Connecting Role with Responsibilities
It has been an amazing first year at Opeeka serving as a Solution-Focused Care Scientist at Opeeka. Many have asked, ‘What is a Solution-Focused Care Scientist?’ A starting point for discussions was to explain how the focus must always be on the work, especially connecting all aspects of whole-person care. The work is foundationally to assist those we serve in transforming all aspects of their lives. The goal is not only related to service delivery, diagnosing disorders or alleviating symptoms. Rather our role is to support health and wellbeing to build resiliency for achieving a successful life.
We all know that there are so many dynamics within systems of care (SOC). Sometimes the processes can be confusing and even ineffectual, especially for those being served and those who serve. To be successful at achieving positive outcomes there must be a refocus on the goals and values of SOC. It is essential within SOC that the individual be kept at the center as we provide whole person coordinated care. Also, there needs to be a shift from ‘solving problems’ towards supporting solutions within care planning that would assist in empowering those we serve.
If we define our work as ‘problem-solving’ we are inherently labeling and can stigmatize those in care as the problem. Instead, we must partner with those in care to find solutions and actively involve various systems to achieve successful outcomes. This outlook is completely aligned with SOC values and principles as well as with wraparound and for achieving health equity. Empowering those we serve, so that they can develop solutions for the struggles inexperienced in life, instead Transformational Care-Planning must be every system’s focus.
Solutions For All Life Domains
A Solution-Focused Care Scientist often using a systemic lens to identify and explain those individuals within care. We must search for a more complete understanding of those we serve. Instead of just focusing on one area we must learn more about the life domains; home, school/work, and community to get a richer more complete understanding of an individual.
All humans are multi-dimensional, just like the world in which we live. We are not a single story, instead our lives are full of many parts which create an intricate tapestry of stories. However, when we are not focused on whole-person centered care there is so much we are missing, leading to misunderstanding, mislabeling and even mistreatment. Instead, systems must collaborate with other systems in providing comprehensive successful care, beyond just meeting basic deliverables towards building protective factors for life-long success.
Life-Long Solutions To Meeting Life’s Challenges
Many of us have heard the expression, ‘If you give a person a fish, they will eat for a day. But if you teach them how to fish, they will eat for a lifetime.’ This is a great start in building strengths. However, what happens when that person knows how to fish but is not catching enough fish that day to feed themselves, their families or others? Building resilience can be just as important as building other strengths. The reason is that life is full of challenges, and it is how we manage these life challenges which can impact overall health and well-being.
There has been much written on and about ‘resilience’ and how we can build resiliency in children, youth, emerging adults, and adults. The research of Michael Ungar, at the Resilience Research Centre in Canada supports:
Innovative research that explores pathways to resilience across cultures. That work focuses on explaining how children, youth and adults thrive in family, school, workplace and community settings under stress. The Centre also provides resilience measurement tools and training in the form of workshops and conferences. Through its partnerships with researchers, policymakers and clinicians around the globe, the Centre has built a world-renowned resource hub of resilience expertise and tools to support individuals and communities on their path to psychological, social, cultural and physical well-being.
Solutions must be built into the work of every system to ensure sustainability, which supports whole-person centered transformational care. So, a mantra connected Solution-Focused Care is Sustainability Supports Solutions of Success! Very rarely are interventions successful using a ‘One and Done’ approach. Instead, the work of Solution-Focused Care must be embedded within all levels of local systems of care to create a systemic shift in culture. There are three main levels within SOC:
- Direct Care (Child/Family Team)
- Agency/Provider (Service Providers)
- County/State (Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, School)
Focusing On Those We Serve-Win Every Time
Let’s define what is being called “Transformational Care-Planning” which is completely aligned with Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management or TCOM. Transformational Care-Planning is the collaborative process of engaging those being served, developing goals of life through conversations and relationship building. These goals are to assist with getting them back on track to effectively manage life challenges. Transformational Care-Planning actively coordinates those connected to the individual within care. This ‘team’ approach serves to support the individual (person-centered care) and the individual within each life domain (whole person).
This next year at Opeeka will continue to focus on building collaborative solutions with systems, especially supporting systems of care. In a previous blog post Strengthening Collaborations: A Roadmap For Successful Implementation Strategies there are specific steps we all can take in supporting a ‘solution-focus’ approach in our work. We all can play an important role as conduits for systemic change in moving from systems of care towards ‘Systems That Care.’
So, when you think of Solution-Focused Care and the work being done here at Opeeka remember there are innovative, creative and effective ways to support ‘whole-person centered transformational care’ for all. Looking forward to continuing to share with folks from around the world, Opeeka’s Person-Centered Intelligence Solutions (P-CIS|pronounced pieces) which promotes success-focused well-being using ‘real time’ data in all aspects of the care-planning process. When you focus only on problems and challenges, you may win or lose. However, when you focus on the person in care you will win every time!
To learn more about Solution-Focused Care and how it can help support your work please contact me directly kmcgill@opeeka.com To learn more about the work here at Opeeka please visit our website www.opeeka.com and to request of a demonstration of Person-Centered Intelligence Solution (P-CIS) click here. Thank you to all of you who serve!opeeka.com
