Search for Learning and Development Services and Pathways

Who is this course for?
This course is mandatory for members of the Employment Committee and their Standing Deputies.
All members are welcome to attend this training to enhance their knowledge about the role of the committee.

Who is running this course?
This course will be facilitated by Natasha Edmunds, Director of Corporate Services and Alison Forfar, Assistant Director of HR (Interim).

This course requires delegates to be enrolled on the ICDL programme before booking on this course and charges may apply. Please email ICDL.ICDL@Portsmouthcc.gov.uk for more information.

ICDL Extra is a recognised qualification at Level 2 and is deemed to be equivalent with GCSE grades A* to C.

ICDL Extra builds on the users basic knowledge of Microsoft Office and improves their understanding of Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Who is this course for?

All councillors need to attend this training every 3 years

Who is running this course?

This course will be facilitated internally by the Head of Looked After Children Services and supported by foster carers.

Making Every Contact Count Healthy Conversation Skills

Making Every Contact Counts - Healthy Conversation Skills (MECC HCS) is an approach that uses the millions of day-to-day interactions that organisations and individuals have with people to support them in making positive changes to their health and wellbeing, by using open discovery questions and active listening skills. MECC HCS is about enhancing the conversations we are already having with individuals. It's not about adding to already busy workloads.

The course is divided into two ½ day sessions set two weeks apart alongside four
e- learning modules to be completed before session two. Both sessions and elearning must be completed to gain the accredited Royal Society for Public Health certificate.

***THIS TRAINING IS FOR CHILDREN'S SOCIAL CARE STAFF ONLY***

‘You lot don’t care! You’re going to take our kids away and you get a bonus for that’
‘Why aren’t you going to the neighbours down the road, they’re much worse than us!’
‘What do you know? Do you have kids of your own?’

Are these kinds of ‘heart-sink’ phrases familiar? Do you or your staff frequently find themselves on the defensive as practitioners or as managers? In an environment of diminishing resources and increasing demand on services, we need a fresh and imaginative approach.
Motivational Interviewing is a framework of intervention, brought together in the 1990s by Professor William Miller and Professor Stephen Rollnick. It is an approach designed to work with those most resistant to change or stuck in entrenched behaviours. The premise of Motivational Interviewing is that motivation is not a ‘fixed state’ that a person does or does not have. Rather, motivation ebbs and flows depending on many factors such as circumstances, mood and so forth. The skilled practitioner (or manager) will harness whatever very little motivation there might be, and help it move in the right direction. The Motivational Interviewing approach borrows in from other sources such as Carl Rogers’ person-centred counselling; Socratic thinking and Prochaska & DiClemente’s Cycle of Behaviour change.
The key principles are:
• Engagement with the client, rather than doing something to them – i.e. change cannot be forced or pushed on to someone. It has to be internal for the client to be meaningful and long term.
• Rolling with resistance (NB this is not rolling over or being passive)
• Express empathy
• Avoid conflict
• Developing discrepancy in client’s thinking
• Support self-responsibility
Clients are often stuck or ambivalent about making changes for themselves. Practitioners can easily collude with this ‘stuckness’, or out of frustration try to push people to action, which only increases resistance. Motivational Interviewing helps to make the practitioner aware of these tendencies, and give them options to work more powerfully in ways that create more possibility of change for their clients.
Our MI training course gives a highly interactive and practical experience of Motivational Interviewing, and its potential power to engage with people meaningfully, rather than do something to them. There will be opportunities for demonstration, discussion, and questions, conducted in ways that model the principles of a motivational skills approach. We will explore together how we can all nurture even the smallest steps of progress, with the emphasis on encouragement and trying to bring out the best in others as well as ourselves.

All carers and Lodgings carers, residential staff and social workers.

By the end of the course participants should be able to - 

Demonstrate knowledge of key issues and local policy on S.R.E, including the principle of 'delay'

Consider their own values and attitudes.

Develop skills to communicate with children looked after about their sexual health needs and put these into practice.

Give information on use of contraceptives and the signs and symptoms of common STIs.

Contributes to the training, support and development standards 3, 4, 5, 6. 

This is a 3hr workshop giving opportunity for staff to practice reposition a person in bed

• independently with verbal prompting
• with physical assistance using slide sheets
• with a passive hoist

It is aimed at Local Back Care Links to enable them to observe and competency staff practice.

It is also aimed at staff who are struggling to practise safeley and require more in depth training

This workshop is for all foster carers who have not completed their TSDS and would like some guidance and support. Everyone is welcome and we will endeavour to support you in every way we can to ensure you are able to completed the standards in time for your next panel. 

This workshop is for all foster carers who have not completed their TSDS and would like some guidance and support. Everyone is welcome and we will endeavour to support you in every way we can to ensure you are able to completed the standards in time for your next panel.