Introducing the Now & Next approach

Now and Next is a capacity building initiative for families of young children with special needs and co-designed with them. The program is evidence-based and data is collated in real time throughout the sessions for quality control and to ensure that participants' experience is optimal.

Our evaluation framework includes standardised tools that measure the impact of our work. We are gradually building data for each level and you can follow our progress by exploring this site.

This family capacity building initiative works on 3 groups of people: families raising a child with needs or not meeting their milestones, peer families who enroll in our leadership training and professionals who support families.

Our research follows each of these three groups of people as they engage, train and expand their knowledge and become part of collective communities.

Now and Next is the first totally ‘by families, for families’ program of its kind to be offered in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada and expanding. By challenging the traditional ‘grief’ mindset often associated with these families, and replacing grief with the concept of overwhelm and the promise of growth, Now and Next supports families to engage in authentic, creative visioning for their child and for themselves.

The program begins with a visioning session, followed by an 8 week, 2.5 hour per week, or a 4 full day protocol. Program elements are aimed at progressing children’s goals by engaging their families. Through interactive group work, the program supports families to vision, plan, set goals, and develop goals into action, in the context of a peer led environment.

The co-founders of www.nowandnext.org

Annick (L) and Sylvana (R) at the 2015 NDIS New World Brisbane conference

Sylvana Mahmic is CEO of Plumtree Australia with 28 years’ experience in the early childhood intervention field. She promotes peer work and has incubated two new peer led organisations. She is completing her PhD on individualised funding and supports her son to self-manage his funding.
Dr. Annick Janson, Research Affiliate, Victoria University of Wellington, is a New Zealand-based clinical psychologist and researcher, focusing on changing the Health and Disability sector through family collective leadership. She was awarded a Gallup International Positive Psychology Fellowship.

For the above colour code reference see our Theory of Change

At a glance

Now and Next was launched in 2015 at Plumtree, Marrickville, NSW by parents who sought to share their lived-experience as well as their professional expertise in the Health and Disability sector. With the benefit of hindsight, they asked: “What would the best intervention for professionals and parents to ensure a good life for our children and families?” They applied ethnography, positive psychology and family-centered design thinking to implement radically new solutions and harness previously untapped expertise and enthusiasm.

The Now and Next program was co-designed over a year with the first 80 families who joined it
To 2020 end, 899 participants graduated from 104 programs, 70% of our programs run online
Programs were carried out in 4 countries: Australia, Finland, New Zealand and Canada
Families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD) represent 48.5% of the participants
Fathers’ engagement range between a quarter to half participants, depending on the activities organised
Groups have been run in Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic and Chinese
The Now and Next suite of programs were developed for other participants and age groups: 354 people graduated from 29 programs, including educators, youth and parents of school age children.

The Now and Next program

The illustration below shows how this evidence-based program builds layer after layer of family empowerment through understanding.

Parents describe the program

Parents describe what the Now and Next program meant for them. Some decide to train as Peer Workers and are now working to facilitate some of our workshops with parents and professionals.

Program outcomes

Parents empowering each other as peers and growing their informal supports and networks - our role is to assist families empower each other.
Family leadership development and capacity building
Families learn to formulate goals and the next steps to take goals to action
Families experience crafting effective relationships with professionals to achieve goals for their children and themselves
Participants learning transferable skills in the mental health and long term conditions and for different age groups
Evidence-based and collecting data on a real time basis, during programs through a bespoke platform

By and for families - What is a Peer Worker?

Now and Next workshops are facilitated by Peer Workers. Peer Workers are defined as people with a lived, personal experience who are trained and employed to support others (their peers) who face similar challenges.

Peer workers have been shown to:

- - Increase hope and optimism of clients,
  - Promote holistic and inclusive services and approaches,
  - Decrease social isolation,
  - Encourage active participation of service users,
  - Help individuals develop self-management and coping strategies
  - Foster strengths- based approaches in families.

Peer Workers can fulfil a multitude of roles. Event Coordination, administration, project management, graphic design and more. Peer Facilitators refer to Peer Workers who facilitate workshops, in this case Now and Next.

