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Video from May 2012 15min video with Ruth and Robyn on helping baby George to sleep Video from the 22nd October 2009 1) 6:10 min video on Values and 2) 5:50 min video on Qualities of 3) 6:89 min video on Qualities of Relationship and Engaging Fathers. 5) 5:46 min video on Questions of
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I
am passionate about health visiting and the opportunities it offers for
working alongside parents and colleagues to improve the lives of
children. I know no other job
that offers universal access to families across the social spectrum, across
all ages, in homes and communities.
What a privileged working life I am having searching to improve, evaluate
and explain what I do to build emotional well-being as a primary preventive
response to public health issues. This website is for sharing
what I am learning about alongsideness in
health visiting in families and their communities; how learning comes about
for me and why it is important.
By sharing my experiences and emerging theories of practice I am
inviting you to join me in bringing the values, skills and knowledge we find
useful in community practice into the public domain in order to continue the
process of improving what we do.
My current interest is in finding ways to share practical knowledge
about working with very discouraged people who may experience social
exclusion. My concern is that unless
we practitioners share our individually generated knowledge about how we
practice, this information will not be available to those who make decisions
about what is worth doing and the qualities involved in doing it
effectively. My PhD enquiry into
my practice as a UK health visitor supporting developing family relationships
was completed in 2003. Here is
the abstract. If you would like
to access the whole thesis, it can be downloaded as PDF files of individual
chapters from the following link. |
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Link
to PhD Thesis,
2003 |
PhD Abstract 2003 Motivated initially by rights for
children, particularly freedom from violence, this thesis
explores the enhancement of children's well-being in family life. It shows the creation of a
living theory of health visiting as I seek to understand, improve, evaluate
and explain my
support of developing family relationships. From increasingly collaborative relationships with
parents, colleagues, educational researchers and others, alongsideness
emerges as an explanation I found appropriate to my parenting, health
visiting and researching.
Alongsideness, meaning creating and sustaining connections that
enhance collaborative enquiry, intends to support the generation of personal
theory for application in practice. The thesis shows how I found theory of
human emotional need useful for understanding and raising awareness about the
needs of people in relationships and for problem-solving. It illuminates the health-enhancing
and educational possibilities of alongsideness for myself, children, their
families and the communities they form. It shows how I question personal beliefs arising
from my history, as I reflect on my values and attempt to embody them for
living as I practise. Self-study
enabled me to grapple with the dynamic, multi-dimensions of alongsideness in
diverse situations, the dilemmas arising for understanding myself and for
clarifying my practice values. The thesis contributes to a new
scholarship of enquiry for health visiting. It shows how values generated and embodied in the process
of enquiring can be transformed into living standards of judgement both for
evaluating practice and for judging my claims to knowledge. It explains how the generation of
living theory through reflective action enquiry has potential for the
improvement and explanation of practice. |
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Link
to research proposal, 2003 Link
to research report, 2005 Link
to exploratory document, 2005 Link
to presentation to Adlerian Society, London 2005 Creating
alongsideness in community practice as we each ask, 'how can we improve what
we are doing?' Link
to Contribution to Creativity|Works. October 2009 A Health Visitor's Alongsidedness |
Reflective practice. My reflective enquiries to improve my
practice continued after completion of the PhD. Here you can access some writing since 2003 and a
presentation showing a pictorial account of my journey. These papers show how my enquiry of alongsideness
in health visiting responded to new questions arising about how I
practise. I was eager to share
with my colleagues the excitement I felt from the reflective researching
process. The first two reports
are about engaging colleagues. A need to explain
ourselves. Thrown
into turmoil by our Primary Care Trust disbanding the structure health
visitors used for seeing all children, we were challenged to find new ways of
working. The PCT had made a
quick response to the Hall Report (2003) which questioned the usefulness of
universal contacts made routinely to children through their early years. We needed to find ways of explaining
what we were doing and why it was important for children. Three years on with reduced
resources we are trying to find ways of reinstating regular contacts with all
children. Reflective self study
as research in the health service. The research
proposal gave me an opportunity to check the acceptability of living theory
action research in the Local Ethics Committee. I discovered how much 'RCTs as the gold standard' for
health research makes reflective action research incomprehensible for those
who rely on traditional ways of knowing and researching. Demands for measurable outcomes,
comparative research and generalizable statements of findings for wide
application makes reflective action research to improve, evaluate and explain
individual practice. Tackling social
inclusion. Health
visitors were asked to use more targeted public health methods to tackle
social inclusion. I realised I
could not meet all needs of the most disadvantaged families through alongsideness
in family visiting and wanted to improve my support of the most vulnerable
families in my area. The
exploratory document was intended to stimulate conversation about values that
motivate front line practitioners. A pictorial
representation. I discovered
that 'being there' in the way that I call alongsideness
is as important for discouraged families as it is for any family learning how
to relate to their children but seemed not to be enough. I wanted to do more. I joined an Adlerian counselling
course in the hope of finding new techniques for helping parents to make
sense of their own disabling childhoods and learn to nurture and guide their
children. Here is a power point
presentation made to the Adlerian Society, UK that describes my personal
journey and health visiting experiences underpinning alongsideness, public
health and community development work. I welcome you comments
experiences and thoughts about any of the ideas here at: |
