On a bright, dry day (unusual in Scotland in February!) we met in the lovely surroundings of Inglewood House, Alloa.
The objective of the day was team development based upon the groups learning from the Glasgow enquiry. The aim was to look at how as a team we could ensure robust practice and sharing of information, from referral, matching to placement. Initially, reflecting on how the team and each person will contribute towards meeting the objectives identified through the recommendations. Inglewood House offered an ambient surrounding, out of the office, to talk through our systems and how they can be developed to continue to provide individualised placements which meet the needs of all individual young people, whilst maintaining excellent matching and looking at risk.
A large part of the referral and matching process within a multidisciplinary team is communication. We therefore looked at the obstructions to communication, and the team worked in pairs to create paper aeroplanes. Not too tricky, you might think! Try this, however – the pair were placed in separate rooms, one with the instructions on how to create the aeroplane and the other with the paper to create the plane, but with no knowledge of what they are meant to be creating. They then had to communicate via mobile phone only and work together to create the aeroplane. This made for a very interesting session and concluded in reflections on the noise levels, the ways of communication, the areas of difficulty in communication and other ways to communicate. No one took the opportunity to use their camera to photograph the instructions! Flying the planes from the balcony into the lovely grounds was great fun and our competitive nature came out – who would win the medal?
Egscape offered another paired task where partners made protection for raw eggs to be thrown from the balcony. There were some amazing ‘egg parachutes’ giving Leonardo de Vinci a run for his money. In fact, as people who protect young people on a daily basis the team excelled by protecting the six eggs with none of them breaking.
This was an excellent day, in amazing surroundings, where communication was key along with positivity with regards to the team, the experience of each member and bringing all of these together. Every member left with their own ‘Positive Pot’, containing positive messages about themselves from the other team members. This was truly a celebration of a team which continues to grow and develop.
If this has inspired you to foster, please get in contact with us by sending us an enquiry, or by phoning us on 0333 240 9049.