We don’t hear so often about carers and how the Three Conversations approach can be used just as effectively with them.  Jonathan from P4C spoke to Meghan from Tameside Borough Council about how the Carers Centre has been using Three Conversations in their work. J: Please introduce yourself! M: I’m Megan and I’m a health and well-being advisor with Tameside adult social care, particularly working with carers. J: OK. What does a well-being advisor actually do? M: We support informal carers who are caring for somebody within Tameside to help them manage their caring role and all the way along…

Partners4Change talk a lot about ‘Stories of Difference’ which help illustrate how innovators (staff) work with people in a Three ConversationsTM environment (we call it an innovation site).  We’ve been working with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and wanted to share this particular story heard in a ‘Making it Happen’ meeting.  Jonathan from P4C spoke to the innovator Meg afterwards to go through the details. Meg: The team received a contact about BC and when I had a look it was from a housing association and they were worried about ‘hoarding in the property’ . There’d been a number of attempts by…

Some people wonder what all this fuss about being an ‘innovator’ is and whether it really makes any difference for staff. As part of our work with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, three of the innovators from a Neighbourhood Team spoke to Jonathan from Partners4Change about using the Three Conversations approach.  These conversations took place at the end of November following the innovation phase of 13 weeks.  What follows is an extract of the discussions, edited for clarity and length. Jonathan: Tell us about your role and what you do in your local authority… Geraldine: My name’s Geraldine and I work…

This week’s story answers a couple of questions that we are sometimes asked early in our work with new innovation sites. “WE’VE KNOWN THESE PEOPLE A LONG TIME. THERE’S NOTHING NEW WE CAN DO FOR THEM, IS THERE? – But have we always taken the same approach & asked the same questions?  No wonder we’ve not done anything different.  Let’s try a different approach this time & see where that leads! “IF I CAN’T REFER ON, HOW WILL I MANAGE MY WORKLOAD?” – You’re not alone in this work & the 3 Conversations approach encourages you to collaborate with &…

Unfortunately, it looks like Adult Social Care isn’t high on the list of priorities for any of the main political parties in the current election.  As everyone else is in the business of publishing their manifestos, we thought you might be interested in the Three Conversations manifesto for positive change in Adult Social Care.  The big difference is that we know that ours works!

Here is our third story of the month.  It addresses another myth we often hear – that “safeguarding is different, surely!”  Again, we remind people that the Three Conversations is an approach, not a form, process or pathway.  A key commitment is to really listen to what matters to people and respond quickly without passing people round the system when they need help to be safe – sticking with them until we’ve helped get their lives back on track.    One example was Sue and Pete.  Sue was the main carer for her husband Pete, who had had been diagnosed…

Time for some myth busting with the second of our stories of the week.  One of the questions we are sometimes is “who is suitable for a conversation?”  The old-world approach to classifying people, ranking them in terms of priority and complexity, results in a pathway mindset which sends people down different routes, around the complicated monopoly board of “assessment” options.  Leaving that culture behind isn’t easy, and some initially struggle with the intention of the Three Conversations, thinking that Conversation 1 is only for people coming to us for the first time, not appropriate for someone already known to…