!

!24 Jan 14!

To: Participants in New Paths to Inclusion Project Meeting, Madrid!

From: John O’Brien !1

What are we learning?!

The learning field!Creating New Paths to Inclusion is important because the current resting state of our system of organized assistance leaves too many people in settings that limit their freedom and leave them out of diverse opportunities to participate in community life and act as contributing citizens in personal collaboration with others who are not supported by ID services. Shifting this situation requires learning by making deep change in a field that is defined by three related intentions.!

!!! !

!!!!!

� of �1 13

This memo is simply a record of what I heard and thought about during our time together in Madrid and 1

on my way home. Much of what is here is based on my notes, which paraphrase what I heard, but my own reflections are mixed in. For convenience of expression I have presumed a "we" that almost certainly does not exist because each of us experienced the time in our own way. Not everyone will agree with the way I have expressed what I heard. Not everyone will agree with my reflections. There is no claim of completeness, that is for the minutes of the meeting. I have adapted images of Theory U and a table describing levels of listening under a Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA) from The Presencing Institute.

Encouraging action to suport a life that a person has reason to value

through inclusive learningexperiences

Creating a learningorganization with the

capacity to offerperson-centered supportDeveloping opportunities

for community participation & contribution

!The project defines work packages that divide the field into distinct areas of focus, however our shared experience includes all three. Interest in community connection and creating organizations capable of person-centered support emerged from New Paths to Inclusion I, which developed learning opportunities in person-centered thinking and planning. Welcoming people with ID as active participants in learning experiences and gathering people to develop organizational capacity provide practice fields for inclusion. A project role may concern us with developing inclusive learning experiences, but roles outside the project engage many of us in organizational change and support for community engagement. !

What are we learning about time?!Our project unfolds through a tension between two different understandings of what the change we need is like and how change happens. One understanding is the common sense of an EU sponsored project, which unfolds by deploying known procedures on a schedule that defines milestones along the way to predetermined goals. Feedback may lead to some adjustments along the way, but those who propose and those who fund the project agree ahead of time on the route the project will take on a map that they take to describe known territory. A successful project progresses in clock and calendar time (chronos) as pre-planned steps build to the next specified outcome. On this understanding, even innovations are supposed to arrive at a time predicted before the project began.!

!!!!Under chronos, person-centered thinking and planning are trainable procedures to deliver change that will implement The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New Paths II will refine the delivery of training to make it accessible to people with ID and deliver and disseminate additional training modules that will train people in the practices necessary to increase community engagement and change

� of �2 13

YEAR 1 J F M A M J J A S O N D

12345

chronos(Χρόνος)

organizations so that they are capable of implementing person-centered plans and making community connections.!

The logic of chronos serves good purposes. It provides a means of coordination and accountability between sponsor and project and among those who implement the project. It offers structure and sequence and controls expenditure. Agreeing on who will do what by what date can be an important part of action planning. A support plan that clearly specifies what has been agreed with service providers and funders is an important instrument for assuring that people know what to expect from services. Chronos also has a shadow. It can value prediction and control at the expense of deeper understanding, insight, innovation and co-creation. It can leave mental models that inhibit development intact and relationships that unnecessarily compromise the autonomy and contribution of people with ID comfortably unquestioned. Chronos is necessary but insufficient for exploring new paths to inclusion.!

Learning in New Paths II moves in a second kind of time, kairos, a moment in which a compelling opening toward a new possibility emerges. It is important that kairos move our learning, otherwise we will simply make incremental improvements and leave the current regime of marginalization and supervision largely intact for people with ID. If we approach change as though we are independent actors, improving a system that we stand outside as objective diagnosticians and intervenors as if we were upgrading a computer application, our learning will be too superficial to make much difference. We are a part of the system we are changing and the way we direct our attention has a great potential to shift the way we operate. When we reflect-in-action (direct the beam 2

of our attention back on itself to notice our patterns of sensation and thinking), we can notice when we are caught in downloading the old story and expand our sense of the new story we want to create and how we want to create it. Often our assumptions promote the illusion that the system of interest is “out there” and close our eyes to the ways we are trying to lift what we are standing on. (Placing kairos at the bottom of the U is my responsibility, not the practice of the Presencing Institute.)!

!

� of �3 13

As a matter of interest, in ancient Greek kairos is also the word for “the weather” and the plural, kairoi, 2

means “the times we are in”; thus it indicates our environment and the trends and force expressing themselves in our world as well as our sense of the moment within it.

!!!

!!!!!!!We can’t command or control kairos, but we can notice moments of opening and act from our awareness of them. Kairos does not exist for us apart from our awareness of it. The ancient Greeks knew that unless we have the courage to notice, grasp and step into the future opened in the moment, that moment will speed away out of our reach.!

