S.E.L.F. Team Meetings
S ANDRA L. B LOOM , M.D.
B ACKGROUND
Team Meetings are at the heart of most meaningful
work in human service environments. The problems
that we routinely encounter are so complex that no
one mind can grasp all of the details and implications
in order to create a workable plan to help. As we say
in Sanctuary, “no one of us is as smart as all of us”
and our emphasis on the importance of Team
Meetings exemplify this. The terrible irony about
team meetings is that they are the first thing to go
when demands for productivity increase. And yet,
they are the most powerful tool we have. Preventing
mental health and other social service workers from
collaborating with each other – particularly in
residential settings, or in situations where caregiving is distributed among a number of different
providers – makes as much sense as telling a radiologist that they cannot use special machinery
or that a surgeon can have no scalpels. From our observations, the decrease in Team Meetings
– or at least of meaningful Team Meetings has almost paralyzed our systems of care and has
made providing integrated care virtually impossible.
W HAT I S I T ?
A Team Meeting is an active, focused meeting where every member feelings comfortable
talking and listening, is engaged and contributes, shares insights and generates new ideas.
W HAT ’ S THE P URPOSE ?
There are many purposes for Team Meetings. It is the opportunity for all members of a team to
see and affirm that they are in fact, members of a team and to recognize that to be a team their
work together must be coordinated. It is the time to address client issues, gather ideas for
working with individual clients or with the entire community, discuss new initiatives to improve
the activities or events on the horizon. It is an open forum for addressing staff concerns. It
provides the time for the critical work of integration which is what is missing in so many service
environments. Everyone individually may be doing a great job but if we do not take the time to
integrate what we are doing with what everyone else is doing the result can be chaos, not
effective intervention.
1
©2010 CommunityWorks
The Sanctuary Toolkit, S.E.L.F. and the Sanctuary Commitments play an important role in team
meetings. First, we encourage all teams to begin their meetings with a Community Meeting. It
is crucial for staff to be aware of their emotions and the powerful force they can play in team
planning and decision making. Leaders and members must remain cognizant of S.E.L.F. and be
willing to address issues that compromise Safety, be comfortable with the expression of
Emotion, grapple with both tangible and intangible Loss and keep an eye on the overall goal of
their work together – what they want the Future outcome to be. At the same time team
members need to willing to acknowledge co-workers efforts to honor the Sanctuary
Commitments and address times when they have pulled up short and let their team down. It is
crucial that team meetings consistently reinforce the shared Sanctuary concepts and language.
Team Meetings should have a clear agenda, preferably one that is available to everyone in
advance, have a predictable time and place that they are held. Everyone on the staff should
have the opportunity to put items on the agenda. Each organization will need to define what it
means by a “team” so that the group is neither too little to have diversity of opinion, nor so
large that nothing can effectively be accomplished if everyone is to have input. There should be
a designated facilitator for the meeting, who raises important topics, encourages meaningful
input from everyone, ensure that all members of the meeting feel safe and respected and who
can summary key points and decisions. Minutes should be kept, particularly of the key points
and outcomes of discussions so that the group does not lose the threat of continuity over time.
Follow-up on the outcomes of the previous meetings should occur at every subsequent
meeting.
2
©2010 CommunityWorks