Posted on: 18 September, 2019
Clare Maryan, Director of Development and Innovation
For me, September is about new beginnings. It’s like that first page of a new notebook – crisp, clean and begging for neatness. Working for Cranstoun, there are new beginnings found in multiple places – a new business planning and financial year, a new contract start, a new intervention. More so, our unrelenting principle that every service user has the ability and potential to lead the life they want no matter how many times it takes.
Cranstoun has been empowering people to live healthy, safe and happy lives for 50 years. When you combine that history with the individual assets of our people, you get an organisation bursting with knowledge, experience and ideas. This is great news for me, given my job title! However, Cranstoun is still just 50 years young – we must continue to grow to better meet the needs of those we exist for. That is as important today as it was in 1969. Our Cranstoun leaf – for those who have always wondered about the formation of those orange dots – symbolises organic growth for the organisation and its people, staff and service users alike. As we take steps to fulfil our vision and mission, every Cranstoun service user is taking steps towards theirs.
Each journey is one of discovery, and so ‘discovery’ is exactly what we decided to call our new behavioural change platform. We think it’s a great name as it means something to us all – no matter who we are and what role we have to play. ‘Discovery’ has three phases:
- ‘My life’ seeks to both understand the person and for each person to better understand themselves.
- ‘My world’ explores and navigates change and builds connections.
- ‘My future’ provides the skills to move on and evolve towards the life each person envisages.
It will be delivered by our trained staff who help individuals to visualise what that life is, build belief that they can reach it and support with the steps to help get them there. Our Discovery platform draws together the best group work interventions from across Cranstoun and externally, all supported by an extensive evidence base. We will be rolling it out across all existing services and including it in future services.
We are excited about this particular new beginning, not least because it’s a direct result of what we do best – putting our people at the heart of what we do. This holds true to how we work as a charity – one that I’m proud to work for. But we won’t stop there, it’s our collective continual discovery here at Cranstoun that keeps us all ambitious.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]