I was back in Crewe this week, working alongside the legendary staff from Cheshire East Council. Claire Williamson has commissioned me to create a bespoke Motivational Interviewing course that hits the key demographics of people living across Cheshire East – and that’s exactly what I‘ve done. I met with Dimitris, Jill and Danielle, all of whom live in Cheshire and worked with them to get their stories told, especially in relation to the way in which some services let them down and in other areas, where staff members absolutely went above and beyond to support them into positive life changes.
I met some truly wonderful members of staff, some of whom had undertaken Motivational Interviewing training bore and now said, ‘oh, I see! I get it now!’ Sometimes you just need to listen to what your audience needs and add your extra Je ne sais quoi.
So, huge thanks you to Claire for always being there for me and making a massive difference to families across Cheshire East, and also to Justine, Claire, Leigh, Jon, Alex, Robbie and Dawn, all of whom through themselves into the training and demonstrated a real commitment to learning and making sure their families are supported, encouraged and inspired to adopt positive life changes.
A smattering of feedback for you:
“Brilliant training and delivered excellently. Really enjoyed meeting you and would definitely attend any other training you are delivering. I have learned a lot and will be putting these new skills into practice at work.”
“Steve knew his stuff, able to answer questions on the fly and contextualise. Some great positive happy endings from real life work, masterfully acted (“Travis” was my fave). Also benefited from a relatively small group of nice people, so the 1:1 and breakout work was good. I enjoyed it...need time to process and practice in order to reap fullest benefits.”
“Not a subject that comes easy but a vital skill to have in the job of family service. Learnt lots and had fun too, Steven is a fountain of knowledge and the tools I will definitely be using in my job such as the 6 steps to change which I plan to do next week!!! I feel everyone in our job needs to have done this training and I would definitely put it up there in the top 3 of the best training sessions I have ever done in my 20 years as a family service worker.”
“Thank you so much – the course was amazing and I feel I learnt so much and can use this with all of my families and create a better plan for them.”
“Really well delivered, very engaging and informative.”
“Great training, I feel like I learned a lot and had the opportunity to practise and develop my skills. Slides, videos, and activities were engaging, and Steven’s anecdotes brought motivational interviewing to life. I can see how the training will impact my work, especially when working with school staff supporting children and young people.”