continuing Professional Development: Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is an ongoing, planned learning and development process that contributes to professional and personal development. It is intended to enable workers to develop their potential ensuring continuing confidence and competence in the ever-changing environment.

CPD is a shared responsibility for employers and workers. Employers must actively provide learning opportunities for workers to strengthen and develop skills and knowledge. Workers are responsible for developing their knowledge and skills.

(McDonnell, F. and Zutshi, H., 2006) suggest that organizations keen on implementing a CPD strategy need to have: 1. a systematic approach to implementing CPD 2. a CPD strategy and relevant processes 3. model good practice from top down 4. linking learning in business and workforce plans 5. effective leadership embedding CPD 6. a learner centered approach 7. organization climate is of continuous learning and improvement

37

Iterating

The iterating mode is about testing the ideas and exploring what they would really be like in practice in order to refine or rework the ideas. Some of the ideas that were tested are described below:

Reflection On Action Toolkit The behaviour change model and its various aspects were introduced to staff members of both the organisations. This was followed by applying the model to one of their existing challenges, so that the staff understood the aspects better in a different context. The staff members could relate to the model since helping the service user adopt new behaviour is one of the challenge they face. Their enthusiastic feedback about how this model can be useful for their work served as encouragement to include this model in the toolkit for their own behaviour change.

The next step involved creating the reflection on action toolkit based on the interest shown during the introductory sessions. The individual templates of the toolkit were tested during different sessions and changes were made to communicate the concepts better.

Motivator Categories The three motivator categories initially included two factors under each of them.

38

Initially, the Sensation category had pleasure and pain under it. While clarifying the mode,l it was required to split the factors further down to make it clearer: Pleasure of doing, Pleasure of not doing, Pain of doing and Pain of not doing the target behaviour.

This change provided a better structure for the staff to think about their motivations.

Resource Analysis The original Fogg’s behaviour model has ‘money’ as one of the resources necessary for a behaviour. Since it is not relevant in this context, it was replaced by skill related to reflection on action. Two of the other resources (non-routine and social deviance) required few discussions and verbiage based on the discussion was added to the template.

Trigger Ideas The initial design of the triggers template included different kinds of triggers but based on the feedback from the sessions clarifications were added to the template. The staff were encouraged to ideate their own triggers which they found helpful. Some of the triggers from the ideation included: • a crisis situation • external practice educator as a reflection facilitator • reflection spaces as part of their work flow - in their contact and assessment forms, team meetings and supervision sessions

• reflection logs - tear off sheets, visual boards physical and virtual, mobile applications Immunity Map Robert Kegan’s Immunity Map is a tool to explore the hidden competing commitments that people have and challenging the underlying assumptions to enable behaviour change. The tool was shared with the teams to understand their competing commitments, related to reflection on action. The exercise helped to reveal some of the worries of the staff which included: • Time Factor and other high priority things taking precedence • Anxiety over the correctness on the process of reflection and not wanting to do it wrong • Less comfort level with written reflection over talking it through immediately • Concern about the reflections being used to judge The concerns have been shared with the managers so that necessary communication and action is taken.

Team Meetings:

Team session was facilitated to arrive at service blueprint of the various services provided and the service journey of their users. It was found later that the blueprint created during the session is actively used in team meetings to take a big picture view.

Individual reflections which have service level implication/ changes that might be needed were captured in an electronic form (email, virtual boards) and brought to the team meetings for further discussion and action.

Supervision: The existing supervision meetings which happens once a month was used for case management and there was no time left for covering the reflective aspects of the supervision. A separate meeting for reflective supervision was introduced for the social services team members with their team manager.

Specific cases were chosen to discuss in detail about future actions and its implication on the social work practice.

Team Meetings at the voluntary organisation were modified to include knowledge sharing sessions.

The session was designed not to share concepts read or insights gained through training sessions but to share the experience and reflections of applying those concepts to practice.

39

Next Steps This project has initiated addressing the first aspect of reflective practice, that is reflection-on-action. The next steps for taking this effort forward include: Staff sharing information about their efforts related to reflection on action, how the toolkit helped and what they would like to change about the tools. This will ensure the evolution of the toolkit based on feedback.

Organisational change efforts, like this project, require champions to sustain it. The organizations should also show the commitment in words and action by creating space and time for staff to reflect, share and learn. The selected champions need to be supported for facilitating frequent share and learn sessions to expand the provided toolkit or create new toolkits by themselves.

While the individual, team meetings and supervision course of the model are being trailed and embedded in the organization, it is essential to start focusing on the Peer Debriefing and Continuing Professional Development courses. These courses require reaching out to external agencies that provide professional

40

development support and other bodies that focus on professional development. For example, Scottish Social Service Council is working on continuous learning framework in which reflective practice is considered the cornerstone. It will be beneficial to reach out to SSSC to understand how the framework can be implemented in organizations.

Once the efforts related to reflection on action progress consistently, the design approach followed in this project can be applied to address the second aspect of reflective practice, that is reflection-in-action.

