When we need support, the first people we often look to are our friends and family. But what happens for people who may not have that circle around them when they need care?

A successful approach to building circles of family support for children and young people is now being adapted to support adults and older people in a new pilot project.

The ‘Family Group Decision Making’ approach, which strengthens family and community networks to support children remain at home and avoid going into care, will be adapted for the pilot ‘Circles of Support’ project. 

Circles of Support aims to create a supportive network of families, friends and carers around someone who needs support to ensure that decisions about their care choices are collaborative, safe and effective. It puts the person we support at the centre of decisions about their care and builds community capacity through a network of service providers, people who use services, families, carers and third sector organisations. Anticipatory care planning and support for carers is central to the approach, so that if a potential crisis situation happens, plans are in place, known about and acted upon by everyone involved. 

If someone has no family or close friends, the team will reach out to neighbours, carers or the third sector where appropriate, always ensuring people feel supported and safe when making decisions about their care.

Nonie Calder, who is leading the project explained, “At a practical level, knowing about who’s in someone’s support circle can remove some of the stress around sudden or unexpected events. For example, if a carer gets ill and has to be taken into hospital, that could result in the person they’re caring for having to be taken into care, but with a plan in place, other options are available.

One of the key things is to think about things in advance, so that if an emergency happens, the thinking has been done, the conversations have been had and the contact details are in place.”

The Circles of Support Model is an example of the maximising independence approach, which aims to deliver sustainable health and social care for the city by focussing on prevention and early intervention. It’s also aligned with our asset based, compassionate kindness and trauma informed approaches.

The initial test of change project will focus on three main areas; carers centres, group of people identified through reviews and research and adults and older people, including those with learning disabilities, within locality teams. 

A small project team has been set up with resource from planning, social work, project management, self-directed support and third sector partners, as well as a clinical team, with a variety of expertise within learning disabilities. The project team will work in partnership with multi-disciplinary teams at key points of intervention, to ensure care pathways are collaborative and co-produced for everyone involved. 

An initial workshop in June looked at how to build on areas of existing good practice across partner organisations and promote thinking about how to develop and promote strength-based practice and community connections at all points where someone would access our organisations. 

A broad range of colleagues and partners attended from the Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) and third sector, representing a range of roles and practice areas including trauma informed, carers, Self Directed Support, planning and home care teams. Colleagues from Perth and Kinross who have implemented the model with adults also took part. People who use our services will be central to developing the process throughout the next stages.

“The workshop was a great way to learn from people with a wide range of perspectives,” says Nonie, “The feedback was very positive and there’s a will to form new ways of working, both in terms of cultural shift and practice change.

People recognise the need for change in partnership working and want to challenge themselves to change practice, to benefit those in need of more supportive and collaborative networks. It was also recognised that further discussion is required with key partners to successfully operationalise the model.”

The next steps for the project include working in partnership with pilot groups in two older people’s care centres across the city to understand where the key points of intervention are for each group, and a second workshop is planned for late September to discuss how the model will be operationalised. Work is going on with the Learning Disabilities teams in parallel to understand how the Circles of Support model could be best implemented within their care groups.

Contact for more information nonie.calder@glasgow.gov.uk or ashleigh.voigt@ggc.scot.nhs.uk.