Amanda Bailey is the Deputy Manager of CNWL Recovery and Wellbeing College. She has a background in social work and nursing but she says, “It is my personal experience with mental health services that is really important in my job as a peer trainer.”

Amanda was first introduced to the Rix Wiki in October 2015. After attending training and playing on a Wiki of her own, which helped calm her worries about using new technology, Amanda started to think about the Wiki in relation to her own health plan. “I really believe the Health and Wellbeing plan to be central to my recovery because before, I was just surviving on a day to day existence.  I find it’s really useful for actually learning about yourself and not just being passive and accepting what people give to you. It helps you to learn what works and doesn’t work for you, the warning signs and triggers. I found the original Health and Wellbeing plan very useful but I think the Wiki is a step up from that. It has the same principles and values but it just allows you to be so creative.”

Amanda describes the Wiki as a dynamic extension of the Health and Wellbeing plan. “A health plan is constantly being changed and updated. Having the plan on the Wiki makes it much easier to do that, as well as keep professionals and supporters informed,” she says.

Amanda also sees the Wiki as a door, leading to a deeper understanding of oneself. “Although the paper Health and Wellbeing plan is a very effective tool, I think it’s quite constraining when you’re filling it in. It’s all words and boxes. It’s very much about who you are in the present. But when you try to do this on the Wiki, you start putting things in, images and links and you start thinking, ‘Oh, I might try that or I want to do that someday.’ It completely opens your world up.”

For Amanda building her Wiki made her realise what she really enjoyed and helped her to discover new things that she wanted to do in the future, for example, to walk a half marathon.

For those who are considering a Wiki, Amanda encourages people not to be put off by technology. “It’s really important to learn from someone who has their own Wiki and has had time to develop it. That way you have something to reference.” She also stresses the importance of understanding the Health and Wellbeing plan “in terms of getting to know yourself, why that is so important, and how that can make such a difference.”

Lastly Amanda says it is important to understand that the Wiki takes time to develop. “It’s not something you can do in a week. It takes time and, as you evolve, your Wiki will evolve too.  I think the Wiki is amazing! I feel so excited about its use in so many different areas of healthcare and I think it would really appeal to younger people who are so skilled with technology and mobile phones.”

[/spb_text_block]

Rix Research & Media is delighted that Charlton Park Academy has been shortlisted in the prestigious annual TES Schools Awards, in the Alternative Provision category.  This category recognises the invaluable support to pupils offered by these schools, which make sure that children who may not be able to attend conventional school do not go without the great educational experience they deserve.

Charlton Park Academy is a successful secondary special academy in Greenwich that offers a high quality, individualised approach to education to students with special educational needs.  It has been working with Rix Research & Media for over three years, to embed a Multimedia Advocacy approach through the use of Rix Wikis.

Wikis are simple, accessible, secure and easy to build personal websites which can be used to create multimedia person-centred plans that use pictures, words, video and sound to capture the voice, skills, aspirations and needs of the child or young person.  Too often, the focus can be on the limitations placed on someone by their disability but a Wiki can help children and young people build a detailed picture of who they are – what and who is important to them, what they like to do, how they communicate and how they see their future.  The focus is positive, highlighting their strengths and ambitions.

In 2014/15, Charlton Park Academy fully adopted Multimedia Advocacy and now uses Rix Wikis for all 240 of the pupils in the school. The Wikis have produced genuinely positive outcomes for the students and their families. Students enjoy greater independence, increased self-advocacy, better engagement and boosted self-confidence. The Wikis have improved the home-school partnership and support parents, teachers and health professionals to communicate and collaborate effectively by sharing a wide range of information.

In 2015, Ofsted twice cited Rix Wikis as examples of good practice, in the inspection report for the school:

“The school has … develop[ed] safe online individual forums, called ‘wikis’, for sharing plans and achievements. These student-led and created websites have enabled grandparents living overseas to also share in the celebrations of residential students’ progress. This technology and empowering process gives control of plans to residential students and means that students can define their own identity, hopes and aspirations.”

“Wikis are person-centred and empowering, as students can share information, express themselves and celebrate their progress and achievements in a safe way.”

