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The Person-Centred Observation and Reflection Tool (PORT) is a reflective observation tool, grounded in person-centred care, to support staff to develop empathic skills and their own practice.
Observational tools can provide a value method for supporting reflection and staff development. Staff who have used observational tools report how beneficial observation, even for short periods of time, is for understanding how people with dementia experience day-to-day life and care within their service setting.
The Person-Centred Observation and Reflection Tool (PORT) is a reflective observation tool, grounded in person-centred care, to support staff to develop empathic skills and their own practice. It addresses the current gap for a simple to learn and use, observation tool that is accessible to all staff. It was developed by the international consortium the Person First dementia Network (PFdN). A network of which the Centre for Dementia Research at Leeds Beckett University is a member.
PORT has been designed to have maximum flexibility in that it can be used across many different service settings (care-homes, home care services, hospitals) and disciplines (nursing, social work, care work, therapists, medicine, coaches) with people who have significant communication and dependency needs (particularly but not limited to dementia).
PORT involves the observation of the care experiences of up to three people with dementia/communication problems for up to one hour. It is possible to undertake PORT observations for less than an hour if time pressures are a problem.
During the observation the observer notes down (every 5- or 2-minutes):
After the observation they complete an individual summary sheet for each person they observed, which is a set of reflective questions. The staff member is asked to consider what supported the person and their engagement and what did not, how the observation made them, as a staff member feel, and what they could.
Anyone who has completed training to use PORT and who also has a good understanding of the principles of person-centred care can use the tool. There are two levels of PORT user:
We want to make PORT as accessible as possible and so we have developed training materials (available free of charge for use for non-commercial reasons) and PORT guidance to enable individuals to self-train or use for organisational PORT training for staff. PORT users will also need to have accessed good person-centred care training. PORT Coaches also needs skills in reflective practice and mentoring and supporting other to engage in it.
We plan to make these available on this web-page soon. In the meantime, to access PORT please contact the appropriate person for the language/country you would like to access materials/training in.
The PfDN have undertaken preliminary acceptability testing in practice (Surr et al, under review), and based on our combined expertise of using observations to improve care practice, and feedback gained during this early research, we believe it has much to offer. The next steps are to undertake more robust research around models of implementation and its impact in different practice settings.
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