Kairos moments can be disorienting. Our sense of time shifts. An hour in the flow of dialogue or co-creation can seem to pass in a moment. A few minutes deep listening on the clock can be experienced as a very long time. Elements of the old story that have seemed certain fall away as new possibilities call us. Insight reframes our work and points us in new directions.!

We have adopted Theory U as a guide to our learning. The practices associated with Presencing provide the opportunity to notice and act into kairos moments in the learning field as our deeper listening prepares the way for us to let go of the old story and open ourselves to a future story that better expresses our highest potential and purpose.!

!!!!

� of �4 13

kairos(καιρός)

let go let come

observeobserveobserve

What is my highest potential?What is my work, my purpose?

act in aninstant

!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aware of kairos, supporting people to learn person-centered thinking and person-centered planning becomes more than training participants to apply techniques. We want to offer people time and support to consider the meaning that inclusion holds for them; where they are now, individually and organizationally, in their experience of inclusion; what it will take to move farther into a new story of inclusion; and what intentional action they take in order to make the new story real. The practices presented in the modules offer good ways into deeper listening and learning when we guide them with Theory U in mind. The experience of interdependence as participants support one another through practices like MAPS and PATH communicates a critically important dimension of person-centered work: we experience the fact at the heart of inclusion, we can’t do it alone.!

Sensing journeys and organizational sensing events become occasions for practicing deeper levels of listening. As we observe others, we notice critical dimensions of our

� of �5 13

I-in-me

Empathiclistening

seeing throughanother person’s eyes;

emotional connection;reflecting on the rules

LISTENING 3:open to others

I-in-you

Generativelistening(from the

futurewanting to emerge)

connecting to anemerging futue

whole;shift in identity & self;generating new rules

LISTENING 4:open to collective

intelligenceI-in-now

I-in-it

Factuallistening(noticing

differences)

looking fordisconfirming

data;revealing the rules

LISTENING 2:open to

facts

–– voice of judgment ––

OpenMind

–– voice of cynicism ––

OpenHeart

–– voice of fear––

OpenWill

Downloading(habits of

judgement)

reconfirming old opinions &

judgements;following the rules

LISTENING 1:from habits

situation that have been in our blind spot. This provides the occasion to practice the discipline of asking “what is the pattern of thinking that has kept me from recognizing this?” This discipline surfaces world-shaping assumptions that can then be challenged in action.!

As participants encounter moments of kairos it becomes clear that the project is not one big U, proceeding in an orderly progression, but many small U’s, emerging as participants in groups and individually open their minds, hearts and will to new perceptions and possibilities.!

!!!!!!!!!!These two orientations to time are not just relevant to the project. The project mirrors a tension that shows up at every level of change. Person-centered planning can happen simply in chronos time as a paper plan to achieve obvious objectives or the plan can be the footprint of a process that makes space for kairos and reflects a person’s higher potential and purpose. Community connecting can be a reasonably simple matter of scheduling interesting outings or it can reflect a sense of how people’s capacities can contribute to other citizens. An organizational change effort can be just a matter of re-writing mission, vision and goals or it can reflect a deeper appreciation of possibilities that is the fruit of making time to move through the U.!

� of �6 13

kairos(καιρός)

YEAR 1 J F M A M J J A S O N D

12345

chronos(Χρόνος)

What are we learning about professional contributions to inclusion?!Reflection on current practice reveals a need for professionals to re-think the way they understand their work. There are aspects of clinical practice that can succeed in the form of an expert-client relationship in which the professional contribution consists of identifying a problem and administering a solution: crafting proper seating or suggesting useful ways to regulate anxiety or avoid choking for example. Inclusion, however, is a co-creation among equals who bring different capacities into discovering a new pathway to contribution. !

We notice ourselves rethinking the professional role. In the work of creating inclusive settings there is no real foundation of expertise that justifies professional authority and direction. But we notice, and want to rise above, a number of ways in which us-them, one-up (professional expert) one-down (client) thinking can show up.!

• As we explore the relationship between people with ID and community we have become aware of the need for radical change in the structure of services. Mostly, professionals have designed and delivered services to people within the boundaries of programs that professionals set up and operate. Our programs often assume, at least implicitly, that communities are unwelcoming and, if we don’t ignore communities entirely, we must do something to communities to make them ready to include people with ID. But people already on new paths to inclusion have discovered that communities are not as hostile to people with ID as we may have assumed. The greatest barriers to community participation are not out there in communities but in our own support structures and relationships with the people and families we serve. We must shift from operating a separate social sphere for “them” to supporting people to make the most of community opportunities.!