Gosia Kwiatkowska, Research Centre Manager for Rix Research & Media, said:

“I am thrilled that the fantastic work of Charlton Park Academy – and the pioneering approach of its staff in supporting the students to realise their hopes and dreams – has been recognised by its inclusion in the TES Schools Awards 2016 shortlist.  We at Rix are so proud of all that Charlton Park Academy has achieved and believe it would thoroughly deserve to win.  We wish the school all the best for the big night.”

Charlton Park Academy, said:

“We are delighted to have been shortlisted for the TES Award! What a brilliant opportunity for us to celebrate and share the work of staff, students and families in their use of Rix Wikis and how this work is truly empowering and engaging everyone in putting the students at the centre of all that we do”

[/spb_text_block]

Thea Fitch is a peer recovery trainer and peer support worker in a community health team for homeless individuals, who are admitted to psychiatric wards. She uses her personal experiences with mental health difficulties, hospital admissions, and homelessness to help people get their lives back on track.

Thea started using the Rix Wiki in November 2015. “I was so excited,” she says. Before the Wiki version of the Health and Wellbeing plan, Thea was using the paper version. “I got my paper version when I was a student here at the Recovery College and I had it for many years. I was on my second version, which I’d been using for four years and it was like my Bible but it was really difficult to add or change things.”

Thea also found it hard to keep parts of her plan private.  “My dad helped me put my plan together and was very respectful, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty when I had to cover certain parts with my hand.” Thea’s paper Healthcare plan was a folder stuffed with pamphlets and pieces of notebook paper and she could do only so much to protect a stack of paper covered in writing.

When Thea began using the Rix Wiki she saw how easy it was to add to, and edit her plan. “It was so amazing! I am not good with technology but the Wiki is quite easy to use,” she says. The privacy and the security of the Wiki online makes it easy for Thea to share sections of her Wiki with professionals and friends  – and her Dad – without having to feel embarrassed about not wanting to share other sections. “It’s like my own little scrapbook,” Thea explains, “except now I can change it without having to rip out pages.”

Thea finds great inspiration in certain quotes and now, instead of jotting a new quote down on the back of a piece of paper and stuffing it in a folder, Thea can add the image or type up the quote onto her Wiki and it is immediately uploaded and saved alongside her collection of inspirational words.

But a Wiki is more than just a scrapbook, it’s a representation of an individual’s wants, needs and aspirations.  It is their voice when they are unable to speak up for themselves. It is a reminder to doctors and professionals that this patient is a person.  “Having a Wiki allows me to communicate my person and character in a way that is meaningful to me. It helps others to understand how I like to be treated when I am unable to verbalise it for myself,” Thea explains.

A Wiki is also a reminder to the individual themselves that they can do it. It is a guideline that helps them to take care of their psychological and physical wellbeing. For Thea, the Wiki is an important tool. “My Health and Wellbeing plan has helped me to figure out how to live with all of these things and now I am working at a job that I love.  I feel quite proud of my Wiki. It’s not a self-indulgent thing but a compassion act towards myself.”

To view case studies about other users of the Rix Wiki, please click here.

Many congratulations to Ajay Choksi at Rix Research & Media, who has passed the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) skills certification programme with top marks.

Ajay works as a technical assistant and Wiki Master at Rix and is an invaluable member of the team.  Rix is based in Knowledge Dock and specialises in exploring and developing new media technologies to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities.  Ajay has communication difficulties himself, which makes his achievement all the more fantastic.

His scores for the ECDL were highly impressive, with an average score of over 83% and scores for the component parts as:

  • Powerpoint – 86%
  • Microsoft Office – 80%
  • Excel – 80%
  • Access database – 91%
  • Project Management – 79%

The ECDL certification is a highly recognised qualification and is the fastest growing IT user qualification in over 125 countries, with many UK companies setting the ECDL as a mandatory requirement.

AjayECDLEveryone at Rix Research & Media is so proud of Ajay.  Gosia Kwiatkowska, Research Centre Manager, said:

“Ajay set himself a goal early this year to complete the ECDL course as part of his continuous staff development efforts. He worked extremely hard and with the excellent support from the UEL ECDL team he was able to achieve his goal. We are so proud of him and his achievement.”

Ajay received his certificate from Vice-Chancellor of UEL, Professor John Joughin, at a presentation in UEL’s Great Hall in Stratford on Wednesday.

Ajay said:

“I am really happy with my results from the ECDL course. I felt very emotional when I received the certificate from our Vice-Chancellor. I am so proud of myself”

Register your place at this free Webinar by clicking here!