Setting a vision

Our first session builds on the positive psychology principle of envisaging the future with hope. Participants engage in planning through our purpose-built Pictability kit, which they keep for future planning. Click on the clip below to watch a short introduction of Pictability. Click here for more information on using Pictability within the Now and Next program.

Background

Despite the increasing uptake of family capacity-building theory in past decades, there is a dearth of practical tools to support its implementation in Early Intervention, to complement traditional discussion or assessment-based goal setting. We therefore expanded on earlier co-design with parents raising a child with disability or developmental delay, and tested practitioner experiential training.

Pictability described - our innovative vision-setting tool

Pictability(TM) is a game-like tool for parents to create their positive, strength-based vision for their child, their family and themselves. During the vision setting activity participants:

Select images to represent their child’s strengths
Choose images, ranging from concrete to abstract, from which they:
- - Formulate and write goals for their child, their families and themselves
  - Assemble these long-term aspirational goals on a Vision Board
Select one goal per category
Formulate first steps to achieve each goal, and Assemble these short-term goals onto an engaging ‘Action Board’, clearly delineating focus and action points.

Pictability visuals were co-designed with families to build capacity and inspire wellbeing and flourishing (Adler & Seligman, 2016), and they were informed by evidence about how parents used Individualised Funding to achieve their goals (Mahmic & Janson, 2018).

The tool includes multiple cards and boards designed to support parents expanding on ideas to create deeper and more meaningful (i.e., developmental, social, learning) children goals as well as family and personal goals for themselves. The visioning experience lasts about 1.5 hours. During the remainder of the two-day training, participants learn about the theoretical background of this approach, unpack each of the above activities, workshop them, facilitate one Pictability session with a family, and discuss their initial facilitation experiences in small groups.

Built on adult learning principles

Workshops are built using Principles of Adult Learning Strategies through the theoretical framework developed over a decade by Carl Dunst’s team (Dunst and colleagues, 1994 to 2008-2009). These principles are: Introduce, Illustrate, Practice, Evaluate, Reflect and Reach Mastery. Dunst & Trivette (2009) coined the Participatory framework as the supporting theoretical framework to effect change in the vision for disability rights. Parents learn to coach their child to improve outcomes for child, family and parents.

Training families and professionals

Your organisation opens two pathways. One is travelled by families, the other by professionals.

Importantly the destination is shared, as is the journey taken.

The illustration above show the 2 ways to proceed as an organisation:

For organisations focused on supporting families….

Step 1- Hosting a Now and Next program which includes Pictability.
Step 2- Peer Facilitator Training: On completion of the program you are able to identify potential parents to be trained as your own Peer Facilitators.
Hub: Once training is completed through a combination of traditional teaching, mentoring and real time practical experience, you are able to create your own Hub and conduct programs for your families on an ongoing basis. Further families may be selected from your programs to become peer facilitators.

All graduates become part of the alumni network of support.

For organisations focused on training their staff….

Module 1- Pictability Experience: Experience the Pictability program from a parent’s perspective.
Module 2- Practical Workshop in Pictability Facilitation.
Module 3- Audit and coaching of a Practical Session where professionals in pairs, facilitate Pictability to one another. Completion of the program qualifies the professional to facilitate Pictability sessions.

The two pathways converge and provide the basis for Families and Professionals to work together with an accessible family-centred approach.

Externally evaluated

We needed the big picture, so we contacted the Centre of Community Child Health at Murdoch Children’s Institute to do a process and outcomes evaluation of Now and Next. The institute is the largest dedicated to child health research in Australia and one of the top five in the world.

The evaluation covered 15 Now and Next groups run between January 2017 to March 2018 that included 154 families. It looked at whether the program was delivered as intended if it was reaching the target groups and the participants’ experience. It also assessed participant outcomes: if they achieved their short-term goals, became empowered and had an increased sense of wellbeing and positivity. Data was collected via online surveys at the beginning and end of the program and during the program by the peer facilitators.

