Learning Together North West Ltd

MEANINGFUL INVOLVEMENT OF PEOPLE IN RECRUITMENT AND D.CLIN.PSY INTERVIEWS

Ruth Dobson – Learning Together North West Ltd

Mark Howard – Learning Together North West Ltd

Bev Liver – Learning Together North West Ltd

Emma Munks, Lancaster University

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO GET INVOLVED?

• Inclusion is a key driver in all recent policy guidance

from the NHS (e.g. ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: A new

direction for community services (DoH, 2006)

• Competency based interviewing process is used by

many large organisations and advised by Occ Psychs

• Observe candidates in a real life interaction (in tray

task – validity in employment recruitment

processes)

• Inclusion of people with learning disabilities in LD

service development/interviews is hard to achieve

(e.g. , Bollard, Lahiff & Parkes, 2012; Matka et al. 2010)

“Moving on from

being the passive

recipients of

services, actively

involving

people in a true and

meaningful way, is a

reflection of a

positive culture.”

HQIP Service User

Network (SUN)

member

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO BE INVOLVED?

• It will improve the quality of the process – everyone can be part of it in a

meaningful way

• People with learning disabilities can get their voice heard

• Everyone involved in the programme, trainees, staff and other clinical

psychologists getting to know us and what we can do

• Feedback ‘I didn’t know people with learning disabilities could do this’ –

breaking down barriers

• Helping the programme to choose the right people to make good clinical

psychologists of the future

MEANINGFUL INVOLVEMENT

• Salford LD Psychology Team

• Improve recruitment

• Avoid tokenism – meaningful involvement

• Inspired by Lancs D.Clin.Psy competency based approach

• Introduced a task (build a tower/bridge)

• Lancaster D.Clin.Psy

• Similar issues

• Meet and Greet

• Implemented Tower Task

LANCASTER D.CLIN.PSY -MEET AND GREET ROLE

• Welcome people arriving for the

interviews

• Shake their hand and ask them

to follow you to the candidate base

room

• Introduce candidates to the admin

team to check in

• While candidates are waiting chat

to the candidates to put them at

their ease

PHOTOGRAPHER ROLE

• Take photos of candidates to go onto their interview folders

• Ask them to sit in front of camera

• Make sure name badge is showing

• Make sure face is in middle of camera shot

• Take the photograph and ask candidate if happy with it – if not take another one

THE TASK

• At Lancaster we use a competency and value based interviewing process

• The task = to build something (e.g. a tower or a bridge) together (candidate and person with LD) & allows the following to be observed:

• Ability to engage/collaborate

• Adapt communication style as needed

• How ‘authority’ is being used

• Ability to manage process when under time pressure

• Which maps onto the competencies we consider in the selections process

• Cost effective and low tech

THE TOWER TASK

Tower Contract Brief - Information (Part 1)

From the material on the table you have to build a

tower that can support a £1 coin. The tower can be

of any design but it must be free-standing and you

can only use the material on the table.

TIME: You have 5 minutes to complete the building

of the tower

Tower Contract Brief - Information (Part 2)

Your team has entered a competition to generate

profit from a building exercise. Number of items

used and height of the structure will be counted/

measured.

TIME:You have 2 minutes to complete this part of

the task

Costs and Income calculations - Cost of

materials - £100 per item; £1,000 per cm of tower

(height)

TRAINING TO DO THE TOWER TASK

• Half day training for everyone who wants to take part

• What is a Clinical Psychologist?

• What makes a good/not so good psychologist – knowing what we are looking out for

• How to do the task (and having a go!)

• How to give feedback on the candidates

• Looking out for ourselves – what to do if you had a difficult time with a candidate – feeding back and support

• Visit to interview venue

THE PANEL BASE ROOM & FACILITATOR ROLE

• While people are waiting to take part in the

panels and do the Tower task – opportunities to

connect with each other – via games,

conversation, computer games to relax everyone

while waiting (& have fun!)

Facilitator role

• Preparation & recap what needed to do for the

Tower Task just before being called by panel

• Debrief and check in for Tower Task panel

members as they came back

• Check in with meet and greeters

DOING THE TASK

• Doing the training helped to know what ‘good’ looked like and what to look for –not always the best tower!

• Our experiences of doing the task

• Been fantastic- especially liked the different ways people do it (Mark what do you think?)

• Really enjoyed it – been a bit of a challenge - but thought would go with it and see where it goes and enjoyed it

• Liked how two of the candidates I was doing the tower task with shook my hand at the start – that made me feel like they would be good to talk to about my problems

GIVING FEEDBACK TO THE PANEL

• I felt a bit nervous giving feedback because I wanted to get it

right – meeting the panel before the interviews started

helped me to feel less nervous and put me at ease (Mark

what do you think?)

• Getting to know the panel members before the interviews

really helped to put me at ease, the panel gave me good eye

contact in a really nice way which helped me to say what I

wanted to say

• When I gave my feedback to Richard (the chair of the panel)

he wrote down what I said and read it back to me to make

sure it was right – I liked that it made me feel listened to

• I really enjoyed being part of the team – I liked people saying

they missed me not being in the meet and greet room when I

was doing the tower task

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TAKING PART?

• I was very excited to be asked to take part

• I liked being in a position of supporting trainees and staff

• I get butterflies before doing it!

• I get a buzz from doing it!

• First I was unsure but watched my colleague doing meet and greet so

knew what to do and how to do it – learning from each other

• It built up my confidence in meeting people and starting conversations

• It is good to be valued as a person who has skills and things to contribute

• I felt listened to and my thoughts and what I said was taken seriously

• We need to get word out there that we have lots to offer

• It was a new challenge and a new experience – having the opportunity to

be pushed out of our comfort zones to try something new

• To boldly going where no one has gone before!!!

FEEDBACK ON PROCESS – LANCSINTERVIEWS

• Programme team – evidence gained from observing

candidates in the tower task – qualitatively different to that in

other parts of process – more ‘real’ as candidate had to react

to person in front of them – incr validity of task

• Amplified candidates abilities in both positive and negative

ways e.g. use of authority

• Trainee “I found that I was more at ease during the tower

task. Upon reflection, I feel that the tower task produced a

version of me that was closest to my ordinary self”

FEEDBACK ON PROCESS – LANCSINTERVIEWS

• Challenging assumptions

• People with LD / Autism can

take part and provide really

meaningful and helpful insights

within the recruitment process

• Breaking down barriers

• Working together and eating

together as colleagues

• People are more used to one

another

ANY QUESTIONS?

With thanks to all those who have taken part in the recruitment processes – people with IDs, carers, panel members and interviewees.

Learning Together North West Ltd

REFERENCES

• Matka, E. River, D. Littlechild, R. & Powell, P (2010). Involving Service Users and Carers in Admissions for Courses in Social Work and Clinical Psychology: Cross-Disciplinary Comparison of Practices at the University of Birmingham.The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 40, Issue 7, 1 October 2010, Pages 2137–2154, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcp142

• Prescott, L. Westbrook, J & McGarry, J. (2017). An initial review and analysis of the recruitment process involving service users and carers for assistant psychologists. Clinical Psychology Forum 296, 16- 21.