Jordan graduates college - how a One Page Profile helped her succeed!

When I was first introduced to One Page Profiles I fell in love with them. I immediately saw the value that they could have in so many areas of life for people. Being a mom with young children in elementary school my first instinct was to help my kids create profiles for school. My daughter was in Grade 8 that year and my boys grades 6 and 4. I didn't really stop at just helping my kids develop profiles, I decided that I would offer to do a One Page Profile workshop in each of the their classrooms and help all of the students create them. I was blessed that my kids were in a really small community school and that I knew all of their teachers really well. The school was excited to allow me to bring this fun exercise to their students. And so, we did it, we created profiles with all three classrooms and had a great time. Everyone saw the value in the profiles and the students learned so much about each other.

I took a bit of a different focus in the Grade 8 classroom. I knew these students (including my daughter) would be heading off to high school the following September so I wanted them to really focus the information in their profiles for their new teachers and support professionals. So we developed high school One Page Profiles. In addition, we created vision boards for their 4 years of high school and added this to their profiles.

I supported my daughter, Jordan, to be really specific with her profile so that it could be really helpful in supporting her goals in high school. When she started Grade 9 we emailed it to all of her teachers, vice-principal and guidance department.

Here are the ways that it really helped.

1. She was very clear about her desire to be an Early Childhood Educator as part of her vision. She also mentioned that she struggled with Math and wood require some support. She did not do really well in her Grade 9 Math class and her teacher recommended at the end of the semester that she drop down to a lower level of Math. When the guidance counsellor saw this recommendation she called me and said "I see this recommendation but I also know, based on her One Page Profile that she wants to take ECE in college and if she drops to a lower level of Math she won't meet the requirements for college acceptance. What can we do to help her stay in her current level of Math?" Of course I was very happy to get this call and excited that the profile made it's first impression. We found Jordan a tutor and she attended regularly to learn Math in a way that made sense to her. Jordan completed all of her Math requirements and was accepted to college for ECE.

2. Jordan experienced great anxiety around public speaking in elementary school. She would get physically ill the evening before she had to speak to her class and often couldn't attend school the next day. We knew this was a really important thing to share with high school teachers as classroom presentations are part of the high school curriculum. Her French teacher was the first to offer support in this area. He said he had read that this is an area for growth on her profile and that he wanted to support her by having her speak the first time just to him, then she could invite a friend for the second time until she was comfortable speaking to the whole class. She wasn't getting out of doing it, but he was supporting her to grow. During college she comfortably spoke in front of her class and at public events. Of course there was some anxiety, as there is for all of us, but her growth in that area was immense.

3. Jordan's father and I separated when she was 6 years old. Her dad moved away (about a four hour drive from us) and she only got to see him every other weekend. She very much missed her dad and struggled a lot when she came home. She would be very down, sad, and missing her dad for a few days of the week after she got home. We thought it was important for her teachers to know this so that they could be mindful of their expectations of her during that time. This was extremely helpful for Jordan, just the simple awareness of who she is!

4. My girl struggled with anxiety and a bit of depression so it was tough for her to enter a large school  and try to navigate a whole new world. She was out of her comfort zone. Whenever she is feeling really overwhelmed or stressed she likes to be able to call someone that can provide her some reassurance. So we put that in her profile and her teachers would allow her to leave the room and call someone when needed. Seemingly small, by very significant for her in terms of successful days.

Jordan went on to update her profile each year of high school and then for college. She has created a number of profiles for different purposes. She experienced the value to the profile and recommended to her college professors to have all of their students create them with a purpose of support during college and during placements. She invited me to teach her college class about them and now they are a requirement in the ECE course for all new students.

Here is Jordan now - Early Childhood Education Graduate, Class of 2018

She graduated from her Early Childhood Education Program at Canadore College in North Bay, ON yesterday. She has a full time job at Parry Sound District Social Services in a daycare.

Of course her hard work and perseverance is the key to her success. Her and I both are very thankful for the role that her One Page Profile has had in this success. Had we not offered it at the start of high school her path to graduation may have had many more bumps.

I am so very proud of Jordan and her pride in her own accomplishments radiate from her. Job well done Jordan. There are so many more amazing things ahead and I know she will incorporate One Page Profiles into her future.

Watering the rocks - why value based recruitment is so important!

I am passionate about my work. I get excited about the potential for inspiring people to create change through my presentations around person-centred practices. I have never been a fan of public speaking but when I get to share these messages I am not shy at all to get up in front of groups and talk for hours. It's not the status of being a "good trainer/facilitator" that is fulfilling (although flattering) its about the message and people taking the message and creating action.

Recently, I delivered four of the exact same training session in two days to four different groups of agency staff. The training was around Person-Centred Thinking and ensuring that we understand the importance and value of making this mindset habit when supporting people in any human service area.

The first three sessions went really well, people were engaged, participated and truly had some aha moments leaving them with great ideas for action for the future. The fourth group left me deflated. For the first time in all the years I have done this I wondered "why am I standing here doing this?"

Was it my facilitation style? Was it because it was an evening session? Was the room too hot? Why could I not get through to this group who work for the same agency as the past three groups?

I was watering rocks!

These were not bad people. They were having fun and seemed to enjoy each other in conversation. They just had ZERO interest in what I was saying (well 75% of them anyway). WHY?

They were told that attendance was mandatory.

They were all casual staff who picked up possibly one shift a month.

They were staff that have no investment in the agency they work for.