Conclusion This report discussed the effort focused on enabling reflective practice (especially reflection-on-action) among staff at a voluntary and a social service organization. The ideas and tools from Design and Behaviour change disciplines were used towards the goals. The effort resulted in providing the individuals with tools to design their own behavior change related to reflection-on-action and the organization with a model for supporting the effort at multiple levels.

The design approach used involving the four design modes (exploring, making sense, proposing and iterating) helped with the non-linear approach allowing for switching to relevant modes as understanding changed. Following a participatory process throughout the project required facilitation skills along with the designerly way of thinking.

also employ volunteers who don’t have exposure to Reflective Practice as part of their education.

Frequent knowledge sharing sessions among the staff is very essential for the staff to level up the skills. It is essential for organisations to create the necessary space, time and commit resources for the staff to take reflect, learn and share.

While the cross-disciplinary approach did provide necessary tools and insights, it was felt that personal attention to guide the staff is important to sustain the effort. Staff members who take up the champion role need to continue supporting the effort at a personal level.

Reflective Practice is a focus area in Social Work education and yet organisational constraints along with service demands makes it harder for staff to continue the practice. The voluntary organization

41

Bibliography Argyris, C., 1999. On Organizational Learning. USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc. Argyris, C. and Schon, D., 1992. Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

C. Burns, et al., 2006. RED Paper 02: Transformation Design. Design Council [PDF] Available at: http://www.designcouncil.info/mt/ RED/transformationdesign/TransformationDesignFinalDraft.pdf [Accessed on 29 July 2014] Curedale, R., 2013. Interview, Observation and Focus Groups: 110 methods for user-centered design. Topanga: Design Community College Inc. Finlay, L., 2008. Reflecting on ‘Reflective Practice’, [online] Available at:<http://www.open.ac.uk/cetl-workspace/cetlcontent/documents/4bf2b48887459.pdf> [Accessed 22 April 2014].

Fogg, B.J., 2002. Persuasive Technology: Using computers to change what we think and do. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Fogg, B.J., 2011. BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model. [online] Available at: <http://behaviormodel.org/> [Accessed 10 April 2014].

Ingram, R., Fenton, J., Hodson, A and Jindal-Snape, D., 2014. Reflective Social Work Practice. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Inns, T. ed., 2007. Designing for the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Questions and Insights. Hampshire: Gower Publishing Ltd. Kegan, R. and Lahey, L. Immunity Map Worksheet, [online] Available at:<http://experiencelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ ImmunityMapWksht.pdf> [Accessed 22 March 2014].

Kimbell, L. and Julier, G., 2012. The Social Design Methods Menu: In Perpetual Beta. Available at: <http://www.lucykimbell.com/ stuff/Fieldstudio_SocialDesignMethodsMenu.pdf> [Accessed 10 May 2014].

Knott, C. and Scragg, T. ed., 2010. Second Edition. Reflective Practice in Social Work. Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd.

42

Kolb, D., 1984. Experiential Learning Cycle. Available at: <http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/training/eresources/teaching/ theories/kolb> [Accessed 24 April 2014].

Mattelmaki, T., 2006. Design Probes. Helsinki: University of Art and Design.

Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D., 2011. Design for Services. Surrey: Gower Publishing Ltd. McDonnell, F. and Zutshi, H., 2006. Continuing Professional Development Strategy for the social care workforce. Leeds: Skills for Care.

Moon, J., 1999. Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: theory and practice. London:Kogan Page.

Moore, L., 2014. From behaviour change to public health improvement. [email] (Personal communication, 14 February 2014).

Morrison, T., 2009. Supervision Right from the Start: the Supervisorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to Supervising the Newly Qualified Social Worker. [Phd Thesis] Parker, J., 1984. Effective Practice Learning in Social Work. Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd. Philips, PL., 2004. Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to manage design for strategic advantage. NewYork: Allworth Press.

Portigal, S., 2103. Interviewing Users: How to uncover compelling insights. New York: Rosenfeld Media, LLC. Quinn, F.M., 1998. Reflection and reflective practice, in F.M.Quinn (ed) Continuing professional development in nursing. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes.

Redmond, B., 2004. Reflection in Action: Developing Reflective Practice in Health and Social Services. Hants: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D. and Jasper, M., 2001. Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

43

Ruch, G., 2000. Self and social work: towards and integrate model of learning, Journal of Social Work Practice, 14(2), pp. 99–112.

Schon, D., 1984. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action. USA: Basic Books, Inc. Schon, D., 1990. Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.training plan for workers Scottish Social Services Council, 2008. Continuous Learning. [online] Available at: <http://www.continuouslearningframework.com/ clf/home/welcome-to-the-continuous-learning-framework-website.html> [Accessed 17 May 2014].

Stickdorn, M and Schneider, J., 2011. This is Service Design Thinking. USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Tim Brown, 2009. Urges designers to think big. [video online] Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAinLaT42xY> [Accessed 9 June 2014].

