Jo Lee, senior advocate at Cancer, Older People and Advocacy programme delivery partner Dorset Macmillan Advocacy tells us in this blog about a framework for supporting older people affected by cancer:
“Person Centred” and “Personalisation” are terms that have become common in recent years; they describe a working method whereby support and services are tailored to individual need rather than the “one size fits all” approach predominant for so many years within social care provision.
Dorset Macmillan Advocacy incorporated a training session on Person Centred Planning Tools during their most recent volunteer’s networking day.
These “tools” are practical ways in which we can incorporate “person centred thinking” into our work. Using two fictional case studies, the volunteer advocates practised using a “relationship circle”, a “communication chart”, “4 + 1 Questions” and “working/not working”
Training is underway
Senior Macmillan Advocate, Jo Lee, had taken copies from a website called “Think About Your Life” which has used person centred planning tools and adapted them to the cancer patient’s perspective.
4 + 1 questions
Feedback from the volunteer advocates was positive; it was noted how using the tools can help not only in enhancing listening skills but providing a means to record and analyse information, using it as a framework for support. This can then be used to help the advocacy partner, for instance with their decision making or enable them to look at a problem from a different perspective.
The planning tools are available from www.thinkaboutyourlife.org. This website was developed and funded by the HSA Foundation, which is a charity and part of the international work of Helen Sanderson Associates.
Jo Lee, Dorset Macmillan Advocacy
Older People Living with Cancer 