Simply put, they did not care what I had to say, they just wanted the 2 hour session over with and they wanted the food that they anticipated would be provided but it was not. They want to satisfy any mandatory requirements to keep their casual job for the extra cash. It was up to the full time people to worry about what my message was.

I was watering rocks!

These people, as every human, have amazing talents, abilities, gifts and capacities in some area of life or many. I am sure they are human service workers because they are passionate about helping people. Also, as every other human, they were thinking about the "what about me" question we always ask; "what will I gain from doing this?" The gain for them was not to see people live fulfilling lives with their own choice and control it was to meet mandatory requirements to keep their jobs and get a free meal. They were hired based on education, competency, experience in the field.

As I stood there attempting to get their attention so I could help them see the importance of this work I got more and more frustrated with them. When it was over I realized I needed to ask myself the question "why am I doing this?" I have great intentions and I share my message well but how many people actually leave and use what I teach them. A small percentage. Training is a wonderful thing to motivate people but it can't be offered as mandatory, it must be accessed on interests, values and passion for the subject.

We need to employ people whose values are in line with our purpose, Maybe the neighbour who used to be the garbage man values the work of the organization more than the people who are hired through current hiring approaches. Value based recruitment, get people who value your mission, value your purpose and are truly invested in seeing success. Better still be sure that the work you do is in line with your values, this will have a domino effect on your wellness.

Stop watering rocks, find the flowers and give them nourishment to bloom. And don't forget to fertilize yourself along the way.

CHOICE - a basic human right that none of us have!

For the past couple of months my brain has been consumed by change. It feels as if every event I attend, every conversation I have with family, friends, coworkers is bringing me to the place I am right now. The conversations are molding together to build motivation in me. They are confirming the belief that all things are connected and there is a peaceful way for human kind.

In April we held our H S A Canada annual Gathering and the theme was CHANGE! This started my thinking around how change can happen and that in order to truly accomplish the goal of having people live truly fulfilling lives with choice and control, we need to make a change in our systems that support us. This was followed by a forum that I attended a couple of weeks ago facilitated by Dave Hasbury. (www.cocreation.ca) where we discussed what Independent Facilitation and support for people with Developmental Disabilities could look like. He had a very simplistic and gentle way of pointing out that even though we have worked hard in human services and we have done a good job, we have learned and changed as needed by society. So why are we stuck now? Now we know better and we can do better. Our system is not working for people and we need to change it.

About 10 years ago I was at a Provincial event where we were asked what our vision of human services is in 10 years and my answer was " that people get the supports they want and need from wherever/whoever they want with the financial freedom to do so and we don't have specific agencies to care for specific human service needs." You can imagine the strange looks I got and even some chuckles but I was ok with that, it was my vision. Today I see that others are seeing that vision also.

Now this is much bigger conversation than just human services. It is all systems, all things or approaches created by systems for people instead of by people for people. Here are the reasons I think it's backward.

1. Systems hire people to support people - we are raised to believe that our future is what we make it, we grow we go to school, choose a career, family etc. Hopefully we get a job in the career we spent thousands of dollars to earn a degree or certificate in. We are hired by an agency to support people. Where is the choice for the people we are supporting?

2. Our government spends billions of dollars every year in base funding to ensure that agencies have the money to pay support people, managers, directors, Executive Directors etc. These are our tax dollars and people supported are often not happy with the designed supports. This is system led, not people led. What if people were their own Executive Directors? They had the money (from their own tax dollars) to recruit and hire people they want and direct the supports they want and need so they can build a life of choice.

3. We have policies and procedures and quality assurance measures that systems create with good intentions but these things eliminate choice an control from the lives of people they support.

4. Systems have control instead of people.

5. As consultants and trainers in person centred approaches we are teaching people how to use approaches to share control or power with people because as systems we automatically have control. We will never be able to give people total choice and control this way.

So why hasn't change happened? Because change is hard. Change is scary. People have to be motivated to change and see the benefit in the change for their lives. So if today the government announced they are going to undergo transformation in human services and change to an individualized funding model that puts people in charge of their own lives what would happen? We would have thousands of employed people in the streets opposing this idea because naturally we think about our source of income first - they can't do that, what about me? A totally legitimate question. My answer would be there will be plenty of jobs in the same field it will just look different. You will have a job, people will always need support and they will need someone to help them manage that support. I would follow with the question "What is the primary reason you do your job?"  I would probably hear income as a primary reason, again totally legitimate. What about a secondary reason? Is it status? (still legitimate if that's what you value) or is it because of the sense of personal gratification you feel from seeing people achieve success defined by themselves? If your third reason is the latter, it might be time for personal change as well.

This change is happening in our world led by great minds and talent. Helen Sanderson in the UK had a status, she led an international organization that provided training and consultation and was respected and admired internationally for her work. She could have held on to that status/position and continued the work she was doing but she didn't. Helen Sanderson Associates still exists but Helen has left the lead of that to competent people internationally. She moved on to supporting people again, front line, where she could really see and feel the difference in people's lives. wellbeingteams.org is her new passion and it reflects exactly what Dave Hasbury suggested we need in terms of change in Canada. These are self managing teams with personal budgets to hire the supports they want and need. Of course she still holds a status but I believe the work is more important than the status to her.

The time for change is now. If we don't create this change we all face a future of needing support that has control over how our lives progress. I certainly want to control my own future. Just because systems are in place doesn't mean we have to accept them the way they are. We can change and create a model that provides people with the basic human right to CHOICE!