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…

The London Borough of Redbridge began The Three Conversations® journey in autumn 2017. I was invited to a project board meeting with our Director and other senior managers, where I met Sam Newman from Partners4Change, and believe it or not, my first thought was – wow! This man is passionate about The Three Conversations® but at the same time I felt quite sceptical about how it would work in practice. Sam began by telling us about the approach with an overview of how it fitted in with personalisation, the Care Act and Making Safeguarding Personal, as well as the financial…

Occupational Therapists (OT) are interested in how a person interacts with their environment, and the impact that this has on their daily life. The Royal College of Occupational Therapy (RCOT) defines occupation as “the practical and purposeful activities that allow people to live independently and have a sense of identity”. This could be anything from essential day to day activities such as self-care, all the way through to work commitments or leisure activities. OTs consider how these occupations are: • Motivated: what are the person’s values, interests and motivations? • Patterned: how behaviour is organised, such as daily tasks and…

Partners4Change have been asked several times how The Three Conversations® works within a provider setting. Susan Ripton from ECL Sensory Service stepped forward to share the organisation’s experience of taking The Three Conversations® forward as part of Essex County Council Good Lives programme as a Trusted Assessor. The Good Lives model creates a new relationship between professionals and the people they are working with. So, when ECC asked for volunteers to become an innovation site, ECL Sensory Service stepped forward. The innovation site focussed on a cohort of people who were newly certified with sight impairments by a hospital consultant…

It is an exciting time in Essex. They have just completed the full implementation of Good Lives – their programme name for implementation of The Three Conversations® across Adult Social Care, including implementing within Transitions, Hospital and Prison Settings. So how was it achieved? Approach: It was agreed – with support from the Executive Team and the Adult Leadership Team – that Essex wanted to achieve a sustainable approach to change. The usual approach of another organisational change in staff and ‘Big Bang’ approach was disregarded in favour of an incremental approach. All staff were invited to join in the…

On 6 October, I received an unexpected call from a colleague.  They had an opportunity for me, “did I want to work for a company that really listens to what people need?” Of course I did! During October to December, I spent time getting to know a little more about The Three Conversations®, helped to design and create some tools to support the work, and met the team for a karaoke session and a few Christmas drinks in London. On the 4 January, I started my first change partnership with Medway Council in Chatham. What a welcoming team! Sam Newman…