Motivational Interviewing with Stoke on Trent City Council, Feb 2026. "Essential practical tools that I can use in my practise."

Stoke on Trent City Council MI training

Greetings everybody,

Let’s turn away from the political psychodrama going on in the UK at the moment and focus on some truly INSPIRATIONAL people – the staff from Stoke on Trent City Council.  I recently had the pleasure of delivering my bespoke Children and Families version of Motivational Interviewing (MI) training to a cohort of learners from my old stomping ground, Stoke Council.  As always – they were wonderful!  They were all raring to go and clearly engaged throughout the training. 

I think we all know that things are very fraught at the moment.  The outside world is impinging on our daily lives and if we let it, we can become ever more stressed by things outside of our control.  So, I sought to create a comfortable – yet challenging, supportive learning environment in which each staff member could practise their skills with zero fear of being judged or criticised. Some of the learners told me at the beginning of the session that they were nervous speaking in front of others.  Cut to six hours later and they were ALL demonstrating their skills with zero anxiety.   

Training needs to be nurturing, encouraging, demanding and exciting.  That’s what you get with me!  I was thrilled by their reaction to my new training films, and it was heartening reading their feedback:

“The training from Steve was excellent.  Steve was very good at keeping EVERYONE engaged throughout.  Thank you for a good day!”

“In short – excellent training!  This has been very informative and given me essential practical tools that I can use in my practise.  It is very helpful to receive training on what to do rather than what not to do.  I will definitely be using motivational interviewing.”

“I really enjoyed this training course, it has given me a different understanding on how best to approach conversations, relationships and difficult subjects, all in one!”

“A GREAT session.  Steven delivered the training in a way that was both easy to follow and engaging.  I understood everything and thank you Steven for giving us a great training session.” 

“I really enjoyed the training and found it fun.  I will definitely take this training away and use motivational interviewing in my practice.  😊”

“Absolutely loved it, very knowledgeable and made it fun. I actually listened to 99% of it!  😊”

“I absolutely love Steve’s training.  It is relatable to us from Stoke, he understands the nature of what we are working with (as he’s done it!) and keeps you interested and engaged throughout.  More training from Steven please!”

“Really interesting and different type of training.  I will now approach my conversations with service users in a different way so as to motivate them toward change.”