Sparknow helps the team from Finsbury Health Centre in London to redesign their space
Victoria Ward and Fiona Incledon from Sparknow facilitated an interactive session -
'Developing and nurturing effective communities of practice.'
An organisation is like an iceberg - most of it is invisible. The invisible organisation is the lifeblood of the visible organisation and can be extraordinarily productive if you know how to pay it proper attention. This session will be highly participatory and refer to case studies from Sparknow's portfolio of work and research with and beyond health and social services.
Since starting our work in the health and social care sector back in 1997, we have taken pride in employing innovative and rigorously developed methodologies to meet the changing needs of our clients. Whether redefining relationships in a way that acknowledges complex emotions and experiences or helping teams capitalise on and mainstream lessons learned from past action, we encourage our clients to be ambitious and participate actively in the creation of a better, more effective future.
Through our strategic work with health bodies we can broadly identify five key themes: re-designing physical spaces, undertaking knowledge audits, formulating meaningful lessons learned, promoting more integrated working practices and re-framing the role of libraries and librarians.
Placing the emphasis on long-lasting change we try to ensure that no piece of work is isolated or a ‘one-off’ but that each experience builds on and connects with the bigger complex picture in which our clients are operating.
Our work revolves around a desire to encourage people to develop a deeper understanding of their current position, then equipping them with simple practical techniques for change. As a networked organisation we can also bring in highly-skilled people from a range of professional and academic backgrounds whose expertise and insights often prove invaluable.
We are well-equipped to help you establish a service that puts the patients first, that strives for quality, responsiveness and equity and that takes account of the unique and valuable individuals who are working to deliver it.
Here are some brief descriptions of the areas we focus on plus some illustrative case studies.
In an increasingly connected sector, one key challenge is to respond to the demand for knowledge and information - requests that can come from any direction - in an informed, co-ordinated and efficient manner. But before this many services face difficulties in understanding what they know and what they don't know. Mapping and re-designing existing mechanisms so that knowledge and information can flow more readily involves more than quantitative 'yes/no' style questionnaires; it means acknowledging the psycho-social, behavioural and cultural elements. We design and deliver knowledge audits that give staff members the opportunity to reflect on their working realities, describe the best parts of the current situation and formulate their own propositions for better capitalisation of experience. This set of insights can then practically inform the development of knowledge strategies, intranets and new ways of working.
The phrase: 'learning lessons from the past' is familiar to most organisations nowadays, and although most of us recognise that others may benefit from our experiences, the challenge lies in how to articulate and disseminate these in such a way that they can truly inform other people's practice. We work with teams of health and social care professionals to generate lessons that go beyond 'what' headlines to help them identify and describe the pivotal moments that triggered the learning in each case. This focus on the 'why' behind lessons learned renders meaningful insights whose depth increases the likelihood of resonance in others, and hence makes real adoption possible.
In the drive towards patient-centered care agencies are expected to work together in a more co-ordinated way. Achieving this will mean establishing dynamic and resilient partnerships, the success of which is dependent on the extent to which there is a desire to break down barriers of all kinds. We work with teams facing this imperative, and helps them negotiate a commmon vision, create action plans for change, building and invigorating the strong diverse communities who will make it happen over the long term.
In a knowledge-driven society the role of both librarians and the libraries they work in is changing fast. We work with groups of librarians, helping reframe their role and adapt to new challenges. Using knowledge-based approaches such as 'Communities of Practice' and narrative we can offer support during the process of redesigning how services are delivered to the complex of health services and other key users.
It's happening everywhere. To support necessary changes to the working practices of health and social care services, the physical spaces that house the services are being re-designed. We ensure users participate actively in the creation of the briefs passed to architects or space planners. This participatory design process ensures we build on the knowledge and experience of frontline workers - because of course they know what works and what does not - and that above all, the patient's perspective remains at the heart of each stage of the process. Active participation will not always be comfortable, and so our role is both to challenge and then support people through change, helping our clients see new possibilities in both their physical working environment and the way they deal with each other.