Introducing Sarah Miller, a veritable star! Nov 2025

Sarah Miller

So here it is, the long-awaited “I’ve joined up with Steven Talbot” blog – and it’s going pretty well!

My name is Sarah Miller. I’m a trainer these days, as well as being a professional musician and various other bits and bobs of teaching and performance.

I met Steven quite a while ago, probably about fifteen years since, when we both were lecturers at Newcastle under Lyme College, working in the Learning Disability Department. How I loved those students! I learned so much from them and from teaching in that department.

After several years and several teaching posts later, we’ve gone on to become firm chums, and after a while of Steven setting up his Training Consultancy, he asked me to become involved and if I would take on the delivery of some of his courses. Particularly, the first one, ‘Trauma & Change’- aimed at front-facing staff to support them to create Trauma-informed responses when working with folks who have been through a great amount of Trauma, and how to deal with them compassionately.

Well, it was a total baptism of fire! Ladies and gentlemen, my first ‘gig’, as it were, was for Stoke on Trent City Council, via the Insight Academy. I was training twenty-five maintenance experts. That is, highly skilled individuals who go around applying their particular skill set mending and maintaining Council properties. Fixing boilers, painting, restoring windows, plumbing, looking at the heating, etc. They were down to earth (all male apart from a solitary lady plumber), and I was terrified, but oh boy – they were amazing! I had some fabulous turn-arounds that session – it was wonderful.

I went from there and expanded my repertoire, working alongside Steven as he mentored me and ‘trained me up’ to be the trainer I am today. After a while, he encouraged me to start writing my own courses. And so I have, reading & researching along the way. I’ve developed courses in Professional Boundaries, Sexual Harassment at Work, Respect & Inclusivity, Productive Consultancy Conversation, and Conflict Management, - my favourite one being ‘From Clash to Collaboration’.

And so my friends, it was with great, great pride, I tell you about the course ‘From Clash to Compassion’ I delivered at Trent & Dove Housing last week with sixteen fabulous women, all working in the Housing sector, in Burton. They were astonishing. It was a full day’s training. We discussed all kinds of techniques, from ‘Roll with Resistance’ to Active Listening, Trauma- Informed Responses, Big Trauma, small trauma, Complex Trauma – any kind of trauma you feel like listing really, and the DESC principle. And they were brilliant! We laughed, had fun, shared stories, and at the end of the day, I got my first 100% feedback for a course I’d written all by myself. It was the best feeling. I hope to go on from strength, and Steven – you are THE BEST mentor!