Search for Learning and Development Services and Pathways

Bias is something that affects everyone, and shapes our experience of both the world and the people around us. Making a positive change starts with an acknowledgement that it does exist and the potential business impact of not taking action to rectify it.
During this session we will explore how both conscious and unconscious bias’ can affect our decisions regarding recruitment, selection, leadership, motivation and more.

Please note: You must complete the "Family Safeguarding: Assessment & Recording" training, prior to joining this course.

This workshop is for: 

Family Safeguarding and Support Social Workers, Team Leaders, Service Leaders
Family Safeguarding adult team and management
Stronger Futures Academy Service Leader
MOSAIC Support Team

Course aims: To introduce new staff to the Family Safeguarding Model and ways of working.

Who Should Complete it?

Experienced care staff working for PCC or the private sector wanting a refresher course in the moving and handling of people

Learning outcomes.

Over two sessions or as one full session the course will look at supporting Carers to be better able to minimise the impact of Fostering on the quality of life of their whole family.

Looking at examples of how foster carers’ family’s needs for on-going support are met.
• Engaging foster carers’ children and other family members in the fostering process.
• Ensuring foster carers’ family are well informed.
• Protected parenting time for carers’ children
Training for other family members.

The course will be delivered via ZOOM using methods including group discussion, sharing good practice and some short groupwork tasks.

MCA for Practitioner and Provider Services - Putting into Practice delivered by St Thomas Training.

The training will enable participants to build on their understanding of the Act and how they can make sure it is properly implemented in the work settings for which they are responsible.

Who should attend?

Social workers, care managers, independent support assistants and occupational therapists. All participants will be expected to have a thorough grasp of the Mental Capacity Act before attending this session ideally by attending MCA for Practitioner and Provider Services Level 1 Awareness

***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.

This is a 2-hour virtual space on Microsoft Teams for managers to drop-in to get support on any aspect of our New Ways of Working. The session will be facilitated by members of L&D and HR. Managers are free to join and leave any time, or attend for the full 2 hours.  Event link here

A 2hr course focusing on the anatomy and physiology of the back and the causes of a compromised posture

As the late Steve Jobs said, 'Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people'. With increasing challenges and change in local government, this five hour virtual workshop on Microsoft Teams is for anyone who leads a team of people and will examine some big ideas and essential skills.