Avenues renews its commitment to Active Support with new training
Friday 24th of January 2025Avenues’ Director of Operations Dan Gower-Smith has just completed his six-month observation in Active Support, an assessment of how well he has supported someone at Avenues. More rigorous and frequent ‘observations’ of support staff practising Active Support and this being championed by upper Management, is testament to Avenues renewed commitment to the approach.
What is Active Support?
Active Support is about doing things ‘with’ people rather than ‘for or to’. It is the opposite of a passive method of support or an old fashioned ‘care’ or ‘minding’ model where everything is done for someone. Active Support can be challenging to put into practice as it requires skills, effort and motivation. However the rewards are substantial. It is actively supporting people and empowering them to do things. According to leading disability organisation BILD, ‘Active Support is a method of enabling people supported to engage fully in their daily lives.’ It promotes and encourages participation for the individual who is supported and recognises their needs and wants.
Active Support and Avenues
Active Support has always been part of the way Avenues operates. According to Avenues’ Senior Positive Behaviour Support and Active Support Partner Matthew Gibb, “The key message is no matter the level of disability with the right support everyone can participate in their lives’.
However, according to Dan Gower-Smith, the Covid -19 pandemic gave the organisation the impetus to re-focus on the use of Active Support, “Active Support has always been an intrinsic part of Avenues support model. Following the period of national lockdown and the impact the pandemic had on the people we support, Avenues relaunched our approach to Active Support post pandemic.” says Dan.
Re-establishing Active Support post pandemic
In early 2022 following a collaboration with Dan Gower-Smith and the Quality Assurance and Practice Team (QA&P) including Matthew Gibb, an organisational review of Active Support took place. It was decided to reinforce the support method in the organisation with new training sessions. This was for several reasons:
“To increase awareness of the importance and understanding of what it takes to implement and maintain Active Support practices across the organisation. The organisation had grown considerably, and importantly post-pandemic some staff and people supported had lost confidence and skills, such as venturing out.” says Dan.
New Active Support Training
Dan along with Senior Positive Behaviour Support and Active Support Partner Matthew Gibb and the Quality Assurance & Practice team have been responsible for organising the new training system. They began by enlisting the assistance of experts in the field from The Tizard Centre, a leading UK academic centre working in autism, learning disability and community care.
“We started all this with training from Julie Beadle-Brown at the Tizard Centre. She trained all Senior Operations Managers and Regional Directors to a more advanced level to be Active Support Coaches. The Quality Assurance and Practice Team, who monitor Active Support, also received a ‘Train the Trainer’ course in Active Support from the Tizard Centre to become Certified Trainers” says Matthew.
Julie Beadle-Brown is happy to continue the fruitful relationship the Tizard Centre has built with Avenues over 25 years: “One of the huge strengths of the organisation is their openness to feedback and their willingness to change processes, systems and culture in order to improve the quality of life of the people they support. I am so grateful for their collaboration with our student placements and with research and have been always happy to ask to train staff and managers in the organisation.”
The system of training has also become more tailored, “We also have a more targeted and personalised approach to training. Every service will receive the half day theory. Services where we support people with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD) will receive an in-service hands-on session in addition to this. This is based on the needs of the service and the people we support with a focus on PMLD services, as it is often where more support is needed to promote enabling and empowering approaches.” says Matthew.
A more frequent audit of Active Support
Avenues is also monitoring the implementation and embedding of Active Support. Services will now be audited every six months, much more frequently than previously “We have a whole new audit system in place to collect data around Active Support in every service. This involves a self-audit by the management team, requiring them to observe practice using an Active Support (AS) observation tool. The aim is to improve the quality of support through observation, feedback and coaching. This is then cross-referenced by senior management who also conduct an audit, and an assurance rating is given” says Matthew.
Crucially this is the first time there has been a quantifiable way of measuring Active Support across the organisation meaning the Quality Assurance Team can target their training to individual services.
In addition, following the principles of co-production the organisation has recruited ‘Quality Checkers’ from people supported within the organisation to assist with the audit. Now that every operational member of staff is observed and scored for Active Support technique the organisation has an objective way of measuring Active Support. The hope is that it can be more rigorously monitored and maintained across all services.
All hope to see the fruits of this new commitment to Active Support with the people supported emerging over the coming months and years. The overall aim being to improve their quality of life whilst at the same time remembering that well supported people, support people well.