MWCollaborations
I might help
Looking after vulnerable young people is a strenuous and complicated business, particularly when they let us know about their difficult lives through behaviour that leaves those around them confused and worried. Sometimes it is helpful to seek a different set of eyes to help sort the wood from the trees.
I am an organisational therapist with extensive leadership experience in the specialist therapeutic sector of the children's residential market. I work to combine clinical, operational, and business goals to achieve the best quality and outcomes. I have a keen recognition of the impact trauma and neglect has on young people, the adults who work with them, and the organisations within which they work.
I have particular expertise around inter-agency working and ways to help health, social care, and education agencies effectively and efficiently collaborate to support a young person's path to productive adulthood. I am currently conducting PhD research around complexity and collaboration.
My expertise as an organisational therapist with extensive senior leadership experience makes me well placed to to think through issues around leadership, practice, quality, and outcomes from a perspective that recognises the complicated impact traumatic experience has on the client group, the organisation, and also on the professional network around them.
Sensitive and efficient teams are often the most powerful instruments to care for both children and staff within this sector. I offer expertise to protect teams from the adverse affects of complex experience and help them think together to develop their collective strength and skill.
I work directly with organisations to develop, source, or deliver bespoke training to support this complex and difficult work.
I have particular expertise in the development of credible, clinical, educational and residential programmes of work and in the development of appropriate business support functions for their maintenance. I am skilled in liaison across professional networks to maximise collaboration.
Testimonials
Current Projects:
Therapeutic Community for Child Refugees - I am currently collaborating in the design of a therapeutic residential setting for refugee children.
PhD - – “Efficiencies” and “Collaboration” are watchwords of our times. I have deliberately chosen to locate my research in real-life joint working situations. I start from the thought that complex cases are not just complex because of the situation a vulnerable person finds themselves in, but also because of the ways that professionals think and talk about these cases, particularly when different agencies with contrasting views attempt to talk to each other. I have recently presented a poster on this research at the BPS annual conference.
I believe it is possible to measure change in the way professionals see and talk to each other through changes in the way people talk to each other in the course of inter-agency meetings.
Please get in touch if you feel your organisation might benefit through participation in this research.
Donald Trump, Twitter, complexity and brevity
Here are word clouds from the first and third presidential debates. They show the top hundred words spoken: I’ve deliberately made them small to focus, twitter-like, on the main words, and to show a change of tone. Crucially, while the words {think; know} reduce, the words {going; want} increase. Focus transfers from thinking and knowing, Read more about Donald Trump, Twitter, complexity and brevity[…]
Sorites III – Doing Things Differently
“When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door”. Simone Weil 1970 My last two postings describe how when people work together, the phenomenon of vagueness generates contradictory views, and how leaders can help a group navigate these tensions. When a contradiction is “impossible Read more about Sorites III – Doing Things Differently[…]
Sorites II ~ Paradox or Polarisation
The lovely thing about the Sorites paradox is that it tells a story that helps disagreements make sense ~ A group of people is likely to contain a variety of viewpoints. There is a fair chance that some will be in contradiction. The big question is whether these contradictions can be helpful. Let’s assume people Read more about Sorites II ~ Paradox or Polarisation[…]
The Sorites Paradox – Reflections on my first year working as a consultant in the human services.
The Sorites Paradox – Reflections on my first year working as a consultant in the human services. The Sorites paradox, or the paradox of the heap, has been puzzling us for nearly 2500 years. It describes a scenario in which a heap of grain is repeatedly diminished, one grain at a time. When there are Read more about The Sorites Paradox – Reflections on my first year working as a consultant in the human services.[…]
Leadership Coaching with Mark Waddington
Leadership Coaching with Mark Waddington “The driving factor that makes change happen at a necessary pace is leadership….We have seen good leadership and management transform work with children……”p6 Ofsted Social Care Report July 2016 Mark has extensive leadership experience in the residential sector operationally and as a clinician leading therapeutic work with traumatised children and Read more about Leadership Coaching with Mark Waddington[…]
Report of Sir Martin Narey’s independent review of children’s residential care – some good news.
The review was published last week and can be read at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/534560/Residential-Care-in-England-Sir-Martin-Narey-July-2016.pdf The report was prepared in response to PM’s request for a root and branch review of residential care. Published last week, the report contains 34 recommendations. Crucially Sir Martin’s report observes that: “the overwhelming majority of homes are already good or better and Read more about Report of Sir Martin Narey’s independent review of children’s residential care – some good news.[…]
Some thoughts on Collaboration & a Video
My professional role promotes collaboration within organisations, my research role analyses processes of collaboration and the complexities that arise within them. I have a third collaboration as piano player in a jazz trio named Decanter. Here is a video we made this Christmas: Come Together This posting is in part to show the video, Read more about Some thoughts on Collaboration & a Video[…]
Sir Martin Narey’s Review of Residential Care: Children trapped as revolving door patients.
Sir Martin Narey’s Review of Residential Care: Children trapped as revolving door patients. There is a particular grouping of young people who can become “marooned” in tier 4 adolescent psychiatric provision, both within NHS adolescent psychiatric units and with private providers. Some children end up staying on these units for periods in excess of a Read more about Sir Martin Narey’s Review of Residential Care: Children trapped as revolving door patients.[…]
Sir Martin Narey’s Review of Residential Care: Contribution from MOTIVATIONS.
This submission has been prepared by Mark Waddington and Cliff Faulder on behalf of Motivations Care. Motivations Care provides three children’s homes and is located in Birmingham. We start this submission with a brief case history of a typical Motivations resident to help put our observations in context. John is fifteen, and has Read more about Sir Martin Narey’s Review of Residential Care: Contribution from MOTIVATIONS.[…]