Joe Sieber is Assistant Headteacher and SENCo at Little Heath School, a successful and well established school for pupils aged 11-19 with a wide range of needs including moderate and severe learning difficulties and communication needs (including a number with autistic spectrum conditions). The latest Ofsted report says that this is a Good school. It highlights the way that ‘the school promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development particularly well’ and notes that ‘the excellent progress that pupils make in their personal, social and moral development is a particular strength of the school.’
In September last year, Joe introduced the Multimedia Advocacy approach and Rix Wikis to the pupils and staff at the school.  An established pilot to embed the use of Rix Wikis for Education, Health and Care plans has seen some real benefits and positive outcomes for pupils:
  • All the pupils involved have been more engaged, presenting their Wikis at their EHC meetings and Annual Reviews
  • Pupils are showing much greater self-esteem and an ability to cope better with difficult situations
Joe will be sharing his approach and highlighting the successes – as well as the lessons – at a live webinar on Thursday 12 May at 4.00pm.  He will also be answering questions from attendees who are thinking about implementing Rix Wikis within their own education setting.
Please register here to join the webinar.  Further information and joining instructions will be sent to you in due course.

Royal Free Hospital logoThe Royal Free Hospital Children’s School (RFHCS) is a community Special School for pupils aged 5 to 16. It offers high quality education for all children who are inpatients at the Royal Free Hospital and for some children who are not inpatients but who are receiving support from medical or mental health services and may benefit from attending the school on a daily basis. The school operates within a multidisciplinary framework; working closely with a range of professionals including consultant doctors, mental health professionals, physiotherapists, speech therapists and other agencies.

Alex Yates, Headteacher, introduced Multimedia Advocacy and Rix Wikis, to pupils and staff at the school in September 2104. The results have been extremely positive. Alex states:

“Multimedia Advocacy is a really effective way of using media to communicate the wants and needs of children and young people, especially those with a large number of professionals involved across a number of sectors. Multimedia advocacy shows that even the little things are important and each individual has the right to change something if they wish.”

Case study

Purpose

What were your reasons for doing this development work?

  • Building on research from UEL around effective pastoral planning and in response to new Code of Practice and the emphasis on CYP’s voice being placed at the centre of planning.
  • There was also a need to codify and improve our own approach to planning around education, health and care.

How were you intending to improve pupil learning?

  • Clearer sense of ownership of both academic targets and those related to personal development.
  • It gives the student more power/control over their lives e.g. they make choices based on their own preferences.
  • It is a great way of keeping everyone that supports an individual in the loop, but most importantly putting the individual child right at the centre of their own plans.
  • It makes use of digital photography/ audio and video to organise thinking, reinforce memories, communicate preferences and viewpoints.

Who were the identified target learners?

  • The target here is RFHCS Day School – generally outpatient referrals with significant medical and mental health challenges supported by large multi-agency teams.  But the approach could be applied in any pastoral context.

What were your success criteria?

  • Improved attendance.
  • Improved engagement from multi-agency teams around the child.
  • Pupils achieving relevant SMART targets.
  • Parents/carers and other professionals engaging with the process.

What specific curriculum area did you intend to have impact on?

  • All – including specific outcomes for individuals Post-16

Methodology

What did you do – what teaching approaches did you use?

  • Two school ‘champions’ undertook a 12 week training programme then led group sessions with young people.
  • The school utilised online ‘Wiki Sites’. Wikis are simple and accessible, private and secure easy-to-build personal websites. They can be used to create multimedia person-centred plans that use pictures, words, video and sound to capture the voice, skills, aspirations and needs of the individual. Wikis give ownership of the planning process to individuals and families, facilitating genuine collaboration between parents, teachers and professionals.

What specific teaching resources did you use?

  • The online ‘Wiki Sites’ allowed pupils to build their portfolio in different ways, depending on the needs of an individual, for example: a curriculum vitae, a person-centred plan, health action plan, a support plan or a record of achievements.

What CPD experiences, materials, research and expertise have you drawn on?

  • Rix Research & Media is a research and development centre based at the University of East London.
  • Its expertise is in making IT and new media technologies bring real benefit to the learning disability community and beyond. Rix has been delivering Multimedia Advocacy training courses to education and care professionals for almost ten years and has worked with key education, health and care providers in the UK to help them improve their services.
  • At RFHCS we focused particularly on Circles of Support, two stages, first is based on working with the Relationship Circle tool to identify existing people in the person’s life. The second stage is building on the existing Relationship Circle, identifying the gaps and actively finding ways of making new connections and more effective strategies for support.

