As part of our trial in New Zealand we researched how organisations implement Mind Of My Own successfully and wanted to share our findings.
Below are 4 key actions taken by the most successful organisations using Mind Of My Own. We used these 4 techniques when we trialled Mind Of My Own with 18 social workers on the other side of the world. As a result Oranga Tamariki has received an amazing 148 Mind Of My Own Docs in the first 21 days!
We hope you find these useful in helping you get the most out of joining Mind Of My Own and embedding the change of practice across your services.
1. Keep Mind Of My Own in the forefront of mind of workers
Spend a short amount of time, as often as you can afford, just talking to practitioners about Mind Of My Own.
Floor walking sessions always prove worthwhile. Spending just 5 minutes one-on-one with each member of the service every 2-3 weeks will have a huge impact on how effectively they use Mind Of My Own.
Ask them simple questions like:
- Have you used Mind Of My Own recently?
- What went well?
- What could have gone better?
- When are you next due to use Mind Of My Own?
If they haven’t had a chance to use it ask them if they’re comfortable introducing Mind Of My Own to a young person? Do they need any help or additional training? Have they set up their worker account yet?
A phone call is almost as effective as floor walking if logistics prove too challenging. We sit up late at night every Wednesday calling social workers in New Zealand. It doesn’t surprise us that the times Mind Of My Own is used most often is Thursday and Friday.
In fact, last week 23 One and Express docs were completed on Thursday alone.
2. Celebrate success
Send a weekly roundup email to all workers celebrating success and sharing positive stories. We do this in New Zealand because we’ve seen it work so well in the UK.
A weekly or bi-weekly email doesn’t take much time to send but can achieve enormous results.
In your email be sure to highlight the individual worker and the team who have received the most Mind Of My Own docs in the previous week. In our experience, people love being named as ‘Mind Of My Own hero of the week’.
The most important thing to include are stories where Mind Of My Own has been used to give a young person a voice. You will pick up these positive experiences young people have had when you are speaking to your colleagues.
3. Provide support and training
To implement Mind Of My Own successfully you want Mind Of My Own to be ‘just how we do business’.
Through our research we know that 95% of organisations who have successfully embedded Mind Of My Own deliver training to a significant number of workers at the point they ‘go live’. A further 75% provide ongoing training to ensure all workers are skilled up.
Our apps are designed to be easy to use so Mind Of My Own training is focused on getting workers hands on with their own account. They need to be able to see that the apps are intuitive and so easy to use before they can comfortably introduce them to children and young people.
Most organisations get training from the experts and ask one of our specialist trainers to deliver the training for up to 60 workers at a time. We can also deliver ‘train the trainer’ sessions too so you can skill up a team to deliver on-going training to the wider service.
Having an operational lead or core team with an ‘open door’ policy is crucial. If a worker has any questions or wants to find out more about Mind Of My Own then they need to know who they can ask. This local ‘face of Mind Of My Own’ is essential although for anything urgent remember they can always email us on support@mindofmyown.org.uk.
4. Introduce new staff to Mind Of My Own
Workers won’t use tools they don’t know they have access to. This sounds obvious but it’s crucial to tell new staff that your organisation uses Mind Of My Own apps.
It could be that team managers or champions are best placed to introduce Mind Of My Own to your new staff. It might be more appropriate for an operational lead or internal trainer to carry out regular sessions for new (or old!) staff to attend. Many organisations now have apprentices or care leavers who take this role.
The goal is to make sure that all new staff (don’t forget agency staff) receive training on Mind Of My Own and know what is expected of them. Clear messages about the importance of the voice of the child and a good induction will make sure new starters are ready to go out and use Mind Of My Own to good effect right from the beginning.
Along with good strategic leadership and clear messages of expectations these four points will ensure a successful implementation of Mind Of My Own in your organisation. Don’t forget to share any other success factors you’ve discovered with us. We know you are the experts in your area and we love to hear how you have successfully implemented Mind Of My Own in your organisation.
