Critical Allies and Critical Friends -stepping stones to facilitating Practice Development

PD offers a structured and robust methodology to achieve necessary, sustainable change in healthcare environments through facilitation (McCormack, et.al. 2013). McCance et.al (2013 ) suggest that facilitation can lead to the... [ view full abstract ]

PD offers a structured and robust methodology to achieve necessary, sustainable change in healthcare environments through facilitation (McCormack, et.al. 2013). McCance et.al (2013 ) suggest that facilitation can lead to the development of transformational leaders and sustained person-centred cultures . Practice Developers therefore, need to be able to develop individuals within the workplace as facilitators of PD and provide work-based learning opportunities to enable individuals to grow. Dewing (2010) describes the process of facilitation in PD as the assisting of others to unlearn the rituals of practice, discovering new ways of learning through PD processes and the applying and sharing of the new learning in their own workplace. Essentially, the PD facilitator becomes the developer of other facilitators. Although various facilitation models exist within PD (e.g. Shaw, et. al., 2008 p147; van Lieshout, 2013), The Critical Companionship (CC) Framework (Titchen, 2000) has remained an often referred to model for use in practice. It aims to provide a theoretical framework for a helpful relationship within work-based learning. However, documented evidence for its application since its inception has been minimal. In part, this may be due to the complexity of the model, its language and the length of time needed to develop expertise in using the model which has been seen as impractical in the current turmoil of practice (Dewing and Wright 2003). As part of a PhD, the CC model has been theoretically examined and two new related models have been developed. The Critical Ally and Critical Friend (Hardiman and Dewing, 2014), were developed to provide stepping stones to enable novice practice developers to grow into facilitation and progress towards the CC model, this presentation will show demonstrate the models and tell you about their use as part of a Participatory Action Research Study .