Developing the Seven Partner Values, Guidelines and Toolkit

OVERVIEW

Developing the Seven Partner Values, the Toolkit and Guidelines

BACKGROUND:

In fiscal year 2014, Oklahoma’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), Oklahoma Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) and the UCEDD-LEND Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC) partnered to develop the Seven Partner Values and the Toolkit. CAC members, advising the UCEDD-LEND, worked directly as partners to develop the Seven Partner Values statements, the guidelines for using them, and a toolkit to share with others to encourage conversation and adoption of the partnership values by individuals and organizations.

OBJECTIVES:

1. Agree on a short list of partnership values that are important for inclusion and participation in community work by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, family members, providers and policy-makers.

2. Develop statements that describe what group members would see, hear, experience and observe when the group was acting in line with the stated value

3. Collect and share personal stories that offer an example of the value at work or when it is not at work in a relationship between people.

A. Use the stories to convey a “lesson learned.”

B. Use the stories to invite thinking out loud with a group of partners and talking together about similar experiences.

4. Develop an award to recognize UCEDD-LEND partners in the community who, by their actions, are demonstrating the Seven Partner Values.

5. Engage others by sharing the Seven Partner Values, guidelines, sample stories and related examples and resources in a toolkit. Solicit feedback and engagement from other organizations to promote community capacity building for inclusion and participation by people with developmental disabilities and their families in groups beyond the UCEDD-LEND CAC as welcome partners.

Angela Harnden, Ph.D.1, 2; Vyonda G. Martin, M.A.1; Wanda Felty1,2; Crisann Hanes M.Ed.3, and Valerie N. Williams, Ph.D.1 on behalf of the UCEDD-LEND Consumer Advisory CommitteeCenter for Learning and Leadership/Oklahoma UCEDD at the OU Health Sciences Center1 and Oklahoma LEND2 OU College of Medicine, UCEDD Staff retired3

Our shared goal in Oklahoma UCEDD-LEND is to achieve an elevated level of engagement with our respective and collective communities, networks, and well beyond in order to better inform, enhance, and enrich the work we do to improve the lives of people with disabilities and their families.

The UCEDD mission is to work in partnership with the citizens of Oklahoma to ensure the inclusion of people with developmental disabilities and their families, in all aspects of community life. Oklahoma’s UCEDD uses a service philosophy that embraces best practices applied to community life and settings, using culturally competent ways of serving the person with developmental disabilities and his or her family across the lifespan. LEND embraces this service philosophy as well with a focus on people in the pediatric and young adult years.

Developing the Seven Partner Values grew from our shared understanding that the UCEDD-LEND CAC provides a principle driven supportive environment for inclusion and participation– an environment not always evident in the general community.

We asked CAC members, “What makes a good partner?” and explored answers to that question which led to the Seven Partner Values. Briefly, the major steps from broad question to values, guidelines and toolkit included the following work:

1. Agree on a short list of partnership values

Collect from each member the actions and experiences that are important to “partners” or people working together like we do as an Advisory Committee. Key Points:

Include all CAC members in the values development process by pair-share at the table, inviting feedback, and inviting new items.

Translate all written material into Spanish; have translator on site to translate the discussion and input of Spanish-speaking members.

Use pictures to represent each Value and explain everything in plain language; offer people with disabilities support from a fellow CAC member.

Collect “Advice and Feedback” (A&F) about each meeting to learn if each member was heard, to see what questions remain or what needs to be explained, and to get a feeling for group satisfaction with the process.

Key Points:

Review A&F at each CAC Executive Committee prep session.

Share A&F with full CAC at next meeting; answer questions.

2. Develop statements that describe “the Values” in action

CAC meetings are scheduled for 3-hours. The meeting structure allowed time for large group activity, smaller group discussion, return to large group for sharing results and ideas and a stretch break.

CAC members learned to set a working pace that was not too fast or too slow for all members to contribute.

CAC Executive Committee was Co-Chaired by UCEDD Director and a Parent, plus Vice Chair LEND Director, and Facilitator-UCEDD Associate Director. This group reviewed how the work was progressing and adjusted the activities and schedule to be sure all could participate.

