One of the central ambitions in the various attempts over several years to identify the essence of a PIE was the hope to find a single framework, a shared language for the processes and values for all those working with people with complex needs.
To achieve such an ambition, the framework would need to be:
- broad, and as comprehensive as possible
- versatile and flexible, adaptable to specific services and contexts
- practical, to drill down into the detail, to make it useful to specific services in their own development
- scaleable, to work at any level from a soup kitchen to the board of a larger organisation, or a local commissioning group
- suitable for research, to explore and share what works where.
This was a lot to ask. But the advantage of a single framework would be that by focussing on the underlying issues :
- it may help services and other supports to see through and beyond their more immediate and superficial concerns, and give them more freedom to consider wider issues, and respond with greater flexibility
- it should allow more services and support programmes to understand and recognise the work of others, to find what they have in common and find ways to work together, even where they themselves might have a different focus, measures, or accountability.
This, it is hoped, may help to prevent so many with the more complex needs from falling 'between two stools', and through the holes in the safety nets that any society or community provides.
Ye there is a price to pay for such breadth, and it is important to be clear on this, in order to address these issues. The disadvantage, arguably, of a single framework would be that:
- the language would have to be quite general. In each practical situation, it would be necessary to customise this language to some degree, to suit the particular circumstances, the client group or the setting.
- the language would have to be quite abstract. This proves more problematic. The abstract language can seem rather distant, rarified and theoretical; and this can be quite off-putting, even intimidating for some, and confusing for others who have not seen how to translate these terms into the language of their own work
In practice
The practical response in services, in most cases, has been to identify at least one individual who is well familiar with the PIEs framework and the broader ambition, who can confidently take a lead in translating the overall ambition into the terms of the work of any particular service.
We call this person 'the PIE lead'; and where services and network do develop such a role, it means that we can focus our support and two-way communications on a smaller number of lead individuals and develop, with them, more of an active and interactive 'community of practice' approach.
(NB: There is advice particularly for PIE leads HERE and in Robin Johnson's book, 'PIEs from the ground up, service design for complex needs': HERE)
Common ground and collaborations
There is much in this that reflects the more systemic thinking on complexity that we see in approaches such as the Cabinet Office's Reaching Out" action plan (HERE) , the Cynefin framework (HERE), the Design Council's 'Double Diamond' (HERE), or Human Learning Systems (HERE). But linking and operationalising these approaches requires more clearly articulating the PIEs approach at this broader, and more systems-systemic levels.
For the moment at least, the PIEs 2.0 framework remains our best attempt to get to the essential features, however general or abstract; and it is designed to then allow services to customise from the general to the specific. However, there is still work to be done.
For those who might like to get actively involved, see for example " PIE 1, 2 - & 3?" (HERE): and/or the related Forums pages (HERE); and/or browse for background through some of the other suggested links and papers, in the second/side column here.
