Consulting & Training

- CONSULTING/TRAINING -

Impact And Connections Go Beyond Those We Support

Life Works impact and connections go beyond those it supports, providing guidance and training to organizations and agencies providing services to persons with developmental disabilities. Keeping with the organizational philosophy of community, the team contributes their time and energy in providing seminars, workshops, and training helping those providing supports and those supported realize their best life. We will make every effort to help participants realize a paradigm shift.

Person Centered Culture with Liberty Plan

In this Workshop, we will explore the subtle and more intentional shifts that happen in an agency to promote a specific focus on person-centered work. We’ll explore John O’Brien and Beth Mount’s framework, “What More is Possible?” and apply it to stories of people living real lives in the community and how Circles of Support navigated through these journeys utilizing this framework. We will cement foundational elements such as Circles of Support and the Values of Inclusion. We will learn the nuances of Graphic Facilitation and Process Facilitation through engaging exercises, and participants will deepen their listening skills and understanding through observing the demonstration of a Liberty Plan live during the workshop. All participants will get their hands on the Liberty Plan on Day 3, as we form coaching circles and have the opportunity to walk through the process in a morning session and afternoon session. Along with facilitation, we cover areas such as staff retention, leadership, giftedness, successful team building and how to create a culture of person-centered practices.

Reflect, Reconnect, Reimagine...An Organizational Retreat

The practice of Retreat, is the co-creating and holding of a Sacred Space. These opportunities provide us with the clearing we need to strengthen our capacity to hold something much larger as an organization. We are called to this work of supporting people, with a foundation of Person-Centered Planning. Walking a transformational path, this workshop provides a container for us to explore our sense of purpose. From a personal perspective, an organizational perspective, and a systems perspective. This format lends us the opportunity to let go of the day-to-day busyness we find ourselves trapped in. From letting go, we find a clearing…and from that place, we lean into each other with curiosity, compassion and courage.

We will be learning, discovering and exploring with each other utilizing the following Theories, Frameworks, and Strategies:

· The Five Valued Experiences

· Storytelling

· Theory U/Presencing

· Levels of Listening

· Practices of Stillness, Journaling and Reflection

· What More Is Possible?

· Artifact Making

Every element of this 2-Day Workshop carries intention and purpose. We will remain open to being challenged on many levels, hold each other with great care and receptivity, collectively connecting all we do together to our personal and professional lives. At its core, Person Centered Planning is about the illumination of our Highest Future Potential…that which makes us alive! Truly, it has nothing to do with Disability, rather, the awareness of how Disability and the Systems and Services designed to “support” people, can be the very elements that throw darkness onto one’s ability to find their own light. The light wanting to emerge and be lived into. This is our Call. Together we can look for the cracks…as Leonard Cohen speaks “There is a crack, a crack in everything…That’s how the light gets in.”

A Learning Institute...A Long Form Transformational Journey

With the recent shifts in the service system and calls to transform our agencies in small subtle ways, or massively different ways (depending on the agency), many of us find ourselves asking Why? Practically speaking, the answer to the question of 'Why?' comes from an edict, a rule set forth by the government via the Home and Community Based Services Rule (HCBS) and the need to be 'Compliant' with the rule. That can also feel like a decree from a higher source "Thou Shalt Be Person Centered!" When a law or rule exists as our foundation, the heartbeat providing the life-blood of the movement begins to fade away, flat-lining one person at a time. This trajectory is one we seek to avoid, yet feels unavoidable and all-consuming. Becoming 'Compliant' with the HCBS Rule is important, as are the services 'delivered' by well-intentioned organizations. However, if becoming 'compliant' is what drives us, we'll lose sight of the real lives affected by this energy and continue on our path of doing things to serve the greater System, and not the Humans 'served' by it. Our call is to a greater, deeper purpose. Rediscovering our deeper purpose is our Collective Why here in the container of A Learning Institute. Finding our Collective Why starts at an individual level, as any System or Field is comprise of individual human beings. Isn't that a thought-provoking observation? If I am one human comprising the System, and We in partnership with one another are humans together comprising the System, wouldn't that mean shifting my personal path can and will affect the System as a whole?

These are some of the questions we hold with us as we move forward. A Learning Institute is typically traversed across a 12-month period of time, with large group gatherings every other month and smaller coaching sessions with individuals or organizations every other month. We will not be handing anyone a set of guidelines, strategies or solutions to becoming compliant with HCBS or any other Regs as an organization. Rather, we'll be landing important, meaningful philosophies and values as a means to navigate how to implement ideas focused on a 'good life' and the realization of a Beloved Community for the people we partner with in our organizations. If we're on this path, we WILL become compliant in an organic way. It's also vital to understand the backing and support all of us have, moving along here, from the work we do in our communities and in collaboration with each other. With that backing, anything is possible!