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Guides Resources
CRITICAL COMPANIONSHIP RESOURCE GUIDE: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Critical companionship is a non-hierarchical, person-centred, experiential facilitation of learning relationship in which the facilitator accompanies a person or people on a learning journey and helps them to go where they want to go (Titchen, 2004). Within a trusting relationship and using high challenge/high support, companions enable co- learning and inquiry with the person(s) they are accompanying. As an example of co-learning, leaders, facilitators, mentors or clinical supervisors, with no previous experience of being a critical companion, might negotiate help for learning how to become one from the person they are accompanying. The inquiry focus for that person might be, for example, how to become an effective strategic enabling leader or embedded researcher. Whatever the inquiry focus, human flourishing for all involved is the ultimate outcome aimed for.
Developed by Angie Titchen and Kim Manley, this resource guide began life as an online guide for the Multi-Professional Consultant Practice (MPCP) programme. This programme, led by Carrie Jackson, Kim Manley and Renee Ward, was created for aspiring consultant practitioners who, already with expertise in person-centred professional practice in health or social care, wanted to progress their careers to become consultant practitioners. The six-month programme was developed and piloted, collaboratively, by the IMPact Research group, University of east Anglia (UEA) and East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) (see profiles of contributors here). Each participant was to have an external critical companion for the six-month online programme, but unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, preparation of the external companion was minimal, the CC team were not involved, and it seemed to focus on the nature of critical companionship and discussion about its difference from mentorship and clinical supervision.
Angie, the originator of the critical companionship concept, saw this programme as an opportunity for aspiring consultants, not only to experience co-learning through co-inquiry with their external facilitator, but also trying it out with other participants in their small group sessions. Another opportunity was to help participants understand that, over time, they would be able to use the critical companionship role or its processes and strategies within the various roles (domains) of consultant practice.
companions. The videos were piloted in the programme with agreement that they would subsequently become freely available online and potentially go beyond the consultant practitioner career progression to other professional roles. Some of these colleagues also helped us facilitate small, online group work sessions with participants during the programme.
Critical companionship video & resource guide: Facilitating career progression from person-centred practice to person centred systems
We conclude from our experience, that whilst the videos and resources were made for the aspiring consultant practitioner programme, they could be useful to professionals wanting to become critical companions in their own professional roles, contexts and settings. They are freely available (link to WHO IS THE RESOURCE GUIDE FOR? (below in this working document)
If you wondering what critical companionship is, here is an introductory slide show and there are starter references here.
GUIDE COMPONENTS
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The components of this Resource Guide include videos, creative imagery, articles, transcripts, learning tools, recommended reading and references. They are tailored for each of the five domains of multi-professional consultant practice. In addition, there is a Main References guide and Impact section which is relevant across all the domains.
Critical companionship video & resource guide: Facilitating career progression from person-centred practice to person centred systems
WHO IS THIS RESOURCE GUIDE FOR?
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Health and social care partner organisations to support workforce development and transformation
Facilitation expertise is one of the three key workforce enablers required for whole system workforce transformation (Manley et al, 2014). It is catalytic for increasing effectiveness in consultant practice and systems leadership (Manley & Titchen, 2016) and is one of the arms of the Venus model for sustainable person-centred whole system workforce transformation (Manley & Jackson, 2020).
Critical companionship is an approach to facilitation that focuses on creating the conditions and cultures for person-centred, experiential facilitation in the workplace relevant to many aspects of professional work, as well as the five domains of consultant practice.
Critical companionship has its early origins in the swampy lowlands of practice and the research, ‘Freedom to Practice’, illustrated below in role modelling and developing practice knowledge.
This resource will enable health and social care organisations to:
· Prepare experienced practitioners, within the organisation or outside, as critical companions through experiential programmes of support. This is important because experienced practitioners are likely to be skilled for example, in clinical supervision or mentorship, which are different from critical companionship. For example, critical companionship is non-hierarchical and focuses on mutual co-learning and co-inquiry relationships with health and social care professionals, citizens, peers, partners and stakeholders. These relationships are necessary for system transformation that meets the needs of people, communities and what matters to them (RESOURCE)
· Support health and social care staff aspiring to become multi-professional consultant practitioners as systems leaders, embedded researchers and contributing to workforce development and transformation.
· Enable opportunities for staff to use critical companionship within their working relationships with colleagues and the people using their services, for example, the Integrated Multiprofessional Clinical Leadership Programme, led by Kim Manley at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust in which Karen Hammond (a midwife) facilitated a surgeon using critical companionship (see video) and Claire Hardwick (see video) a speech and language specialist developed from experiencing critical companionship to enabling others with its principles. Four different professions (a psychiatrist, a nurse, a microbiologist and a speech and language therapist) demonstrate the impact of this programme on moving their workplaces from fractured to flourishing cultures in McKeller et al (2021).
This resource will enable universities, professional bodies and charities to:
· Develop experiential, ‘practice-first then theory’ programmes for health and social care professionals (in collaboration with health & social care partner organisations)
· Support individual accreditation of portfolio/other evidence of workplace capabilities and impact.
