Blogmas day 3 : Engagement or Compliance?

When I started my first job as a support worker I was absolutely bamboozled by the amount of jargon and acronyms that went along with the role. People would talk about taking a PPO for their DRR  at IOM when they used to be with YOT where they got advice from the CAB about ESA. I had no clue what anyone was saying...99% of the time... for about six months.

I eventually learned what the acronyms meant, then made a pact to use them as little as possible. Because life is more pleasant when we understand each other.

Recently I've made a new pact. I'm not going to use the word 'engagement' any more; because I believe that as a sector we're using it all wrong!

Enter the office of most organisations who support customers with complex needs and you will hear phrases like "He doesn't engage", "she's not engaging", "they're not engaging with support". In fact, if someone gave you a quid every time you heard the word engagement/engage/engaged you could retire before Christmas...and buy a yacht...and probably a jet ski.

Thesaurus.com gives us this lovely list of synonyms for the action of engaging or being engaged:

"participation, taking part, sharing, partaking, involvement, association"

It takes two to tango; and two to engage. It's about support worker's and customers making joint decisions, working together and valuing one another's assets and experience.

When a customer hasn't attended three appointments that a support worker made for him and the worker says "He's not engaging", what they're really saying is this: "He's not doing what I say" and what they mean is "He's not complying"

If your customer isn't engaged then neither are you. What we should really be asking is this: "how do I help my customer to participate/take part/get involved/join in."

There's a time and a place for compliance: airport security, the dentist, bungee jumping.

But supporting people to lead more fulfilling lives shouldn't be about compliance it should be about two way, honest, meaningful engagement; in the truest sense of the word.