Meanwhile…
Over at Staffordshire County Council, it was two days of Motivational Interviewing via Zoom and the horrors of the Black Friday ‘oh let’s see if the Internet will actually work today!’ Well, we soldiered on and we got through it and more than ‘got through it’ we had a grand old time and the wonderful feedback is attached. As you will see, technological nightmares do not knock our confidence, oh no, we keep on keeping on and we overcame the issues!
What’s great about the staff at Staffordshire County Council is that they absolutely put what they have learned into practice, time and again they will contact me and say, ‘hey Steven, guess what?’ And something I taught them came in handy, made a difference, led to a more positive outcome. That’s what it’s all about folks.
From the wonderful character that is Debra, to the talented Fran, lest we forget the inspirational Sharon, the whole class just GOT IT and went with it. Here you will find their collated feedback:
“I have always dreaded attending training however this is the first time I have really enjoyed it. Steven is very knowledgeable and made the training fun to learn. I usually struggle remembering information however the way that this training has been delivered has allowed me to member what we have been taught. I will definitely be using motivational interviewing in my future work with families.”
Fran
“Absolutely brilliant training. Steven was very engaging and very funny and his style of training made it thoroughly enjoyable and wanting to learn more. The training program made you reflect on your own current style and made you think and question yourself when talking to other and trying to engage them. How am I coming across and does the customer think I am interested in what they are saying. Am I giving out solutions and trying to fix the issue when I can help the customer to find the answers to the their own issues. This is really important in the new SCASS (FRT) to also look to stop the dependency of calling social worker when things go wrong and the “revolving door families.”
Sharon
“This training was informative, detailed and full of excellent practice learning opportunities. The resources and videos shared during the 2 days made it easy to concentrate and follow and the opportunity to put each stage into practice was a real benefit. The trainer would involve everybody during the training and check in with learning groups to make sure we were all ok and understanding what we were doing. The trainer’s infectious, positive and constructive way of delivering the content put the group at ease and collectively it felt like everybody benefitted from it. I will definitely be able to take this forwards into my practice. Thankyou for the learning opportunity and I look forward to the second part of the training in the future.”
Rob
“The training has been really useful. I will embed more of the motivational interviewing techniques when on the phone. I think it has been useful to think about how sometimes we are making contact with clients with an agenda and hoping they are going to give us what we need in order to close/meet threshold when actually we need to be going into the call more open minded and letting the client lead the call in order to get a true picture and then decision make.”
Justine
“This training has made me think about my interviewing techniques and how I may support customers to find their own strategies to problem solve. The trainer was knowledgeable and engaging /interactive throughout the two day session. This Training has made me think about my own practice and I will take this learning forward on my new role in SCAS.”
Carole
“This course has highlighted to me the need to listen to the customer. It has provided me with the tools I need so that I can get relevant and appropriate information from the customer and so enable me to direct the customer to the best possible outcome from our engagement. Steve delivers the course with good humour and adds anecdotes that support the point he is trying to make. This makes the training easy to engage with and interesting.”
Toni
“I enjoyed the training – I actually did! I enjoyed the comfortable, informal style and did not feel uncomfortable or under pressure at any point which can happen in some training. I found the content pertinent and felt it was well-paced – I liked the opportunity to try out the learning in the exercises throughout the training, I feel it helped my understanding of how to tweak what I do now to potentially do it more effectively in the future. In short – very good.”
Deb