TAM meetings should always follow this process: 

1. Introductions and check in

Everyone has the opportunity to introduce themselves, their role, and to say how they are today. 

2. Strengths and positives

Everyone at the meeting has the opportunity to reflect on the resident’s strengths and/or positive progress that has been made recently. People can also share positive progress made by services. These can be big achievements or small steps – either way, recognising and celebrating strengths helps to empower the resident, enables them to recognise their own resilience, and ultimately creates a positive atmosphere for everyone.

Some examples of strengths and positives could be: 

• The resident has moved in to their new accommodation and has been mostly staying there. 
• The resident has been able to access medication that they need.  
• The resident attended a meeting/had a catch up with one of their support network this week.  
• The resident asked for support with something they’re finding difficult. 
• The resident disclosed that something is making them feel unsafe and asked for help. 
• The resident talked about something that they want to do in the future.

3. Goals and actions

The resident or the person representing them will go through each of the resident’s goals. For each goal, those attending will decide what action needs to be taken, who will do it, and by when. For example:

Goal: Greg wants to get his Universal Credit claim sorted.  

Action: Elouise his outreach worker will support him to do this as he can’t use computers. 

Who: Elouise or one of her team if she’s not available. 

By when: This needs to happen this week if possible – as Greg is sleeping rough and it’s hard to find him, everyone in the network can let him know if they see him that he can drop in to the day centre any afternoon this week, and Elouise or another staff member will help him do his claim.  

4. If the issue remains a challenge

Hopefully, most goals will have clear actions and people able to carry out these actions. Some things may remain a challenge, however, and require more in-depth discussion to try and move forward. Some examples of issues which may not have a clear resolution could be:

• The resident wants to access therapy to help them deal with childhood trauma, but as they are drinking/using drugs, the service you referred to says they’re not eligible. 
• The resident is sleeping rough and in desperate need of housing, but they say they will only be housed with their partner, and there is no provision for couples in the borough. 
• The resident is presenting as mentally unwell and the hostel where they live are very worried, but mental health services say they don’t meet the criteria for treatment or specialist mental health support as their presentation is likely to be related to substance use. 

At this point, attendees of the meeting can discuss each challenge using the following process, to help them guide the conversation and make progress towards some actions. 

Aspiration - What would the resident/the service/you like to achieve if the system could be changed or the issue unblocked? Could it benefit other resident and/or  improve how services work together? 

Block - What is getting in the way of this happening at the moment – what are the problems – either in the system or at a service level? 

Reflection - What are people’s thoughts about this issue? 

Questions - What do we need to know or do in order to start tackling this issue? Is there anything we need to clarify? Are there differences of opinion between services? Can we explore these differences? Are there different remits of services? What does the resident think about these issues? What are the goals of each service when it comes to this issue – do we have a shared goal? 

Actions - What are we able to do about the issue/system blockage today, within this case conference? What do we need to do after this meeting?: How, when, where & who with? 

5. Close and debrief

Every TAM meeting should end by going round the group to ensure each attendee is clear on their actions. If needed, you might decide as a group to arrange the date for the next meeting. Everyone in the group should be given an opportunity to ‘check out’ at the end of the meeting – to say how they are feeling, what they might do next etc. If the resident is attending, it is best practice to ensure they have a space after the meeting to debrief with one worker they have a positive relationship with, in case they found the meeting triggering or challenging.