A Reference Group and Internal working group helped provide guidance and feedback to the evaluation. Among the former were representatives from the Department of Premier and Cabinet; Aging Disability and Home Care; Early Childhood Intervention Australia NSW/ACT; the National Disability Insurance Agency; and Family Advocacy NSW. Click here for the Executive Summary of the results and here to download the full report.

Presentation of the evaluation

The Now and Next evaluation framework includes standardised tools that measure the impact of our work. We are gradually building data for each level. Dr. Tim Moore, Murdoch Children's Research Institute presented the results of this evaluation at the 2019 Sydney ISEI research conference. Download the full evaluation report here.

Our Theory of Change

The Theory of Change visual explains the practical work we have undertaken towards achieving this goal as well as the research we are building. We started our work at the bottom left of the visual by reviewing our evidence base which we list here. Then each theme builds as we reach the top where we demonstrate the outcomes for our Theory of Change. This family capacity building initiative works on 3 groups of people as shown in the illustration below as each has a part to play in our ultimate outcome which is building family capability through participation:

With participants who do the Now and Next program to achieve goals for their child, family or self [Right column]
With families who graduate and continue their leadership training as Peer Workers [Mid column]
With professionals who support families' will to lead the teams which will support achieving their goals for their child and family [Left column]

Our research follows each of these three groups of people as they engage, train and expand their knowledge and become part of collective communities. Click here for more details about our Theory of Change. Click here for a list of our publications and presentations organised within our Theory of Change categories.

Our programs run internationally

New Zealand programs and Hub

2018: New Zealand launch supported by CCS Disability Action to run 2 programs in Hamilton in collaboration with CCS Disability Action and the McKenzie Centre, with funding from CCS Disability Action Social Innovation Fund.
2019: The McKenzie Centre received funding from the JR McKenzie Trust to run another 9 groups, carry out outcome research and establish a Hamilton-based parent alumni group. One additional group was run in the Manawatu, funded by Manawhaikaha in partnership with Parent to Parent.
2020: Pictability embedded in McKenzie Centre service design - all new families will start their journey into the service with their positive family vision through a peer-facilitated Pictability session
2020: One additional group run in the Manawatu, funded by Manawhaikaha and one funded by Ministry of Health at the Waitemata DHB. Now and Next group are currently running mostly via zoom , due to COVID-19 considerations (Ministry for Social Development EGL)
2021: A third group was facilitated in the Manawatu region, funded by Manawhaikaha in partnership with Parent to Parent.

To date

124 parents graduated
35 people (parents and professionals) trained to facilitate Pictability
7 Peer Facilitators trained.

International Benchmarking Analysis Dashboard

For a full research of our data analysed to 2022 see the research section of this website

New Zealand programs and Alumni group

The New Zealand Now and Next Alumni formed in 2018 at the first program graduation at the McKenzie Centre. This group is all about learning together and supporting their children to achieve their goals. In total, the centre ran 12 Now and Next programmes, including some online one, 2 Pictability trainings, 10 learning activities where they shared a particular expertise of theirs with other parents. These involved another 90 parents. Click here to see a complete list of their activities. The McKenzie Centre is also conducting research following the development of the alumni group so that it can inform future family capacity building in other areas of the world. To date, 120 parents graduated in New Zealand from the Now and Next programs. The Waitemata District Health Board ran one program in Auckland and the Ministry of Health System Transformation ran 3 programs in the Mid Central Region, in partnership with Parent 2 Parent.

Testimonies from New Zealand

Gifting Knowledge

After Hori graduated from the 2018 launch programme, he discovered his passion to support other parents. He talks about the impact of his training on his family life and the connection with other families which he now mentors.

Enjoying the Journey

In describing her learning journey, Naomi found new knowledge about the process of setting (and sometimes modifying) goals. The thinking needed to achieve goals uncovered new information about herself, her family and even the nature of the goal itself.

Achieving Goals

Heather from CCS Disability Action NZ shares that graduates from the program are excited to follow through working on their goals after the program ended. This makes her work more effective as she supports families because they are clear on the direction that they are heading in.