Outcomes and Impact

What has been the impact on pupil learning?

  • Builds IT skills and self-confidence
  • Creates more effective support network that is focused on improving outcomes
  • Improved opportunities for aspiring, learning and achieving.

Evidence of impact on pupil learning

  • LAMS Reports (Looking at Myself and School)
  • ECM Profile Data
  • Learner Profile
  • Year 11 Outcomes

What has been the impact on teaching?

  • More transparent, child-centred practice.

Evidence of impact on teaching

  • LSAs have developed technical skills and confidence that help them personally and professionally.

What has been the impact on school organisation and leadership?
Outcomes for staff:

  • Gain wider knowledge of applications for IT and assistive technology in the SEN classroom
  • Gain a new understanding of person-centred approaches and how to apply them in your practice
  • Transition arrangements more robust

Evidence of impact on school organisation and leadership

  • Very much In line with SEND policy and new legislation/reforms and Brian Lamb’s report
  • Professional staff development linked to National policy objectives and reforms
  • Develops your services with the latest methods and approaches
  • Improves staff retention with meaningful learning and satisfying personal development

Sharing Practice

If another individual or school was attempting to replicate this work, where should they start?

Contact Rix Research & Media Coordinator at rixadmin@uel.ac.uk or on 0208 223 7561

What would be the essential elements to include?

Appoint school based champions to undertake the online Rix Wiki Builders Course in Multimedia Advocacy

Waldo Roeg is a CNWL Peer Recovery Trainer and an author of the Health and Wellbeing Plan. Two years ago he was invited to be a part of a pilot project which sought to bring multimedia into the trust as a form of self-advocacy.

I have used services for 30 years and I know what it’s like to feel as if you don’t have a voice,” he says “but when I was first shown the Wiki I immediately saw it as a fantastic tool that could be used to help advocate for individuals like myself.”

Since the Wiki’s introduction into the recovery college Waldo has worked alongside Rix to create a Health and Wellbeing plan Wiki.

“I have worked in films for a long time and I love storytelling. I love images and I think they are such a brilliant way of communicating our needs, our loves, and our desires. So to find a tool that is a natural fit with that is really exciting.”

Waldo himself has been developing his own Wiki Health and Wellbeing plan and really enjoys the media aspect of the Wiki.

“We use photographs to capture those important moments in our lives and to connect with not just those moments but with things that are important to us. This element of the Wiki has played a huge part in my rediscovering of my own value which had been lost to a certain degree.”

Unlike the paper plan, the Wiki changes an important element: the focus on the positive over the negative.

“It is a really fantastic vehicle for celebrating a person’s strengths rather than always focusing on the negative and that is of great value within mental health services”

says Waldo. He describes it as a “great vehicle for discussion.” The use of a Health and Wellbeing Plan Wiki is completely voluntary and is owned by the individual.

“Some people will chose not to engage in technology and they are welcome to create their plan however they would like, but there will also be people who will find the Wiki a really great way of actually having a voice that they may not have had before through this new multimedia tool.”

One of the biggest concerns of those considering the Wiki is technology. “I am a computer migrant,” Waldo says of his technology skills “and it took a little bit of getting used to,” but it is a small setback that once overcome can open the doors to a whole new world.

“The landscape of how we communicate, how we understand the world now is through these technological mechanisms. Nobody goes around without a mobile phone today and giving people who have been excluded from a lot of that social networking the opportunity to finally be a part of that social network, of being able to find support through the Wiki, makes a huge difference. We use technology and phones as an extension of ourselves and I think the Wiki is a fantastic opportunity to include people who have been excluded from social connectivity and enable them to have a voice.”

Waldo is excited to bring the Wiki to mental health services and believes that it is a

“universal tool with the capacity to serve a wide array of uses. The Wiki is pushing the boundaries of what people can and can’t do. It is pushing the boundaries of involving people in their own care and being able to advocate for themselves and what their needs are. We need to push those boundaries, be more inclusive and Wikis are the vehicle that are going to do that.”

To view case studies about other users of the Rix Wiki, please click here.