Documenti di Didattica
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2, February 2018
Quote
Commercial in confidence
Australia contact: Sylvana Mahmic, CEO, Plumtree; sylvana@plumtree.org.au +61 415 313 944
New Zealand contact: Dr. Annick Janson: annick.janson@egl.ac.nz +64 27 288 1949
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How is Pictability© training a game-changer?
1. Four full-day sessions, spread over 2 months. A creative learning program by and for
families with young children with disability and/or developmental delays. The program
facilitates parents to support and motivate each other to explore opportunities for
their children through a manualised and reproducible process. Using engaging
resources to transform their vision into goals and actions, they share strategies and
record outcomes via photos, video, audio and text through a bespoke multimedia
app, to celebrate and reflect on successes and on next steps.
“Every family should do the Now and Next program as early as possible”
Melo Kalemkeridis, parent
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Training topics and learning points
Evidence-informed
These programs aim to grow families’ understanding on improving their wellbeing
and flourishing. Rooted in positive psychology (Damon, 2008; Seligman, 1990,
2011; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), the programs provide a robust
foundation to understand the transformation from “grief” to “growth”. They are the
first programs for parents of children with disability since 2016 to use Prospection
theory (Seligman et al., 2016). Parents develop an inspirational long-term vision for
their child, plan goals and create a learning environment where peers assist each
other to build skills to achieve positive outcomes for their child and family.
Raising families’ feeling of agency over their future through fun activities
Using adult learning strategies, parents learn in a fun environment. Research-
informed mini-interventions based on positive psychology and mindfulness teach
participants to increase the wellbeing levels of their children and families. The
programs rest on a complete suite of novel engaging tools such as a purpose built
App to record progress, a colouring book to reflect mindfully and Goal to Action
processes through which parents reach their goals faster.
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How were these programs conceived?
The first version of these programs was designed by Dr Annick Janson, Research Affiliate,
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand & Sylvana Mahmic, CEO, Plumtree.
They are both mothers with lived experience and professionals in the disability sector.
With the benefit of hindsight, they asked: What would the best early intervention
program be for parents? They applied ethnography, positive psychology and family-
centered design thinking to implement radically new solutions and harness previously
untapped parent expertise and enthusiasm.
Today’s program has changed with the input of over 200 families who co-designed the
new versions of the programs.
The programs innovation and impact place them in a unique global category on their
way to changing family earliest experience of the disability sector. Our long term research
objectives are to document how empowering parents at this early stage will ultimately
decrease family dependency on services.
Annick (L) and Sylvana (R) presenting their pilot results at the
2015 NDIS New World conference in Brisbane.
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A Participative Research Process
Now and Next© trains its peer facilitators as participant-observers in the research process. Peer
facilitators track achievements in real time, through participants reporting progress in session and via
social media – as they seek to improve practice in an ongoing manner. Participants’ empowerment
levels are also measured as they gain core knowledge from other parents’ reflections, which they can
use in their own learning journeys. Real time tracking is crucial to improving outcomes.
Harnessing parents’ previously untapped commitment brings about novel insight, for instance this
illustration created by a participant to describe the program’s outcomes. These results are detailed in
our upcoming publication Embedding positive psychology and flourish thinking in peer support
networks for parents raising young children with disability: A game-changer (2018).
This publication also details how short and long term goals were classified and achieved during
the Now and Next© program: most goals were achieved at a rate of over 90%, with some such
as Investing in family relationship building and parents career goals to the rate of 100%.
In addition, the program engaged with audiences up to 48% from Cultural And Diverse
Language backgrounds, from between 23% to 50% fathers, depending on the activities and
times the activities are held. For a more detailed results table, see http://tinyurl.com/2017-
NN-research.
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Publications and Presentations
Awards Janson, R. and Janson, A. (2017) Peer networks for
2017 ECIA NSW/ACT Excellence Award for sustainable impact. Arts and Society Round Table,
Outstanding Family Centred and Culturally Paris, France (Oct 18).
Responsive Practice (winner)
Mahmic, S., Williamson, J., Touma, S. Buffoni, N.,
2017 NSW Disability Industry Awards (finalist) Kalemkeridis, M., Le, I., and Janson, A. (2017) Building
family leadership through harnessing peer support.
2015 The Family Storysharing project launched by International Initiative for Disability Leadership (IIDL)
Min. Ajaka. Movie trailer. Brag and Steal: Building family capacity to improve
outcomes, Sydney (February 27-28).
Publications
Janson, A. & Mahmic, S. (2018) Embedding positive Mahmic, S. Janson, A., Kalemkeridis, M. and
psychology and flourish thinking in peer support Williamson, J. (2017) Building family leadership
networks for parents raising children with disability: A through harnessing peer support. ECI: Beyond
game-changer. [draft] Possibilities - Investing in the Future Conference,
Sydney (May 25-26).
Bharti, S. (2017) Inaugural Now and Next© Alumni
Conference Online Proceedings. Book Creator blog. Mahmic, S. and Janson, A. (2016) Transforming
families' early experiences of self-direction. Building
Janson, A. and Mahmic, S. (2017) Now and Next© - A Momentum: Turning ideas into action through self-
leadership pipeline adventure: Launching the first direction, Auckland (November 16-17).
Australasian network for families raising young
children with disability. [Accepted for publication: Mahmic, S., Farah, I. Williamson, J and Janson, A.
Centre for Welfare Reform] (2016) Families and staff: Shaping new ways of
working together. International ECIA Early Childhood
Heyworth, M., Mahmic, S. and Janson, A. (2017) Now Intervention Association, Melbourne (September
and Next©: A radically new way to build peer 7-10).
leadership in families raising young children with
disability or development delay. International Journal Mahmic, S. and Janson, A. (2015) Designing a novel
of Disability, Community and Rehabilitation. http:// multimedia planning and implementation that is both
www.ijdcr.ca/VOL15_01/index.shtml innovative and fun! NDIS New World Conference:
Disability in the 21st Century, Brisbane (October
Heyworth, M. (2017) Parent-Professional Relationship 27-29).
Statement: Working in partnership with professionals.
Available at: www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/ Case Study
by-date/parent-professional-relationship.html Mahmic, S., Treloar, R., Farah, I. Taylor, K., Le, I., Adler,
R. and Janson, A. (2016) Transforming the experience
Conference presentations of families raising children with disability. Available at:
Mahmic, S. (2018) Keynote Address Now and Next – http://bookcreator.com/blog/2016/01/book-creator-
Capacity building through family leadership, peer helps-transform-experience-families-affected-
work and education, NZDSN Wellington (April 11-12) disability
Janson, A. (2017) Co-production (co-design) and Blog
organisational impact: The Australian Now and Next© http://now-and-next-alumni.blogspot.com
experience. European Association of Service Providers
to Disability (EASPD) Flourishing Lives: Supportive Web
Communities and Sustainable Development, www.plumtree.org.au/nowandnext
Montenegro (October 25-27; invited keynote).
Twitter
Kalemkeridis, M. and Williamson, J. (2017) Being a https://twitter.com/nownextalumni
peer facilitator, Belonging Matters August
Conference, Melbourne (August 16-17). 7
Pricing structure
Pictability© Training
If an organisation wishes to train more than 6 trainees per training, the cost for
each added participant is $325 (up to 10 additional trainees)
Note: Each participant receives a personal Pictability kit, included in costs. As
each family has to have their own Pictability kit, there will be an additional cost for
each family of $25/kit when new families do their Pictability visioning, facilitated
by the above trainees.
If an organisation wishes to include more than 5 families per Now and Next program,
there is a sliding cost scale taking into consideration practical constraints of total
numbers of participants