Collective benefit mindset - how and why the New Zealand alumni group formed

When individual wellbeing improves we are able to turn our attention to the wellbeing of the collective. This concept known as the Collective Benefit Mindset has been developed by positive psychology, based on Carol Dweck's fixed/growth mindset approach. The New Zealand experience is described in the following papers.

Janson, A., Mahmic, S., Benge, T. & Herbert, C. (2018) How a transformational Collective Benefit Mindset experience prompted parents raising children with disability to launch a peer network. [Submitted for peer review; pre-publication proof]
Benge, T., Herbert, C. & Janson, A. (2019) Family-lead peer network formation: Translating knowledge across cultures. International Society on Early Intervention (ISEI), Sydney, Australia (June 25-28).
Janson, A., Mahmic, S., Benge, T. and Herbert, C. (2018) Positive parent education for families raising children with disability: Supporting the emergence of a Collective Benefit Mindset. New Zealand Association of Positive Psychology 4th Biennal Conference in Positive Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand (24 Novembre).
Barton, H and Benge, T. (2018) Now and Next: A novel partnership between families and professionals. NZDSN Wellington, New Zealand (April 11-12).

Hori Barton is a father who completed his training as a Peer Facilitator. Click here to see Hori’s presentation [46’48] at the 2018 Wellington NZDSN conference.

Comments from the second Manawatu group [New Zealand System Transformation]

Rangi: A learning journey

"Now and Next has helped me identify what is already working and what I want to change going forward. The commonality of our experiences as parents helped me feel connected with participants. This workshop helped me look into the future to understand what kind of parent I want to be. This was a unique positive experience - listening to other parents discuss their challenges and solutions helped me fill my kete".

Jaz: We grew as a couple

"I gained so much from this course. My partner and I have come so far in our learning and in focusing on our relationship. This amazing learning will contribute to our son's future. I've noticed my husband's growth - he's come a really long way in his sense of wellbeing and looking after himself and caring for our son, for which I am really grateful. Thank you so much!"

Am: A unique peer experience

"I've got warm fuzzies... This course is amazing. I could not recommend it enough for all but also families that are new to the disability journey. The time investment is worth it - it brings clear direction. The best part was sharing our experiences with an amazing peer group of other families. Thank you!!"

2020 Good Start In Life Practice Guidance Final .pdf

Our Contribution to New Zealand Good Start in Life Practice Guidance (Ministry of Education)

Practice Guide

A Good Start in Life is a collaborative cross-government action research to understand the barriers and enablers to partnership working in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

This Practice Guide includes the Parent-Professional Relationship Statement (on p. 10) formulated during the Now and Next conference, April 2017 and collated by Dr Melanie Heyworth, a mother and researcher who graduated from the Now and Next programme.

The Parent-Professional Relationship Statement details how parents wish to take responsibility for their partnerships with the professionals in the lives of their children [https://plumtree.org.au/the-parent-professional-relationship-statement]. It represents the first shift in the thinking of these families who are empowered to seek the kind of partnership they want, rather than entirely rely on professionals to take responsibility for these relationships.

https://plumtree.org.au/the-parent-professional-relationship-statement

Special thanks to the Good Start in Life committee who supported the launch of the Now and Next program in New Zealand.

Canada Hub

2018: First Pictability Professional Development training with 30 staff funded by Kinsight
2019: First Now and Next program - 3 Peer Workers identified and trained via online platform/tools
2020: Second Now and Next program run entirely by Peer Workers, with support from Kinsight; this program switched to Zoom in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak and we are happy to report that participants who were not called to work were able to graduate from the program.
2023 Vancouver meetings and International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) World Congress presentation

Yolanta: A grandmother's new network

Parenting a grand child with disability is a challenge in and of its own. This Now and Next group included 2 grandmothers. As their peer group did not understand their situation, they felt empowered through the connection with a new peer network to assist their grandchildren achieve their goals.

Rachel: Solo mum of a young adult with high support needs

Rachel parents 2 children solo. She will apply her learning at home with both. In fact, her daughter participated in some Now and Next sessions and ended up being the star of the show! Rachel is now a peer facilitator of the program in Vancouver.

