Person Centred Voices

Person Centred Voices (formerly Carer Voices) is an ALLIANCE project that works to promote person centred practices in public sector organisations; that is, to advocate for personalisation, empowerment and shared decision making across all areas of care and support. Focusing primarily on health and social care delivery and leadership, the project engages with teams to explore the culture change required to implement this approach, and drive improvement in the lives of people and their families.

Watch Project Lead Tommy Whitelaw discuss the work of the project in this short video below:

Led by National Lead Tommy Whitelaw, Person Centred Voices delivers talks and workshops to health and social care professionals and students; public sector leaders and managers; third sector organisations; and government departments across Scotland, to explore what person centred practice might look like across different teams and care settings.

Throughout this engagement, the project promotes the values and principles of ‘What Matters to You?’, ‘Intelligent Kindness’ and ‘Civility Saves Lives’ – movements that identify active listening, kindness, and person centredness as key to providing inclusive support and care to all individuals, as well as healthy work environments.

Person Centred Voices has recently evidenced the impact of this work through its publication ‘Effecting Change’, which captures the work of a number of partners in promoting person centred culture change within their teams and organisations. Each partner organisation has seen the impact of embedding this work within their organisational structures, processes, and service delivery, and each can be viewed as a benchmark for effecting culture change in their particular sectors. Among the benefits, our partners have seen:

• Improved communication and trust between colleagues, frontline staff and service users;
• More open and compassionate workplaces where employees can express their thoughts, concerns, and aspirations without fear of judgment;
• The creation of new ‘What Matters To You?’ initiatives and processes to embed this change into the future.

If you would like to engage with Person Centred Voices, or have a story about implementing person centred practices within your team or service, please get in touch. If you have questions or want to get involved, please email personcentred@alliance-scotland.org.uk or tweet us @PersonCentredVo.

Person Centred Voices is funded by Scottish Government and works in collaboration with the Chief Nursing Officer’s Directorate and the Person-centred Outcomes, Participation and Sponsorship Unit (POPS).

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