Warfel, TZ., 2011. Prototyping: A Practitioners Guide. New York: Rosenfeld Media, LLC. Wendel, S., 2013. Designing for Behaviour Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media, Inc. Yip, K., 2006. Self-reflection in reflective practice. A note of caution, British Journal of Social Work 36: 777–8.

44

Appendix

45

Design Probes - Reflection Sheets WHAT HAPPENED ?

(Overall Impression of the session, Themes Discussed, Tools Used, Surprises Encountered, Your emotions triggered)

S O W H A T? (Why did it go well/ not so well? What else could I do/ have done? Significance of the themes,tools,surprises, emotions)

W H A T N E X T? (Learnings for the future, Things to try out differently, Plan for the next session)

i

Design Probes - Service Blueprint

ii

Draw on PAST

Reflect in PRESENT

Reflection On Action Toolkit

EXPERIENCE

Inform FUTURE Action

iii

Motivation & Ability Levels Motivation (Y-axis) - On a scale of 1 to 5, rate how motivated are you to engage in reflection (1 being least motivated, 5 being highly motivated) Ability (X-axis) - On a scale of 1 to 5, rate your ability level for reflection (1 being easy to do, 5 being hard to do). Your resource constraints must also be taken into account while rating Mark a sticker in the intersection of your motivation and ability ratings.

High Motivation

M o t i v a t i o n

5

4

Behaviour = MAT 3

2

1

Low Motivation 5 Hard to Do

4

3

Ability

2

1 Easy to Do

Motivator Categories Write about the motivators most relevant to you Pleasure (Doing/ Not doing) Eg. enjoy reflecting Pain (Doing/ Not doing) Eg. my stress levels increase when I dont reflect

Hope (Doing/ Not doing) Eg. will help in my personal and professional development Fear (Doing/ Not doing) Eg. fear of stagnation if I dont reflect

Social Acceptance (Doing/ Not doing) Eg. Everyone in my team or organization is reflecting so I will try it out Social Rejection (Doing/ Not doing) Eg. I dont want to be the only person not reflecting

Resource Analysis

Place the six resources on the left in the respective boxes below based on your context.

TIME

Resource Rich: PHYSICAL EFFORT

NON ROUTINE

Resources Resource Poor: BRAIN CYCLES

SOCIAL DEVIANCE SKILLS

Ideas for Triggers Based on your motivation and ability levels marked earlier, use the relevant box to enter ideas for triggers

High Motivation

M o t i v a t i o n

5

Since high ability is needed, the triggers must act as facilitators to simplify the reflection process

Simple triggers to signal or remind is enough since motivation is high and reflection is easy to do

Triggers fail here, focus on improving motivation or ability levels

Since motivation is low the triggers must spark the interest levels for reflection

4

3

2

1

Low Motivation 5 Hard to Do

4

3

Ability

2

1 Easy to Do

Immunity Map Worksheet Improvement Goal

Behaviors That Go Against My Goal

Find the full article, “How to Overcome Immunity to Change,” in the May 2011 archives at experiencelife.com.

Hidden Competing Commitments Worry Box: ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________

Big Assumptions

____________________________ ____________________________

_______________________________

What I’d need to do differently:

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

Competing Commitments:

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

Ask yourself (or an imagined observer): What’s the thing you do, or don’t do, that most gets in the way of your goal?

Your fears go into a “worry box” at the top of this column. They can point you to your competing commitments, which you list below the worry box.

Big assumptions, says Lahey, “are the beliefs and internalized truths we hold about how the world works, how we work, and how people respond to us. They are assumptions that make each hidden commitment feel necessary.”

Choose a goal that would make a big difference, one you truly want to achieve. Ask yourself (or imagine asking a group of people who know you well): What is the single most powerful change I could I make to improve my life (or work performance, relationship, finances, etc.)?

Next, specify what concrete behaviors are necessary to achieve this goal. Frame them as positive statements (for example, “delegate more” vs. “stop doing all the work myself”).

_______________________________

Take stock of the things you do instead of the behaviors that could create positive change.

You don’t need to explain or understand your obstructionist behaviors. Just notice them and write them down. Define your actions, not your feelings.

When you write down your hidden commitments, you are now able to see across the three columns how you have one foot on the gas pedal (column 1) and one foot on the brake pedal (column 3). This is the immune system “protecting” you from feared, undesireable outcomes.

_______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________

Look for assumptions that anchor and inform your specific hidden commitments. Notice how your assumptions lead to the very behaviors that undermine, rather than support, your goal.

Worksheet courtesy of Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey.

Reflection Sheets WHAT HAPPENED ?

(Overall Impression of the experience, Tools Used, Surprises Encountered, Your emotions triggered)

S O W H A T? (Why did it go well/ not so well? What else could I do/ have done? Significance of the expereince, tools, surprises, emotions)

W H A T N E X T? (What have I Learned for the future, Things to try out differently next time)

Service Blueprint

Thank You