• The word, community, is problematic in several ways. It is ambiguous both in English 3

and in translation. This makes it messy for professionals who prefer to practice in precisely defined terms. It also makes it easy to reduce inclusion to what is easy. “Community” can be taken to mean “anywhere that is not inside a building operated by a service provider”. Community –and related terms like “natural support” and “self-direction”– can mask a neo-liberal agenda to cut government investment in services or

� of �7 13

In Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society, Raymond Williams points out that “community” is a 3

word virtually without negative connotations; thus it can be attached to warm up almost any cause or concept.

provide cover to a xenophobic political tendency to exclude people whose differences they devalue. Maybe most important for our work, it can homogenize perception of a particular social world that is diverse and interesting and filled with conflicts into a vague abstraction or a simple directory of local things to do. Like other citizens, professionals need to be critically aware of the multiple streams of civic conversation (discourses) intended to shape, develop or appeal to the notion of community and mindful in their choice of which to criticize and which to join and support. New allies can be recruited from among those engaged in such work as community development or organizing for environmental sustainability or celebrating a form of difference. As partners in inclusion, professionals need to be attentive to the particular diversity that comprises specific places. Most places contain a multiplicity of possibilities for association and contribution. New paths to inclusion will emerge through a fine grained search for opportunities based on each individual person’s capacities and interests!

• Professional roles often carry the expectation that professionals are the source of authoritative predictions, judgments and answers. They “know best” about people with ID. Managers are even more likely to carry the expectation that they will be a source of certainty and stability. Making the changes necessary to support people in finding new paths to inclusion creates uncertainty and disequilibrium. We need to join people in trying things that seldom work out as planned and sometimes don’t work at all. This move outside everyone’s comfort zone can generate creative action and excitement but sometimes the excitement shows up as anxiety or fear or a sense of being lost that freezes action. Theory U can help by identifying the Three Enemies (the voices of judgement, cynicism and fear) as signals of potential movement in a creative direction but it can be hard work to re-frame managerial and professional roles in terms of partnership and co-creation in a social space of learning.!

• Professional and managerial voices have influence. Others take cues from the honesty with which these voices identify contradictions, things that aren't working and big changes that are necessary. Spaces like the sensing events that organizational change participants are testing can be designed and conducted in a way that invites deeper levels of listening and allows professionals and managers to be role models of openness to clear assessments of current reality and the possibilities to create a new story.!

� of �8 13

• “Professional” as we used it is a broad term. It includes people with specialist roles and a status recognized by society as professional. It also includes direct support staff whom people count on day-to-day for assistance. In some places these staff themselves may struggle with social exclusion or with limited or traumatic life experiences. Addressing inclusion may demand effort for some support workers as well as people with ID and their families.!

• Participating in creating a culture that supports innovation can be a key role for professional and managers. This culture expresses an energy that visitors can feel. It is welcoming, values difference, provides good reasons for people to feel they have a voice in the way things go, opens to trying new things, and more excited than guarded and fearful.!

• We may have assumed that professionals can predict who is “ready” for inclusion and who is not; who “the community” is “ready” for and who would not be welcome. We might have assumed that people who are more obviously capable, people whose impairments are less visible, will find acceptance more easily. These assumptions are frequently proven false. Interest seems a better predictor of meaningful engagement with other citizens than assumptions about impairments do. Experience shows that sometimes people with obvious impairments are easier for community members to accommodate than those whose impairments are less visible.!

• We can think of inclusion as if it were a sort of treatment for isolation; something that objective and detached professionals provide to people with ID for their benefit. Experience with inclusive courses that people with ID join from an interest in learning person-centered ways of thinking and planning shows the fallacy in this way of thinking. Inclusion is an emergent property of a particular situation in which everybody takes responsibility for claiming the right to be part of a diverse community of equals. It is a social creation for which everyone engaged in a common project holds responsibility. Inclusion benefits and challenges everyone involved. Everyone grows and learns in proportion to their engagement and openness. Organizational and community development happens best when all can perceive space for personal development.!

• When there is time and openness for a shared sensing process, we have experienced a level of contribution to thinking and subsequent action that shows how limited many

� of �9 13

of our efforts to plan with or consult people can be. This exposes the limits of an understanding of person-centered planning that reduces it to a consumer-supplier transaction in which the person with ID makes their wishes known to professionals. The quality of attention that a group achieves affects everyone’s sense of possibility and commitment. Experience shows that person with ID is as likely to contribute to creating a deeper understanding as a professional or a manager is (and that a manager or a professional is as likely to distract the process or listen poorly as a person with ID is). !

