Conversation starter tool: Transactional Benefits versus Transformational Benefits
Many human services have a focus on delivering practical benefits in the moment.
As illustrated in the above slide, Transactional benefits happen where someone gets a benefit - help with getting ready for their day, help with a prepared meal, help with laundry - but if nothing else changes they will need the same help again in the near future. In other words, even though the the help was appreciated, it leaves the person unchanged in terms of their own capacity and their valued membership in community life.
A clue that this might be happening is when people who are receiving such supports talk about whether their service provider is reliable, shows up on time, does a thorough job, was friendly, and so on. Idf a person already has a wide range of life chances and active roles, then maybe this is all they want. However, for the vast majority of people living with increased vulnerability, services that bring Transactional benefits only do not help people's life chances to improve that much.
Instead, we might think about how we can provide a deeper goal for the support, where we look for ways to assist the person recognise their own strengths and potential and capacity, and how the supports need to make it more likely the person moves into valued roles in community life.
This doesn't mean that we then ignore the Transactional benefits, because they can be important. Instead, we deliver the practical support in a way that assist the person to do as much as possible themselves, to grow capacity, and, perhaps most importantly, to connect into ordinary valued roles in community life.
So FPLs can start a conversation with frontline staff about the 'centre-of-gravity' of the supports being provided to a particular person. Is the centre of gravity about Transactional benefit, or Transformational benefit? And what could we do differently to shift the focus.
We'll know we're getting itright when the person being served talks about how they are doing more
in their life as a result of the support they're getting.