Developing critical reflection for use in organisational learning Sheila Fish Sue Wallbridge Jan Fook SCIE Rese

1. Developing critical reflection for use in organisational learning Sheila Fish Sue Wallbridge Jan Fook SCIE Research Social Worker / Practice Professor of Social Analyst Research Officer Work, Social Care CYPD Southampton

3. Why add critical reflection? Danger of losing individuals by focusing on systems issues Theoretically inadequate to ascribe �agency� to one side of the binary or the other Pragmatically, runs the danger of missing out on: learning about & from the �whole experience� understanding the interface between individual experiences & social influences

4. Not exactly straightforward� How to adapt a model from individual to organisational learning while maintaining its integrity? Theoretically? Bodies of literature tend not speak to each other. Literature review forthcoming to ground development of theoretical model Practically? There has been little attempt to try it out. More adaptation & piloting required.

5. How we went about it The original model: Small participatory workshops One-page description of a critical incident from their past or current professional work Stage One � exposing and examining hidden assumptions Stage Two � how practice & thinking may change or be different compared with the original conception of the incident

6. How we went about it Adaptations included: Restricting choice of incident Restricting time commitment by conflating stages 1 & 2 in one half-day session Cross-agency groupings, max 3 per group Writing-up critical reflection process for each incident

7. What was it like? Process: More difficult than I expected and at points quite upsetting but felt supportive CR enabled �getting to the bottom of� pertinent issues not always discussed in supervision e.g. feelings of guilt & responsibility existential fall-out; de-motivation personal value base relative value of different professions

8. What was it like? CR enabled positive change through e.g. reattaching positive aspects to the description of the incident, redressing wrong and/or unhelpful assumptions Write-up: �Actually it felt really good to read them all again, and has made the whole process far more helpful for me than I thought it would have been�.

9. Implications for organisational learning �all our practice might be better if we had time for some detailed critical reflection such as this, on a regular basis� What is needed from supervision? How to facilitate it?

10. Emerging themes: Responsibility Feelings of personal/moral and professional responsibility for outcomes over & above the time/remit of actual involvement How to address overall responsibility when roles between and within sectors are relatively fragmented? Provide feedback regarding longer term view of cases?

11. Questions raised by the pilot How to create a safe space for CR? Workshop write-ups necessary to pin-down learning? CR as alternative to, or part of, supervision as opposed to part of case review process? Alternative CR models possible for use as part of case review process e.g. composite incidents created by review team to explore specific issue

12. �critical friends� sheila.fish@scie.org.uk