This guide will enable health and social care practitioners, clinical supervisors, aspiring consultant practitioners or service leaders to:
· develop their own skills as critical companions in their workplace
This person-centred guide is NOT a ready-made course or programme, but of course, it could be used to contribute to one!
SYMBOLISM & STRUCTURE OF THE GUIDE
In this guide, we use the metaphor of a tree in an ecological system to:
· Symbolise a career progression journey for health and social care professionals moving from micro level (professional practice with service users and colleagues) through mezzo level (working at organisational and local levels) to macro (working across systems at local, regional, national and international levels) (see McCormack et al, 2008)
· Structure the relevant videos and resources for the micro to macro career progression
· Provide easy access to videos by putting the numbers along the branches of the tree as in our earlier drawing.
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* Impact at micro/mezzo level
** Impact at systems level
*** Early Impact at national level
THE CAREER PROGRESSION JOURNEY
Like a tree, this journey has ‘roots’ which are introduced in the Domain 1 video conversations exploring the origins and experience of critical companionship over time. The ‘trunk’ of our metaphorical tree symbolises the building of person-centred critical companionship relationships and learning how to learn experientially through co-learning and co-inquiry journeys.
The tree has five ‘branches’ which symbolise the five Domains of consultant practice. Each Domain contains its relevant videos and resources. Starter and main references to published work about critical companionship across the domains are also offered.
The branches (domains) are connected, via the trunk, as people develop their skills and expertise which are likely to be carried forward and back through the branches in a kind of synthesis or dance, if you like!
· Domain 1: Building on Expert Person-centred Practice through Critical Companionship (tree roots, trunk, Link to Starter References (branch 1)
· Domain 2: Learning, Developing and Improving (branch 2)
· Domain 3: Strategic, enabling leadership (branch 3)
· Domain 4: Embedded research (branch 4)
· Domain 5: Working across systems (branch 5)
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Titchen A. & McCormack B. (Eds) (2020) Dancing the Mandalas of Critical Creativity in Nursing and Healthcare: A Collection of New Work, Published Papers, Book Chapters, Creative Media and Blog Entries with Weaving Commentary, Queen Margaret University Centre for Person-centred Practice Research, Edinburgh, pp 88-104. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63db91e748c7a40b642fb577/t/67872c1b376dca06ae41272b/1736911946801/Final_published_ebook.pdf
(This e-book is now housed on the Person-Centred Practice International Community of Practice (P-CP ICoP)website at the University of Sydney. It is freely available and downloadable through the link above. It takes critical companionship into the new paradigm that Brendan McCormack and Angie Titchen describe as Critical Creativity. It contains many colourful, practical descriptions of critical-creative companionship in action. Some of these chapters were written with video makers in this Resource Guide).
Relating to our woodland ecological system metaphor, the flowers and leaves symbolise the growth of ‘flourishing cultures with impact’. Moreover, through the production of seeds and fruits, this tree contributes over time to growth of the whole forest/woodland system which in turn, nourishes and enhances, through our tree’s roots, the workplace context.
In the programme for which this guide was originally developed, applicants had already demonstrated that they had expertise in person-centred professional practice at micro level. As far as we are aware, none of them had done this supported by a critical companion.
Therefore, in Domain 1, we offer:
· Two video stories of whole journeys (from micro and mezzo levels to working across systems at macro (consultancy) level) and being a critical companion along the way
· A link to Starter references for setting out on the journey to critical companionship.
Domains 2-5 follow a structural pattern:
· Videos demonstrating the domain in action in different professions, settings, contexts and countries in relation to the five branches of the tree
· Links to:
o Main References (relevant across domains) - annotated to help people identify which paper or book chapter is helpful to them at their point in the journey
o Starter References (annotated)
o Recommended reading for a particular branch/domain
· Links to resources particular to a domain
· Links to resources, e.g., articles, learning materials/tools
HOW CAN I USE ACCESS AND USE THESE RESOURCES?
Although the materials were created for the MPCP programme for multi-professional aspiring or consultant practitioners, the videos and resources are flexible and relevant to practitioners in any health or social care context, role or wherever they may be in their career progression.
Video makers have donated their videos/materials to NICHE on the University of East Anglia website. Whilst the individual ownership of the intellectual property remains with the respective donors, they have agreed for these to be made freely available. This means: (1) there is no payment for use of the videos/materials; (2) permission to use them does not have to be sought from the donor and (3) people can choose to use them either unmodified, or tailor them according to their specific needs and contexts.
This Critical Companionship Video & Resource Guide is hosted by the Norfolk Initiative for Coastal and rural Health Equalities (NICHE, School of Health Sciences), which has been funded by Health Education England (East of England). The co-directors, Professor Sally Hardy and Professor Jonathon Webster and Joanne Odell, NICHE Senior Research Fellow, have been long involved in critical companionship and its development.
Critical Companionship Framework
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Images created by A Titchen and M. Codd
The content of this page is the Intellectual property of A. Titchen and K. Manley. This does not mean that you cannot use any of the content on this website, please feel free to use it in anyway you see fit.