• Offering advice when another person raises a concern is almost an automatic response. One that can make sense when the request if for information or an opinion. However it is worth being mindful about giving advice because it can represent an unthinking assertion of the voice of judgement: “I know better than you what you should do and I understand your concern better than you do.” It can block the shared understanding that could result from making time for a deeper level of listening.!

What are we learning about the conditions for change?!Organizations face a choice about the mix of ways they will deploy to shift their structures and practices toward supports for contributing citizenship. Most provider organizations are hierarchies and many belong to national federations. In a hierarchy instructions flow from the top down through the exercise of authority. In a federation it is common for the center to structure incentives such as accreditation schemes and quality improvement projects that will attract members to buy in. They market new ideas through campaigns, special projects, and conferences and training orchestrated to deliver the message and the skills assumed necessary to implement the change. These are well recognized and legitimate tactics that many managers are skilled in using, often to good effect.!

Our experience with person-centered work and Theory U points to a different approach to change. Effective support for a good life can't be delivered in a detached way. It is a co-creation of people and their allies and those who offer paid support. The quality of co-creation depends on the level of listening and the degree of openness to learning through action that embraces people and their allies. People can’t be commanded or incentivized or sold on listening more deeply or acting more courageously and creatively. Setting the conditions for these qualities to emerge and make a difference

� of �10 13

generates real and meaningful experiences that create a desire for more. For some of us, Theory U offers a useful conceptual map of a deeper change process and practices that allow us to embody the theory. Making courses more inclusive has produced 4

additional important messages about the conditions for co-creating inclusion.!

• Authentic intention to co-create inclusive experiences is the foundation.!

• It is hard but necessary work to compose a diverse group who share an interest (in this case in learning about the forms of person-centered work that will support the right to live in an inclusive community). Assumptions about responsibilities and capacities may surface as resistance. (E.g. professionals or managers may assume that people with ID will be unable to comprehend or somehow need to be protected from being upset by the experience.)!

• Relationship is the way to inclusion…!

… make time and create occasions for relationships to develop!

… people with responsibility for managing the process approach others in a personal way!

… hold structure loosely enough to allow people to build on the spontaneous learning possibilities that will emerge when people feel free and able to influence the process!

… less input is more: less predetermined content makes room for people to make things their own by practicing and talking with one another about how an idea or a practice could make a difference in their life and work; inclusion results from shared action!

… it can be harder to people who have more formal education and are more accustomed to structured training activities to join comfortably in a more open and emergent space; all of us are challenged by inclusion and sometimes people with ID are not the ones in need of support!

… don’t over provide for assistance: people can often support one another without detracting from the task!

• People with ID are often an important resource in creating inclusion, don’t unthinkingly assume that inclusion is something granted or provided by people

� of �11 13

See http://www.presencing.com/tools/u-browser 4

without ID. People without ID can use their power to keep people out, make them unwelcome or ignore them but once people are recognized as part of a group they can have considerable influence on generating inclusion. !

• Be thoughtful and assure that each person has a role.!

• Pay attention to accommodations: assure physical accessibility; easy-read materials.!

• Inclusion is an emergent phenomenon. If people have the courage to try, moments of learning will occur and ideas that are new to everyone will show up. Even tries that don’t work out well are a part of the process, especially when they are. acknowledged and lead to adjustments. It is far better to try including people, even if it seems to go badly at some moments, than not to try at all.!

• Reflect and make improvements!

Setting conditions for a pattern of change shaped by Theory U asks managers to move outside the mindset of direct and control or market and sell. The trust that this demands in people and the creativity that deeper listening can set free strains habits common in many organizations. That’s why small scale, low stakes activities like training events are more likely to be available as spaces for learning inclusion than service provision settings are.!

What are we learning about sharing our learning?!The people working to develop more inclusive courses observe that the experience of inclusion that happens when people genuinely work together opens a one way gate. Once you have the experience, you can’t unmake it and be satisfied to go back. This doesn’t mean that you know how to create the conditions for inclusion in every circumstance, just that the same words mean something extra, more important. Experience opens the way to different perceptions. Those of us who have had the chance to become more familiar with Theory U have experienced the extent to which it is an embodied approach which is communicated primarily through the experience of shared practices, such as dialogue interviews, rather than discursively. We have also experienced the extent to which terms like “person-centered” and “inclusion” have been stretched to apply to every common practice even when that practice depersonalizes and segregates people. Words seem insufficient, even misleading.!

This poses a challenge in meeting the project’s responsibility to disseminate. We can report activities but our insights and discoveries are harder to capture. Stories that

� of �12 13

provide glimpses of people’s experience seem to a better bet than essays like this one. Instructions and models for actions that will offer new experiences are a good possibility. Creating the three dissemination modules will offer a practice field for exploring these issues. !

!!!!!!

� of �13 13

The project is carried out with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the