In this episode, we hear from Mark John-Williams who has over 40 years experience in the care and support sector about the Circles of Support model and how it can mobilise family, friends, neighbours and acquaintances to provide support for an individual.

Mark John-Williams: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-john-williams-99519289/

His short video on Circles of Support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2ybw3DFVEQ

Imogen runs a social research consultancy Imogen Blood & Associates:

https://www.imogenblood.co.uk/

She provides training on positive risk-taking in care and support.

She also provides MSC training:

https://www.seralliance.org/

Discussed in the podcast:

Supported Decision-Making: https://paradigm-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Print-copy-2023-MASTER-Supported-Decisions-Making-booklet-27-September-A5_Wiro_Bound_SEB.pdf.pdf

Judith Snow: https://www.community-circles.co.uk/judith-snow-a-pioneer-woman/

The Harvard Longitudinal Study: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/harvard-happiness-study-relationships/672753/

Gather My Crew: https://www.gathermycrew.org.au

Here 2 There/ For Mi: https://www.here2there.me.uk

Hilary Cottam: Radical Help: https://www.hilarycottam.com/radical-help/

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:50 - What is a 'circle of support'?

5:05 - Steps involved in setting up a circle

11:05 - What if there's no one to invite?

14:55 - How fits with paid services

19:14 - Importance of relationships

22:44 - Positive risk-taking and safeguarding

33:15 - Relevance to homelessness/ addiction

36:13 - Learning from the pandemic

41:22 - Using apps to facilitate

47:53 - Knowing how to help

50:30 - Spreading the model

1:02:00 - Reducing demand for health & care

Imogen revisits Most Significant Change - this time with Nick Andrews to explore the methodology in depth, discussing story collection, editing, and the transformative power of narrative evaluation in social care and beyond.

Further resources from DEEP on MSC:

A Storytelling Framework for Social Care in Wales: https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/a-storytelling-framework-for-social-care-in-wales

MSC blog: https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/whats-on/news-and-blogs/from-metrics-to-meaning-most-significant-change-as-a-learning-focused-approach-to-evaluation-in-wales

MSC film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey0pk1clewI

Discussed in the podcast:

Rick Davies and Jess Dart: The Most Significant Change Technique - a guide to its use: https://mande.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/MSCGuide.pdf

Neil Mercer on Oracy/ Exploratory Talk: https://oracycambridge.org/talk-rules/

Glen Robert: Experience-based Co-production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXG0G1LrK3I

Rupert Higham on Dialogue Learning: https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/2158639/

Anne Edwards on Common Knowledge: https://www.education.ox.ac.uk/person/anne-edwards/

Iain McGilchrist: The Matter with Things, podcast with Rebel Wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U99dQrZdVTg

ChangeTalk Podcast on Deep Democracy: https://youtu.be/1R_MMiCz6QE?si=pTxOPhqanhVH6o_l

Imogen Blood for Joseph Rowntree Foundation - A Better Life: Valuing our Later Years: https://www.housinglin.org.uk/_assets/Resources/Housing/OtherOrganisation/older-people-support-full.pdf

Imogen runs a social research consultancy Imogen Blood & Associates:

https://www.imogenblood.co.uk/

She also provides MSC training:

https://www.seralliance.org/

Nick Andrews is based at the University of Swansea:

He delivers the DEEP project, funded by Social Care Wales: https://insightcollective.socialcare.wales/developing-evidence-enriched-practice-deep-2

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

1:22 - What is MSC?

3:18 - How to collect stories

9:04 - Neither life story nor case study

12:35 - What caused the change?

15:46 - Titles, editing, individuals v groups

20:22 - Panels: story selection

26:27 - When and why to use MSC?

38:48 - Limitations/ health warnings

45:45 - How to argue nicely

57:00 - MSC process creates change

01:10:00 - How we met/ Nick's work

Nicholas Pleace joins Imogen to discuss Housing First strategies, the European context, and how this approach is transforming homelessness services across the UK and beyond.

Nicholas and I first worked together on the Housing First Feasibility Study for the Liverpool City Region (Crisis, 2017): full report; summary version.

Housing First Guide Europe (2016), Nicholas Pleace for FEANTSA https://www.feantsa.org/download/hfg_full_digital1907983494259831639.pdf

Discussed in the podcast:

US sociologist, Teresa Gowan identified 3 caricatures of homelessness: ‘sin-talk’, ‘sick-talk’ and ‘system-talk’, as described here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334047769_Street_Talk_Homeless_Discourses_and_the_Politics_of_Service_Provision

Malcolm Gladwell: Million-Dollar Murray: The New Yorker, 02/05/2006: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray

Blood, Birchall & Pleace (2021) Reducing, Changing, or Ending Housing First support, Homeless Link: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/197890/1/Reducing_changing_or_ending_Housing_First_support_2021_full_report.pdf

Sam Tsemberis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Tsemberis

In ‘A Traumatised System’ for Riverside, Nicholas and I describe the commissioning context for UK homelessness services: https://www.riverside.org.uk/care-and-support/homelessness-research-and-reports/a-traumatised-system/

Supporting People programme: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/rp12-40/

Housing First Fidelity Framework: we’ve recently published the framework Nicholas, Anita Birchall and I produced in 2019 here: https://www.imogenblood.co.uk/_files/ugd/775f77_2ccae7cd607e433da5c553c59081cd31.pdf

Imogen runs a social research consultancy Imogen Blood & Associates:

https://www.imogenblood.co.uk/

She also provides MSC training:

https://www.seralliance.org/

Chapters

00:00 - Nicholas’s research background

3:15 - Adapting Housing First into the European context

5:15 - What is Housing First?

9:45 - Why does it work for individuals?

13:15 - Systems change and Housing First

15:52 - Evidence-based intervention in homelessness

19:00 - Housing First’s origins in the US

23:28 - Finland’s Housing First strategy

26:02 - How Housing First developed in the UK

34:00 - Comparison to Housing First in Italy

35:30 - Impact of housing, health and care shortages on Housing First

39:00 - Too thinly spread to have strategic impact

43:50 - Preventing future demand

48:27 - Lack of join up

51:02 - Lack of step-up/ step-down options

56:06 - What is needed?

1:00:35 - The narrative gets in the way

1:06:50 - Housing First as part of mental health pathway?

1:12:50 - Fidelity to the model

1:21:03 - End