As part of the evaluation of Blackpool Council’s first 3 Conversations innovation site we had the opportunity to talk with Rachel, a final year social work student, about her experiences of using the 3 Conversations approach.  Together we made a short video in which she shares a story of difference about a man nearing the end of his life and her work with him and his wife to support them in a way which was based on their wishes at the time, rather than bombarding them with support. Towards the end of our discussion, Rachel explained that she had always…

In 2017 Dr Graeme Betts Director Adult Social Care set the vision for work with Adults within Birmingham. The transformation of adult social care practice in Birmingham was launched in March 2018.  The 3 Conversations Framework and Family Group Conferencing focus on social work practice and the commissioning led Neighbourhood Networks Scheme focusses on co-production with citizens and communities. Birmingham committed to a phased rollout approach to the 3 Conversations framework. Teams were encouraged to directly report any issues,concerns and potential solutions in live time throughout roll-out. In following this methodology frontline workers have directly developed all paperwork, processes and guidance through reflection in and on practice and…

The Three Conversations was introduced as an approach to adult social care in June 2019 as part of a major Transformation programme, working in the Early Intervention Team with about half of all new people making requests for support. It then expanded to cover most of the remaining new requests and was subsequently introduced for people with existing care and support in August 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Working collaboratively with a project team including Partners 4 Change, the Mosaic (database) team and Business Intelligence, the innovation site staff co-designed the three innovations running for 12-16 weeks each. Results from the first year of working in this…

When I first heard Sam Newman talk about The Three Conversations® I knew it was an approach that could push the boundaries of what we had been doing in our mental health social care team. Having dissolved the s75 arrangements with the local Trust in 2012, the team had strengthened its social work identity and was working in a Care Act compliant way. The legacy of working within a medical model system was still apparent however, and visiting people at home to ‘carry out assessments’, ‘undertake reviews’ and ‘put in services to meet need’ was only continuing to reinforce a…

“If you really want to change practice then you have to adopt a new language” Sam Newman, Director, Partners4Change. Conversations Count is based on The Three Conversations®. Partners4Change have a list of words that are banned in their approach. Many of these words describe what we currently do, including ‘assessment’, ‘review’, ‘allocation’, ‘hand-off’, ‘referral’, ‘pathway’, ‘journey’ and ‘waiting list’. Others describe who we currently do these things to: ‘customer’; ‘client’; ‘service user’; ‘case’. All the banned words are words that we use all the time. We weren’t sure about banning words. It felt a bit extreme. So, we described the…