{"id":350,"date":"2010-02-04T09:04:31","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T09:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leedscd.wordpress.com\/?p=23"},"modified":"2010-02-04T09:04:31","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T09:04:31","slug":"is-your-work-person-centred-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2010\/02\/04\/is-your-work-person-centred-really\/","title":{"rendered":"Is your work person centred?  Really&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My inbox is rammed with emails from various agencies of the State claiming that they are developing person centred approaches to service design, delivery and development.<\/p>\n<p>Most are not.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you have set up a service designed to promote behaviour change because you have been told\/asked\/contracted to do so by a policy maker &#8211; then your work is not person centred &#8211; it is policy centred<\/li>\n<li>If you have developed a service that only works on predefined agendas, with pre-defined &#8216;solutions&#8217; and services, then your work is not person centred &#8211; it is service centred.<\/li>\n<li>If your service works on a \u00a0premise that service users are in some way broken, faulty or otherwise in need of your\u00a0modification (smoking cessation, weight management, more entrepreneurial, better CV and qualifications etc) then your work is NOT person centred.<\/li>\n<li>If you push your services on people without being invited, using systems of sticks and carrots, and large marketing budgets, to promote engagement &#8211; then your work is not person centred &#8211; it is to some degree at least manipulative and coercive.<\/li>\n<li>If you make decisions that prioritise achieving targets over the wellbeing of the people that use your service &#8211; then your work is not person centred. \u00a0It is target centred.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Person centred work is done:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At the invitation of the person &#8211; they invite you to work with them &#8211;\u00a0primarily\u00a0based on their\u00a0perception\u00a0of your relevance to them and their agendas. \u00a0If people are inviting you to work with them and finding the process helpful then\u00a0word\u00a0of mouth will soon spread and you do not need to spend vast sums promoting your service.<\/li>\n<li>When the person sets out their agenda and accesses the support that they choose (rather than those that your agency is set up to deliver). \u00a0They always have choices and person\u00a0centred\u00a0work helps them to recognise these and\u00a0prioritise\u00a0amongst them.<\/li>\n<li>When interventions let the person decided whether they wish to engage with &#8216;professional service providers&#8217; and\/or with their neighbours and peers &#8211; they don&#8217;t assume that the solution lies with experts and &#8216;mainstream&#8217; providers.<\/li>\n<li>When the &#8216;whole&#8217; person is acknowledged and accepted &#8211; not when we fragment them according to our service design. \u00a0If we have a service that is just designed to promote health, crime reduction or entrepreneurship &#8211; then we are not person centred.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This matters enormously.<\/p>\n<p>Once we start to take the ideas and ideals of person centred working seriously we can transform the impact of the so called &#8216;helping services&#8217;. \u00a0Instead of a Nanny State we can have an enabling and empowering state. \u00a0And people can really start to recognise their own\u00a0responsibility\u00a0for helping themselves in a context that is out to help rather than to fix.<\/p>\n<p>Carl Rogers in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.co.uk\/pmn-21\/detail\/1845290577\">On Becoming a Person<\/a> had this to say:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It has gradually been driven home to me that I cannot be of help \u2026by any means of any intellectual or training procedure.\u00a0 No approach which relies upon knowledge, upon training, upon the acceptance of something that is taught, is of any use.\u00a0 These approaches are so tempting and direct that I have, in the past, tried a great many of them.\u00a0 It is possible to explain a person to himself, to prescribe steps that should lead him forward, to train him in knowledge about a more satisfying mode of life.\u00a0 But such methods are, in my experience, futile and inconsequential.\u00a0 The most they can accomplish is some temporary change, which soon disappears, leaving the individual more than ever convinced of their inadequacy.<\/p>\n<p>The failure of any such approach through the intellect has forced me to recognise that change appears to come about through experience in a relationship.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026<\/p>\n<p>If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur.<\/p>\n<p>Carl Rogers \u2013 On Becoming a Person<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So my plea to you:\u00a0If your work is not genuinely person centred &#8211; please don&#8217;t say that it is. You will just be serving to reduce the chances of genuinely person\u00a0centred\u00a0approaches\u00a0ever getting a fair crack at the whip.<\/p>\n<p>And if you you\u00a0want\u00a0to explore how you can adopt\u00a0genuinely\u00a0&#8216;person centred&#8217; approaches then please do get in\u00a0touch!<\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Improving Employability&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/05\/15\/improving-employability\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Improving Employability&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Bonsai People in a Bonsai Culture?\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/04\/18\/bonsai-people-in-a-bonsai-culture\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Bonsai People in a Bonsai Culture?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"The West Yorkshire Water Feature Arms Race\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/03\/25\/the-west-yorkshire-water-feature-arms-race\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The West Yorkshire Water Feature Arms Race<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"A Way Forward for Communities?\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/02\/16\/a-way-forward-for-communities\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">A Way Forward for Communities?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Some forgotten truths about enterprise&#8230;\" href=\"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2012\/02\/11\/some-forgotten-truths-about-enterprise\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Some forgotten truths about enterprise&#8230;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My inbox is rammed with emails from various agencies of the State claiming that they are developing person centred approaches to service design, delivery and development. Most are not. If you have set up a service designed to promote behaviour change because you have been told\/asked\/contracted to do so by a policy maker &#8211; then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,5],"tags":[49,149,214],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-community-2","category-development-2","category-enterprise","category-entrepreneurship","tag-development","tag-person-centred","tag-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}