Learning to be less ‘Bat’ and more ‘Wayne’ Personalised Care (Peer Leadership)

 

Due to my disabilities I have had to learn a lot about the NHS and Local Authority’s procedures, particularly about the support available.

After twelve years of this you end up picking up some knowledge about how things work. I've always believed in participation and as these are our society’s services, so why not take responsibility for what happens within them?

Over time I've been to many meetings, examined many policies, reports and supported people through the mazes and corridors you have to traverse to get the best help you need. This support is usually related to advice or guidance and advocating if necessary.

Though my approach has been polite, I have not been averse to reminding the organisations of their own policies, processes and even legal responsibilities, if required. This comes from seventeen years of my employment experience, enforcing various parts of legislation.

Mostly, this has the desired outcome, but has always left me feeling a little perturbed as I often felt that people became wary of my involvement.

It seemed that people remembered me for the issues I brought up and rarely for any of the thank you or praising work letters that I had written.

Always looking to improve myself, I joined the NHS Personalised Peer Leadership course. The course was online, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which was a great opportunity to work towards something during lockdown. also it made it very accessible.

Parts one and two were hosted online via the Future Learn site. It had a good mix of videos, reading, and group discussions around what we were learning. I did learn a little and was keen to progress, but was also frustrated, as it was a very soft approach to involvement and coproduction.

Part three was by application and I had the opportunity to discuss the course with one of the leaders.

As with all the course leaders, these are people with lived experience, they understand, because they've been there.

I explained my frustrations and previous approaches to Jo Fitzgerald and she explained that the course was more about partnership working rather than my legalistic approach. I accepted that I have lessons to learn and continued with a more open minded approach.

Part three also had some more online courses which followed over the next few weeks. These involved some theoretical approaches to management change, which I really enjoyed and supported further with private study into the subject.

We are now at the final stages and had a chance to meet our group online. We were talking about our local area and one of the group members in my county mentioned that the new Batman movie was being filmed locally.

Being a comic geek, when it came to introductions, I said in my best gruff voice “I’m Batman" and a little laugh followed throughout the group. This then followed a theme for the rest of the online session.

In one of our breakout groups, we were subsequently discussing what we hoped to get out of the course and I explained that I wanted to be less Batman and more Wayne.

I used this an an example to explain that there are different approaches to doing a job.

It's all well and good dressing up and fighting ‘the good fight’, but perhaps Bruce Wayne could do more good using his time and resources by finding what causes the issues. Bruce Wayne could work with people to help put things right by looking at the underlying principles and issues of what causes the difficulties, rather than tackling issues head on. In my opinion, this is done better in talking and meeting...rather than donning a pair of tights!

I'm excited to move forward with my new friends and continue to learn more. I hope this will bring a more open working relationship with people within the organisations that are so important to us all.

So I’m closing the Bat Cave for a while and hopefully I'll have the opportunity to let you know how, collaboratively, I can work with local organisations to bring more improvements than the Bat could ever bring.

Stay tuned...