Page 29 - Tale of Transformation

Conduct a Training for all Staff on Learning Circles
Facilitator: Share comments about Learning Circles with the participants. The following points may help you prepare.
• Today’s culture change movement is about moving the long-term care world from a medical to a social model of caregiving.
• High involvement by all is critical to any deep, institutional change endeavor. ‘Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish
the transformation,’ urges noted industrial quality improvement consultant, W. Edwards Deming (1986).
• The purpose of a Learning Circle is to highly involve all nursing home stakeholders – staff, residents, families and community
members – in planning, solving problems, and creating new relationships during the transformation.
• The Learning Circle is a natural, powerful form in which everyone involved in the nursing home – even residents with severe cognitive
losses – can meet, find common ground and take part in the culture change process. When the Learning Circle’s techniques are
used successfully, mutual respect among the participants is engendered – a vital element in creating healthy culture.
• The Learning Circle is a leveling technique that encourages quiet people to speak, talkative people to listen and everyone to share in
making decisions. Here, everyone is heard as equals.
• The Learning Circle facilitates learning in many ways. Participants observe, interpret and experience not only their own feelings about
an issue, but broaden their perspectives by learning and considering the many other viewpoints around them.
• Ten to fifteen participants sit in a circle without tables or other obstructions blocking their view of one another. One person is chosen
as a facilitator to pose a question to members of the circle, give encouragement and keep the responses moving.
Rules of the Circle
Identify a facilitator for the circle. As the facilitator, you will:
• Pose the Question (see short list of examples on page 17, but the questions which can be asked are endless.)
• Ask for a volunteer to start. This allows someone who is ready to share to be first. It also offers structure and gives the facilitator a starting point.
• Go around the circle. Go to the right or left of the first respondent, followed one-by-one around the circle until everyone has spoken on the subject without interruption.
• Cross talk is not allowed.
• One may choose to pass rather than speak when their time comes. But after everyone else in the circle has had their turn, the facilitator goes back to those who passed and allows each another opportunity to respond.
• Only then is the floor open for general discussion. Encourage comment and discussion on the topic. The facilitator should feel comfortable contributing as well, but must be very careful not to preach or teach. Try to listen more than you talk.
• Wrap up by drawing conclusions into a positive summary – making connections between a resident’s concern and a staff initiative; point out similarities heard from different sources; conflicts that had been unknown but that now surfaced can be addressed; appeal and deep pleasure in hearing stories from staff, and so on.
These comments come from “Learning Circles: The Power of the Circle” by LaVrene Norton in Culture Change in Long Term Care, edited by Weiner and Ronch, p. 285
For additional information visit: www. culturechangenow.com
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