A new year, new decade, and renewed focus for us here @AFreshPOVforYou! This blog is over a year old now, and while our overarching focus remains the same, our Mission has evolved over time.
Our overarching goal
Our broad goal at A Fresh POV for You is to focus on Possibilities, Opportunities and creating a Vision (POV) for the future, based on strengths and leveraging positive learnings from past experiences. Initially the primary focus of this blog was people living with or at risk for diabetes. However, we realized that we also want to share our learnings and how-to’s with other diabetes care and education specialists in order to begin to flip the paradigm to embrace a solution-focused approach in practice.
Our new Mission
We guide healthcare professionals in taking a solution-focused approach to practice to enable clients with diabetes to embrace possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future.
Who are we?
We are solution-focused diabetes care and education specialists . We are passionate about doing diabetes care and education differently. Too much of life is spent focusing on problems. Forget the “problems”! Let’s turn attention instead to possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future. As diabetes care and education specialists, let’s step alongside our clients as “think partners” to focus on what’s important to them, what’s already going well, and build upon that to reach their goals so that they may live life to the fullest.
We have both spent our entire careers partnering with people with diabetes to leave a positive imprint. In our discussions and research with people with diabetes, we’ve heard loud and clear that many are not happy with the diabetes care and education services they have received. A remark that has frequently bubbled up is related to leaving a healthcare appointment feeling badly because of significant negative talk and attitudes – feeling as if they, the person with diabetes, has done something wrong, and thus are not motivated or inspired to do things differently. We are advocates for person-centered, strengths-based language, and believe that self-compassion is essential when living with a chronic condition.
A peek at our research findings
From our research we’ve learned that incorporating a solution-focused approach into our interactions with clients makes a difference. Five themes emerged from our qualitative study regarding what “would happen” in a desired future state, including: more living life; laughter and humor; self-compassion; resilience; and support.Together, let’s do more of what works, and focus less on what’s wrong.
Top 10 things we accomplished in 2019
- Conducted a survey around the perceptions and impact of current diabetes education services. (You can learn more in this post)
- Hosted 2 #DSMA Twitter Chats around taking a solution-focused approach to life with diabetes. (Read more about them here and here)
- Conducted a qualitative research study via Twitter around the impact of implementing a solution-focused tool, the Miracle Question, with people living with diabetes.
- Conducted in-depth focus groups with people living with diabetes to gain insight around wants and needs to co-design the future of diabetes care and education services. (Read more about co-design here)
- Presented at the American Association of Diabetes Educators annual meeting on implementation of the solution-focused tool, the Miracle Question adapted for diabetes. (Read about that here)
- Presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) on our Twitter Chat research. (Read our abstract here and our blog posts here and here)
- In follow-up to the EASD presentation, had our work published in the European Medical Journal focused on diabetes. (Find it here)
- Submitted a paper on taking a solution-focused approach to diabetes care and education accepted for publication in AADE in Practice journal.
- Submitted a paper sharing some of our research findings to The Diabetes Educator journal.
- Outlined the content for a solution-focused handbook (more to come in the next year!)
Top learning from 2019
A solution-focused approach to diabetes care and education resonates with people with diabetes and diabetes care and education specialists!
Our fresh views
We’ve called our weekly blog posts our “Fresh Views” because not only do we share views and practical guidance in the diabetes realm, we also often share inspiring fresh views we’ve experienced in our travels, be it a beautiful sunset, a sandy beach, or towering mountains.
Getting to know us personally, beyond professionally is important. We believe in the concept of a “therapeutic alliance”- which means that the relationship between health care professionals and people with diabetes is the most important component. So, aside from being passionate diabetes care and education specialists, we are also speakers, authors, wives, moms, adventurers, and avid travelers always in search of the next fresh and magnificent view! We have lots of creative ideas and ways we hope to engage in innovative diabetes education services!
Follow us @AFreshPOVforYou on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest and learn more about our fresh views!
If you are a healthcare professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