Shirin and Ronnie: Moments together

Ronnie and Shirin so enjoyed sitting down for the first time in a long time to discuss their family's future! Ronnie trained as a peer facilitator and with Rachel, facilitated their first group - switching from face to face to zoom amidst COVID-19 development.

South Australia Hub

Our South Australia partner I Can Jump Puddles, West Beach, South Australia, was keen to spread our philosophy and knowledge in their area - launched via Zoom!

2019: First Now and Next program: facilitated by Plumtree Learning
2020: Staff training: Pictability Experience and Now and Next Experience- Full house of 20 staff and a few invited professionals
2020: First Facilitator Training program with 3 parents from the first Now and Next program
2020: Now and Next programs facilitated by the new trainees. The aim is to run regular Now and Next program and continue training peer facilitators on an ongoing basis.

Singapore Hub

Our Now and Next alumni have launched the first program in Singapore

2017: First Now and Next graduate mum
2023: Second Now and Next graduate and program launch

Europe and EASPD (European Association of Service Providers to the Disability sector)

The June 2023 EASPD conference Family-centred Early Childhood Intervention: How to make it work fostered networking between families and organisations. Workshop 8 focused on training and empowering ECI parents: as promised in the program, participants gained valuable insight into the transformative potential that families hold. Workshop presenters were approached by a number of organisations and families keen to join them in the Family Leaders Without Borders project that was shared via the EASPD project submission channel.

What participants say…

“As your child’s parent you will fight for your child’s rights and future. You will give your child the best possible chance in life so you need to learn the skills to do so and that’s what the Now and Next program taught us.” – Ryan

“The trust, safety and togetherness that was established was amazing to me. There was one night which was particularly magical … the whole room of people anonymously shared their biggest worries (many of them shared by everyone) and the whole room brainstormed ideas for those worries, that was unbelievably wonderful!” – Jacqui

NDIS funded

The course cost can be claimed through NDIS Capacity Building funding for Improved Daily Living – as training for parents/carers in matters related to caring for a person with a disability.

Finland programs

Pictability Training: What did Finland professionals say after their Training? They each talk about the relevance of Pictability in their work: working with teachers and parents in the school environment, talking to families about their wellbeing and assisting parents with learning disabilities planning for their children.

Albania and Croatia programs

May 2024, Tirana

We launched the Now & Next program with a group of keen parents who are growing their voice to take this movement to their government. See our playlist here.

May 2024, Zagreb

We launched the Pictability Training for the Mali Dom professional team. It was very well received and we are developing collaborative projects

Our programs beyond early intervention

At Plumtree Learning, we carry out Innovation Programs to extend the impact of our activities to parents of children of all ages.

We have piloted these programs in different contexts. These programs are based on the same visioning and planning processes, with materials suited to parents of children from older age groups. The programs are implemented to build capacity with families of youth preparing to transition out of high school.

These programs are based on Dr. Simon Duffy's Keys to Citizenship concepts, about how we can achieve citizenship in practice, in the context of people with long term conditions. "Citizenship is a funny word - and it can have several meanings - but it is a useful word, because it can be used to describe how human beings can live together - with justice and mutual respect" says Dr. Duffy. In the video below, he describes what Citizenship means in this framework.

Please see this page for more details.

The gold standard of Person-Centered program is the Citizen You program where participants use strength-based tools to experience novel ways of planning goals and implementing solutions to achieve new outcomes.

The Keys to Citizenship Framework

Being respected - being able to hold your head up high and getting respect from those around you
Being equal - citizens all have the same fundamental worth or dignity, they don’t believe that just because someone has more money, power or a better-paid job that this makes them a better person
Being different - citizens are not identical, they have many different gifts which they bring together to build a better world

Citizenship is important because it reminds us that we can each live a good life, in our own way, while also being able to live together with mutual respect. See the feedback from one school where this program was implemented.

Contacts

Eram Afroze: eram@plumtreelearning.com

Sylvana Mahmic, sylvana@plumtree.org.au

Dr. Annick Janson, annick@egl.ac.nz

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