1. From Process to Product
Impacting Social Policy in Addressing Abuse of Older Adults in
Aboriginal Contexts
2. Agenda
Introduction
Working definition of Social Policy
Events leading to set of products
Combining work at differing levels, professions, sectors
Two products / tools and their application
Being Least Intrusive Tool /exercise
Protocol Template / exercise
How is this relevant to your work?
Can you use this process?
Social policy lessons
Summary & Questions
3. Introduction
Working Definition of social policy
“Social policy is all about social purposes and the choices between
them. The choices and the conflicts between them have
continuously to be made at the government level, the community
level and the individual level. At each level by acting or not
acting, by opting in or contracting out, we can influence the
direction in which choices are made”
Richard Titmuss, 1974 (as cited in Heinonen & Spearman, 2001, p. 76). http://spon.ca/social-policy-
definitions/2007/08/27/
4. Intentional Process, Action Learning Approach
Shared Work, Different Perspectives
Adult Guardianship Legislation
CRNs, PGT, Health Authority,
Contracted work
5. Intentional Process, Action Learning Approach
Shared Vision, Common Interests
Prevention Collaborative, First
Nation Working Group
Education of frontline clinicians &
community members
National research, Identifying
promising approaches
6. Intentional Process, Action Learning Approach
Shared Values & Principles
Critical Analysis, Cultural
Safety, Social
Determinants, Aboriginal
Understanding of
Health, Human
Relations, Empowerment, Adv
ocacy & Change.
7. Ideal Policy Development
Objectives with policy goals
Options
Values tradeoffs, Recommend-
Problem, definition, research
using judgement
Policy
8.
9. Tacit Social Policy Development
Burning
Question
Applied Ways of
Learning Working
Knowledge
Persistence and
Acquisition and
Support
Lenses
10. Questions
• How would you use this process?
• What are the parallels you can use in your
context?
11. Products & Tools
Being Least Intrusive
Emerges from the frontline practice of
responding to situations of abuse and neglect
of vulnerable First Nation adults.
It is a hybrid approach that draws on
indigenous knowledge, critical social work
theory and first hand accounts of response
and prevention initiatives within First Nation
Communities across Canada.
It is meant to help orientate frontline workers
to respond in a way that: is culturally
safe, collaborative, strengths based, and
facilitates a broader more holistic
understanding of health and well-being.
13. Products and Tools
Being Least Intrusive
Is a tool that guides frontline
workers through a process of
critical preparation, assessment
and reflection.
It is divided into 3 sections, each
with a series of questions that
assists frontline workers to
develop critical self-awareness;
gather information that will
inform a more holistic
assessment;
engage with clients, families and
communities in ways that are
culturally safe and appropriate.
14. Questions
• How could you use this tool?
• Who else could use it?
http://www.nicenet.ca/files/U_of_T_Nice_185649_
BLI_Jul_2012Tool.pdf
15. Products & Tools
Protocol Templates
Public Guardian & Trustee of BC
commissioned work to develop a
provincial template that could be used
by Designated Agencies (provincial
health authorities) and First Nation
Communities to assist in the
development of collaborative
partnerships of response and
prevention work
It has been used by VIHA and Kwakiutl
District Council as a framework for
their ongoing partnership in delivering
services to the 10 KDC member
communities.
16. Protocol is Signed
June 15, 2012
Thunderbird
Hall, Campbell
River, BC
WEAAD Day
17. Questions
• Are there areas in your practice needing
protocols like this ?
• Do you have the relationships in place to support
the development and co-creation of a protocol
like this ?
• Can it be inter-professional?
18. Adaptability of Tools
Tools and practice emerge from multiple and intersecting points.
Structured by provincial legislation
Enriched and supported by national research projects and community
based response and prevention strategies
Informed by the realities of frontline practice
Founded on principles and values honoring self-
determination, autonomy and empowerment
Grounded in a critical awareness of the cultural, social and historical
context in which adult abuse and neglect emerges and is experienced.
19. Social Policy Lessons
Used principles of how we think people should be
served and how to treat one another
Relationships at all levels
Partners continually identified and invited
20. Social Policy Lessons
Seeing linkages between projects-opportunities to
further explore or explore more deeply
Commitment to the process and carrying on
Combination of “off the side of the desk” and
mainstream funded endeavors
21. Social Policy Lessons
Lack of tools and practice provided freedom to do what
we thought was the right thing
Created a cross professional community of practice-
deliberate action and discernment of critical differences
in action and practice
Managed up at every opportunity (audaciously)
22. Summary
Tacit process becoming A „stream‟ of interrelated and
explicit and deliberate complementary products
Across professions A collaborative practice
A body of linked work
23. Social Policy
By the study of anthropology, sociology, and
psychology and such elements of social and
political economy as are relevant we try to
work out our correct principles to guide us in
our approach to the social problems of the
time.
Nevertheless, the applications of those
principles to a given situation is an art.
Aneurin Bevan 1952
24. Thank You
Alison Leaney, MSW, RSW,
Public Guardian and Trustee of BC
(604) 660 4413
ALeaney@Trustee.bc.ca
April Struthers, M Ed, RCC,
Wit Works Ltd. (604) 885 0651
www.witworks@dccnet.com
Lindsay Neufeld, MSW, RSW,
VIHA Professional Practice Office – CDMR
(250) 287-6433
Lindsay.Neufeld@viha.ca