workforce
Positive change
An innovative program based on ‘ action learning ’ is helping care homes improve residents ’ quality of life .
Wendy Penney interviewed by Dallas Bastian
Rather than pursuing traditional education methods , three nursing homes in rural Victoria have taken part in workshops that focus on valuing the knowledge of participants , facilitating them to share their reflections with each other , as part of a study into action learning in aged care .
The project , funded by a Commonwealth government rural education grant , was based on My Home Life , a UK program that aims to promote quality of life and deliver positive change in care homes .
Having explored how action learning enhanced care in homes in the UK , study lead Wendy Penney , who conducted the research while at Federation University Australia , has been developing this approach in aged care as an alternative to managing change .
Aged Care Insite sits down with Penney to find out more about action learning and whether it should be rolled out across more Australian aged-care facilities .
ACI : Tell us a little bit about action learning and what it involves . WP : It ’ s a different approach to traditional methods of education . The key concept is creating a safe and reflective space within a group for learning to occur . A very strong relationship is developed between the participants and the facilitator , and each person in the group ’ s knowledge and contribution is valued .
Learning occurs through reflection and action rather than the facilitators acting as teachers telling people what to do . This suits , particularly , aged-care settings or health settings where you do have a lot of people who are experts in their own field , and who as a group can come together , share their understandings , and take action .
How did your workshops run ? We had three workshops in each of the nursing homes – three workshops , four hours in duration and two weeks apart . It really was only a beginning taster of action learning .
Action learning , the UK model , is a leadership program that runs for 12 months . We started out with the question : “ What do you do well here in terms of providing good quality of life for residents ?”
Then we moved on to : “ What would you like to do differently and what would you like to improve ?”
So the process is unconditional positive questioning . It has that appreciative inquiry , very strong appreciative inquiry framework , where you are appreciating what is done well rather than what often happens in nursing homes , where it ’ s constant criticism . You value and start with what works well .
In moving on to the areas that staff or participants identified that they would like to improve , that then becomes the activities that individuals and the group work on through positive questioning , working with each other , identifying what it is that they ’ re going to do to make that improvement . They then take that improvement away , implement it into their daily practice , come back a fortnight later , and spend some more time reflecting on that activity – what went well and what then needs refining .
Participants are working on real-life issues in a very positive and practical way and using each other as support .
How did staff react to the different elements of the program ? We ran an icebreaker at the beginning of each of the workshops
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