Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try ~ Author unknown
In this new virtual world, Deb had the opportunity to attend the virtual American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions, from the comfort of her home office! While we @AFreshPOVforYou really enjoy the social aspect of attending in-person conferences, Deb embraced this virtual opportunity and found some interesting presentations.Today we want to focus on and share with you one particularly outstanding session.
Today’s word is: OPPORTUNITIES
If you follow our blog, you know that we’re in a series which addresses a client-focused approach to a solution-focused practice word each post. So we want to think about today’s word OPPORTUNITIES in relation to diabetes care and education specialists embracing some learnings from ADA Scientific Sessions.
One presentation in particular that garnered much attention was the ADA’s 2020 Diabetes Educator of the Year Award Lecture by recipient Dr. Bill Polonsky. His lecture, ‘Tedious, tiresome and dull’: Strategies to improve diabetes self-management education” was thought-provoking and insightful. Dr. Polonsky stressed that diabetes care and education specialists need to make education meaningful to those living with diabetes, and it can’t be focused simply on a checklist of content. We are of like mind as Dr. Polonsky, and believe there are new opportunities to engage with people with diabetes. Rather than working through a list of content that may or may not be relevant to your client, why not incorporate a solution-focused approach, and turn attention to the individual, their needs, their skills and strengths they already possess. This solution-focused approach is one OPPORTUNITY to address the challenge of “tedious, tiresome and dull education”.
To spur thinking about different opportunities you can create in your practice to make diabetes self-management education and support meaningful, we want to share 3 of our previous blog posts:
- Co-design. Last April we discussed the concept of “co-design” and how gaining input from people with diabetes around the content and structure of diabetes services is critically important. You can read about co-design here.
- Strengths-based language. In 2018, we wrote about using person-first, strengths-based language here. We continue to believe that this practice is essential for successful diabetes care and education.
- New perspectives. In September 2019, we shared a glimpse of our presentation at the international European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) conference. We began that post with this quote by Marcel Proust, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” We’d like to encourage fellow health care professionals to “have new eyes” in relation to diabetes management, and be open to new tools and solutions.This different view through “new eyes” may lead to creating incredible, innovative and visionary opportunities to evolve diabetes self-management education and support services.
Our solution-focused challenge for you this week is to start each session with your clients by doing one solution-focused activity to create new opportunities. Here are a few examples:
Ask your client:
- What would need to happen to make your meeting valuable to them?
- What 3 questions do they want to discuss today?
- What strengths do they already have that you can build upon today?
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If you are a health care 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.
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