Daily Update May 28, 2014 - Seven Steps of Family Engagement

From Tom Woll, Strategic Change Initiative

THE FAMILIES WE LIVE WITH STUDY GUIDE

THE SEVEN STEPS OF FAMILY ENGAGEMENT

I worked with 20 family practitioners from across the country to help me to develop a seven-step model for family engagement.  This model is design to help take families from invitation to transitioning away with community supports.  There is no effort to say these are "the" steps for family engagement.  It's, rather, an attempt to say, "Let's discuss these seven steps and see if we can discover some effective patterns we can use to help advance our efforts toward family stability within our organization".

Step One -- GETTING STARTED -- To understand how to successfully "get started," just think of what we tend to look for whenever we turn to someone for help in our lives.  Think first of what we don't want because that's what we want to avoid.  We don't want someone to impose an agenda on us.  We don't want someone to offer us a "one size fits all" approach to meeting our needs.  We don't want an attitude that suggests that someone is doing us a favor by agreeing to help us.  We want to be warmly greeted.  We want someone who will focus on our "unique needs".  We want to hear that we are special and that identifying and meeting our needs is very important.  We want to walk away from our first meeting with a "solution-finding partner" with a sense of hope that this is the person we want to help is meet our needs.  We want to think that this might be a person we could come to trust.

Step Two -- GETTING MOVING -- Just as every person is unique, so also every family is unique.  Wise partners in the "solution-finding" process will always take the time to find out how and why each family is unique because that's often where the solutions we seek will be found.  Family stories tend to unfold over time, with different layers being added with each deepening re-telling of their story.  In every family there are rules and roles and culture that must be discovered.  We need to learn and develop an understanding of each family's life.  Once we learn these dimensions, we can begin to "join" with the family and begin to build a joint and viable agenda, a mutual set of goals that will first identify the most urgent needs of the family and then identify their most important needs.  Sometimes the most urgent needs (their 'barrier needs") are also their most important needs and sometimes they are not.  Identifying barrier needs is very important.  Helping first where they hurt the most furthers our engagement.

Step Three -- GOING FURTHER -- Spending the time to discover each family's strengths is very important for two clear reasons.  First, a discussion that centers on the family's strengths is, itself, a sign of respect that will help to solidify the engagement process.  Second, the results of that discussion will often prove to be a means to our vital solution-finding end.  We will seldom be successful in our efforts to engage families without first helping them to discover the strengths they can use to help introduce wellness.  The process of identifying their strengths will help to build the confidence and hope that will be needed to move the engagement process forward.  The strengths we discover will help the family to understand their opportunities and choices that they have at their disposal to help them meet their needs.  This process will also help us to deepen our relationship with the family and help us to establish our role as a "solution-finding partner" for the family's barrier needs.

Step Four -- GETTING READY -- Sometimes the family doesn't really know their true agenda and sometimes they know it but will only reveal it to us when their relationship with us has built up sufficient level of trust.  Families need to come to trust us and they also need to come to trust the process of healing itself.  There are certain skills the family will need to either develop or use to truly "get ready" for healing.  Family members need to be able to support, care for and comfort one another.  And healing also usually requires that we help the family to address any "barrier needs" that might block successful efforts to heal.  This is the step where many engagement efforts stop because these "entrance requirements" are not successfully met.

Step Five -- TAKING CHANCES -- We won't often successfully prepare families for "durable results," for continued success after we leave, unless we can use the influence of our engagement to help enable the family to "take chances" with us while we are engaged with them.  We want to engage families in those "difficult conversations" that involve disclosures, to help them with the stress, pain, vulnerability, searching, movement and realignment while we are there to help guide the process and to help ensure the protections that are necessary.  We want to feel comfortable in helping them to deal with those "difficult conversations" and the after-effects of those conversations in order to introduce wellness, healing and recovery into their future lives.  It is, ultimately, the effective handling of these "difficult conversations" that will introduce the hope that things can change.

Step Six -- MAKING CHANGES -- The old saw, "If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always gotten," certainly applies to the process of installing family wellness, healing, recovery and hope.  Ultimately we, in our role as "solution-finding partners" need to help families to "make changes," to embrace a new way of behaving and responding to one another and to their world.  Change is hard for all of us because it is so difficult.  Our habits, even our "bad habits," are a source of comfort for us.  Whenever we try to change our habits we need a lot of encouragement, a lot of praise and a lot of support because it's hard to develop new skills and adopt new ways of doing things.  Ever try to lose weight, show up on time, stop smoking, drink less, or be more patient and less critical?  Gentle conversations can inspire change.

Step Seven -- TRANSITIONING AWAY -- Whenever we successfully engage with a family we tend to enjoy the positive elements of that engagement.  We tend to want to stay engaged with persons with whom we have successfully struggled through difficult conversations and who are doing much better now as a direct result of our engagement.  So often we, as a field, have tended to assume that families "disappear" after we discharge them.  But families don't disappear.  We want to do whatever we can while we are engaged with families to help to prepare them to be successful after we're gone.  We want to practice "letting go" with the family before we leave.  And we want to help them to come to trust that they can continue to be successful without us.  Making sure that each family has a natural support network within their community to continue the process of support with them will help ensure their future success.

These seven steps will not necessarily develop sequentially.  But they can all develop if we know what to look for and are willing to be patient.

Next Week: Meeting Family Barrier Needs.
 

TOGETHER GEORGIA is the new name of our state’s most venerable organization for child and family services providers: the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children (GAHSC). Since its inception 50 years ago, GAHSC has been a tireless champion of children all across the Peach State. While we’re proud of what GAHSC has accomplished over its long history, we’ve redesigned the organization from the ground up to add even more value to the hard-working providers serving Georgia’s children and families. Find out more by being our guest at a meeting, talking with our friendly members and leadership team, and by visiting our website at www.gahsc.org.

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