While this process extended the time to develop the product it also modeled partnership behavior in real-time.

The CAC considered 356 separate values statements over the course of 4-5 meetings; selected and adapted statements to seven with 6-7 guideline benchmarks for each.

The Seven Partner Values, the Toolkit and Guidelines remain a work-in-progress.

CAC members intend this to be a living tool– it will be updated regularly and will remain on the CAC agenda.

Consistent use of the “Advice and Feedback” process gives us on-going qualitative data about inclusivity. These data speak to not only “what” we do but also “how” we work together.

Capacity building for broader advocacy in Oklahoma is our goal.

What makes partnership work can be defined in everyday words and actions. Words and actions can be observed and adopted by others.

Learn from work-in-progress.

Share what is learned in real-time so others can use the lesson and take to other settings.

Create your own simple tools to help move the learning forward.

Do not hesitate to ask people to lead and to explain what that means in terms of role modeling, feedback, goal setting, and expecting outcomes.

UCEDD Outcomes

RESULTS

The Oklahoma UCEDD-LEND CAC’s Seven Partner Values

For additional information please contact:

Valerie N. Williams, Ph.D., DirectorVyonda G. Martin, M.A., Associate DirectorCenter for Learning and LeadershipUniversity Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service (UCEDD)College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Contact: valerie-williams@ouhsc.edu

The Oklahoma UCEDD is sponsored in part by a grant from the U.S. Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. The Oklahoma LEND program is sponsored by a grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau

Sticking to our roots!

Oklahoma’s UCEDD and LEND programs were started through a partnership. Current work grows from strong roots in the community and long-standing leadership commitment and connections within the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

The Seven Partner Values connect with UCEDD planned outcomes to create a durable and useful partnership model others can adopt.

CAC members, faculty and staff are serious about both “learning and leadership” for ourselves as well as for others.

3. Collect and share personal stories as examples of “the values”

CAC members agreed that providing sample stories from their own experiences in the world would help explain what was important about each of the Seven Partner Values.

CAC members agreed:

Each of us has a story…if we choose to share…it can connect us to other people and to life events that matter to us—in large or small ways.

Our story is part of who we are in the world. We take our personal story and all it means to us into the world of other people and events. Stories are powerful.

Partnership stories connect us to each other. We learn: Caring partners can lift us up; Careless partners can drag us down. People can choose what kind of partner to be with others.

A partnership based on values that lift us up is a shared story we want to understand.

Collecting member stories involved use of a “Story Recording” worksheet that offered simple prompts to get people talking. After stories were collected during a meeting, they were typed and returned to members for review. Key Points:

Each member was asked to be sure that the story shared was from their point-of-view. We did not want to imply that the story-teller knew anything about what others in the story were thinking and feeling– only share how the storyteller experienced the encounter and what he or she saw, heard, felt and thought.

Members edited their own story for content and emphasis. All members reviewed all the stories, talked about lessons learned and

checked in with the storyteller to see if the lesson fit. Each curated story was then connected to one of the Seven Partner Values.

4. Develop an award to recognize people using “the values”

CAC members talked about the people and organizations in the Oklahoma community and outside of the UCEDD and LEND that were already showing they were good partners. Members wanted to recognize those people and organizations. Key Points:

The Seven Partner Values Award and nomination process was established.

Members of the CAC Executive Committee and a CAC self-advocate member reviewed the nominations. Three awards were made in 2013 and four were made in 2014. Each year a self-advocate, a parent, and an organization were recognized by the CAC members with a plaque.

5. Engage others by sharing “the values” in a resource toolkit and inviting conversation

CAC members have agreed to continue adding to the toolkit and to make it available in hard copy and in PDF form on the web.

The toolkit includes “Guiding Questions” to encourage talking about the values and the partnership stories with others and a feedback form to invite comments about how the toolkit and values are being used.

CAC members have also reviewed a leadership booklet developed by the UCEDD that speaks to the principles of leading through partnership in greater detail and includes references to other writing on the subject. This resource will also be made available to our network.

APPROACH WORK-IN-PROGRESS

CONCLUSIONS

The keys are “learning and leadership” working together– in partnership