Doorway - "Moving On"

Doorway's 'Moving On' Process

In 2007 a grant from the Chippenham Borough Lands Charity enabled Doorway to recruit a Support Services Manager, who worked one to one with guests in the drop-in and piloted training for volunteers to enable guests to identify and work towards their personal goals. The pilot was based on a model pioneered by Lemos and Crane and described in their report ‘Dreams Deferred’.

In 2010 we are continuing to develop the 'Moving On' Process in particular, working with learning disabilities and mental health issues. We have been able to offer more in-depth one to one support to guests during our open access drop-in sessions. Doorway regularly deals with complex needs on a regular basis including: benefits, poor life skills, physical and mental health problems and relationship issues.

Doorway very often encounters guests with particularly threatening and challenging behaviour and we are able to gain their confidence and establish ground rules so that they can modify their behaviour. This ensures that these guests who are excluded by other agencies are managed safely within the drop-in.

Moving On - The Pilot Scheme (May 2007 to November 2007)

• 4 volunteers took part in the initial training
• 2 volunteers went ahead with the pilot scheme
• 5 guests had initial interviews
• 2 decided to go on with the support project and were seen roughly weekly over a period of 3 months

With positive results from this limited pilot, we used the experience we gained to develop our own training, tailor-made for our own drop-in.

Doorway’s Moving On Process

The aim of the process is for support workers to provide guests with a structured way to reflect on their lives and behaviour and to help guests to:

• Map their situation
• Decide if and what they wish to change
• Agree steps they can take towards this change
• Plan and take the action that they have decided upon
• Review and learn from the action they have taken, in preparation for taking further action.

Not every guest even with the help of a support worker will be able to work their way through all stages of the process. Staff and guests can use the parts they think are relevant and helpful and which will help guests to make as much progress as they feel is appropriate for them.

Similarly, the process may raise issues and problems that are beyond the skills of the support worker and may highlight the need for professional help.

The process is in three stages:-

1. Plan
2. Do
3. Review

Guests are encouraged to reflect on and learn from the action that they have taken, so that the process would become self-reinforcing:

reflection – insight – decision – action – reflection – insight etc

It is important to remember that Doorway staff are not counsellors, therapists, mediators, GPs etc. We do not take on what we are not qualified to do or what we cannot cope with. We will always call a halt if we hit something beyond our remit and look for a appropriate specialist service.