Former social worker, social work manager and passionate advocate of relationship based social work, Sam Newman, is behind a pioneering idea that has been changing lives for the past 20 years. What may sound like a simple concept – changing what we’re saying – has the power to totally transform the sector.
Sam created The Three Conversations approach to support a move towards a better way of working with people in adult social care, and to overcome the issues within the current social care system which has lost sight of talking with people and families, and social carers and communities - who are all key to delivering a radical change.
The Three Conversations is a transformative approach which empowers health and social care professionals to listen, talk and supports people to build a good life. Originally developed more than two decades ago, the approach supports teams to stop assessing people for services and to stop attaching labels to people, and instead focus on meaningful interactions on how to help.
As the name suggests, three distinct conversations are core to the approach, and are used to understand what really matters to people and families, what needs to happen next for them, and how we can be most useful. The Three Conversations includes:
- Conversation 1: listen and connect
- Conversation 2: work intensively with people in crisis
- Conversation 3: build a good life.
It’s the ability to really listen to people, to empower and liberate people to enhance their wellbeing, and connect them to the right people, neighbourhood communities and organisations to make their lives work better.
Equally it’s about liberating health and social care professionals to feel trusted, useful, and motivated to listen to people properly and have conversations based on what they want to talk about rather than what’s on a form.
“The Three Conversations approach requires a significant cultural and behavioural change – bringing more compassion and kindness into our work can have a significant impact.
This approach is proven to deliver significant impact. Our health and social care system can do better for people and families, for practitioners and for budgets, and humanising our approach can also have a significant impact on activity and spend. Changing conversations is changing lives,” explains Sam Newman. This is especially true in the high pressure environments surrounding helping people leave hospital well.
The Three Conversations approach has been successfully utilised in social care departments across the UK with compelling results. 10 years of data tells us that this approach is better for people and families, morale boosting for staff whilst increasing productivity, and if we get those things right can save us time and money as well. One local authority has reported annual savings of £5 million, another achieved a 55 per cent reduction in long term care, another reached a 30 per cent increase in productivity; results that are transferable across any social care department.
For more information on The Three Conversations approach, visit https://partners4change.co.uk/the-three-conversations/