1. Getting it Right in West Lothian
Child’s Planning Meetings - Autumn 2013

2. Learning Intentions By the end of this session you will:
Have an understanding of how a Solution Oriented approach can be applied in Child’s Planning Meetings in order to lead to positive outcomes.
Have had an opportunity to discuss and experience the process of a Child’s Planning Meeting in detail.
Have a plan for how to take this forward in your school / agency

3. Outline of the Session
Introduction to the strengths based approach / principles
Child’s Planning Meetings
Preparing for the meeting (child & family)
Roles in the meeting
Stages of the meeting
Practical Activity
3. Action Planning

4. 1. Introduction to the strengths based approach / principles

5. Solution Oriented Principles
A focus on future possibilities enhances change
The problem is the problem, not the person
Everyone has their own ways of solving problems. Co-operation enhances change.
In all situations, there are strengths and resources that can be used to effect change
Small changes can lead to bigger changes
If something works, do more of it. If it doesn’t work, do something different.

6. Why a Solution Oriented Approach for Child’s Planning?
It offers principles and a structure for identifying creative solutions
Helps us develop goals and solutions rather than analysing current problems
Focuses on the present and future, on goals and how to achieve them
Recognises the importance of involving the person in the solution process
Focuses on ‘what works’ and amplifying strengths rather than analysing weaknesses

7. Background to Solution Oriented approaches
Milton Erikson
MRI
Steve de Shazer
Insoo Kim Berg
SFBT
Jasmin Ajmal
Harvey Ratner
Brief Therapy Practice
Bill O’Hanlon
SO Brief Therapy
Ioan Rees
SO Approaches
Sycol
Solution Oriented Approaches

8. Solution Oriented Approaches
Whole School
Meetings
Class / Groups
Individual
Whole school improvement / self-evaluation framework
SO policies and paperwork
Child
Planning Meetings
SO processes within school
Class/group Planning
Meetings with parents and carers
SO Circles
Reflective
Team
Pupil Planning
Staff professional reflection and coaching
Pupil Coaching

9. Focus and purpose of Child’s Planning Meeting within the Continuum of Support
To establish a shared understanding of needs and/or concerns
To understand the impact of strengths and pressures on an individual child / family
To help children and families and the practitioners working with them agree what needs to change
To identify solutions and ways forward
To jointly construct the Child’s Plan

10. Strengths-based Child’s Planning Meetings
How much do we currently focus on strengths in our planning meetings about children?
What would be different about a meeting that is mainly focused on strengths and solutions?

11. Problem Solving Solution Building Problem Talk 9.30 am 9.45 am
Solution Talk
Solution Talk

12. 2. Child’s Planning Meetings

13. Preparing for a Child’s Planning Meeting
Only professionals already working with the child/young person should be invited to a Child’s Planning Meeting
Relevant professionals will have already been involved as a result of the Assessment of Wellbeing (AoW) process.
The AoW process will have identified areas of concern that can be shared at the meeting.

14. 5 Key Questions
What is getting in the way of this child or young person's well-being?
Do I have all the information I need to help this child or young person?
What can I do now to help this child or young person?
What can my agency do to help this child or young person?
What additional help, if any, may be needed from others?

15. Participation in the meeting
Genuine engagement of the child and family in the meeting is dependent upon effective preparation
The views of the child / young person should be gathered before the meeting in order to support their engagement in the process. A variety of tools are available for this purpose.
Consider whether this approach would be helpful for use with parents too
Consider how this might be used with other agencies

16. My Views / What I think

17. My Views / What I think

18. Activity: Participation of children and young people in meetings
Discuss your thoughts on the participation of children and young people in meetings.
What do you do currently to support this?
What are the strengths of supporting children to participate in meetings?
What are the challenges?
What are the solutions?

19. Child’s Planning Meeting
Roles in the meeting
Child’s Planning Meeting
Facilitator
Scribe
Time-keeper

20. 3.Concerns/ Risk Factors 5.Goals/Desired Outcomes
SO Meeting Stages
1.Explain the
Meeting format and agree purpose
(5 mins)
2. Strengths/
Protective Factors
What’s going ok?(10 mins)
3.Concerns/ Risk Factors
Listen to the concerns (immediate and emerging)
4.Current Strategies
What is currently working well? How could we do more of this? (10 mins)
5.Goals/Desired Outcomes
Use well-being indicators for desired outcomes
(10 mins)
6.Action Plan
Construct a Child’s Plan. Agree what, who, when and review (10 mins)

21. 1. Explaining the meeting format
Facilitator:
Use 5 minutes at the start of the meeting to outline the stages of the meeting and the purpose of this approach to a Child’s Planning Meeting
(see suggested script)

22. 2. Strengths / Protective Factors
Facilitator: open a discussion about the child’s strengths
What strengths does the young person have?
Explore areas of interest/activity
Invite everyone to share something that they consider to be a strength of the child/young person
Invite the child/young person to contribute to this discussion

23. 3. Concerns / Risk Factors
Facilitator: open a discussion about the reasons why the meeting has been convened.
What is not working just now?
Discuss the current concerns
Take everyone’s views into account
Take time to agree on the top priorities
This discussion will be used to identify goals for the meeting.

24. 4. Current Strategies / Exceptions
Facilitator: explore what is currently working well. Explore times when the issues are not as challenging.
Strategies
What strategies are currently working?
What should we keep doing?
What could we try to do differently?
What has worked or made a difference in the past?
Exceptions:
When is the problem not so difficult, what is different about those times?
When was the last time things were even a little better? What was different then?
Use Scaling to identify the most effective strategies

25. 5. Goals / Desired Outcomes
Facilitator: open a discussion about what people at the meeting want to be different / where do we want to be?
‘If things were a little better over the next week, what would John / his teacher / his parents be doing differently?’
How would we know?
Which exceptions can be developed/expanded?
Which strategies can grow, be altered or re-tried?
What can we try to do differently?
This information can also be used to identify possible goals for action

26. 6. Constructing the Child’s Plan
Agree the priority goals jointly
Goals should be worded positively
Then agree:
Who will do what?
When will it be done?
When will we review?

27. Providing a Constructive Summary
Facilitator provides a 5 minute summary including:
Key things that have been discussed
Review of the Plan
Thanks for attending and contributions
Take time to reflect on the usefulness of the Child’s Planning Meeting process – use Scaling?

28. Feedback from pilot schools

29. BREAK !

30. Activity: Child’s Planning Meeting
Prepare an Action Plan for Jamie 30

31. 3. Action Planning

32. Practicalities
Consider what, if anything you will be required to do differently to facilitate meetings in this way.
Consider how you might communicate differently with children/young people and their families regarding this type of meeting.
Consider pre-meeting preparation.
Handout with prompts provided for Facilitators
Recording the meeting:
Use smart board if familiar?
Use flip chart if preferred
Use the relevant documents to record the meeting
Take time to evaluate the meeting.

33. Follow up Support The Additional Support Needs team
Educational Psychology Service
Edweb resources
Revised Continuum of Support
Ongoing evaluation