The co-founders

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. 

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 programs run internationally

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.

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]

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. 

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.

More links:

• Our International program reach 

• The Now and Next Alumni blog

Contacts

Eram Afroze: eram@plumtreelearning.com

Sylvana Mahmic, sylvana@plumtree.org.au

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