If you're reading this, then you will have heard the word 'personalisation' but do you know what it means?
When I was at school, and we were asked to describe something, we were told to imagine that someone has come down from outer space, and doesn't know anything about what you're talking about. I used to think that was a strange thing to do, but in a world full of jargon and buzz words, perhaps it's not such a silly approach after all.
In a recent survey of staff about our personalisation journey, we asked them to define what personalisation means:
- "Ensuring we work with the person to make sure we are meeting their specific needs"
- "To meet the needs of the individuals in ways that are best for them and for their wellbeing"
- "For the people we support to engage in meaningful relationships and activities"
- "Ensuring that the people we support and listened to and have a choice in their everyday lives"
- "Putting people at the centre of their support."
Person-centred tools
At the same time, we asked staff about the person-centred thinking tools - we've been using them within Dimensions for a number of years, and have talked in earlier blogs about the training we have started rolling out across the organisation and how we use the tools (read our earlier blog posts.)
Although we were encouraged by the number of people who could name the tools and demonstrate using them, we are less sure if people understand the connection between the use of the person centred thinking tools and our personalisation journey.
In Making it Personal for Everyone, Chapter 4 talks about using person-centred thinking to gather information. As is clear from the definitions that our own staff have identified above, in order to put people we support in control of their live and what they want to do, we need to find out what's important to people, how they want to be supported, what they want to do with their life, what a good day and perfect week looks like for them.
Therefore, the person-centred thinking tools can help us gather this information, but in a way that gives the person we support as much choice and control as possible.
For each area we need to learn about in someone's life (such as important people, important places, where they want to be in a year's time), then there is a person-centred thinking tool to help gather the information.
Being a person-centred organisation
We also need the support of all our colleagues in the business support teams (such as finance and HR) to help us on our journey, and as a person-centred organisation, we also use the person-centred tools and approaches in our everyday working life in the office.
In Making it Personal - our Personalisation Journey, we're going to be spending some time explaining the connection, and helping people make sense of all these buzz words.
We've also just asked 45 of our senior managers to make three pledges to help us on our Personalisation Journey. We're creating a buzz of our own.
What does personalisation mean for you?
Could you describe it to the person from outer space?
us know by commenting below.
