Hello all,
He’s back again with a blog post. This time I thought I’d discuss the wonderful work that Birmingham City Council is doing in relation to housing and homelessness. I have been delivering my bespoke ‘Inspiring Change’ behaviour course throughout 2022 and the feedback has been uniformly 100% positive. I love doing my research and meeting and interviewing the residents of Birmingham and hearing things from their perspective has been both humbling and illuminating. Throughout my research I asked the residents what they thought were the essential skills required from the staff at the council. Time and again two words kept cropping up, two words that residents said they wanted more than anything. Those two words:
Honesty and Integrity.
Throughout the three days of training, I ask the staff to think about their professional values. Those two words always manifest. Along with authenticity and compassion. Just look at that:
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Authenticity
• Compassion
Surely that’s what we all need to be extolling. The level of motivation from some of the staff has been phenomenal, especially in such a dark time in the UK at the moment. Staff are fighting an uphill struggle to deal with so many social issues. Homelessness, poor mental health, lack of services, the list goes on and each and every day the staff persevere.
What I particular enjoy hearing are the stories of staff going above and beyond. People like Musarat, Amar, Georgia and Adeyinka Paul. Staff from the council who are striving to meet the needs of people who are struggling. I was blown away by their dedication to their roles and it was great to finally meet them all in the flesh (via Zoom…) after residents had highlighted how kind, compassionate and supportive they had been. I finally put a face to a name.
I’ve collated some of their feedback comments below. I was rather moved by some of the comments.
Onward and upward folks!
“I have over 20 years experience in housing, and I found the training course absolutely Fantastic, Refreshing and Steven Talbot is an inspiration. Keep up the good work mate!”
Amar
“I really enjoyed the training it was very useful even though I use most of the skills in
my job everyday there were some parts the training that was very useful.
Steven was very good at his job and delivered the training effectively and he is very
knowledgeable. Steven involved all the group in his session so well that not for
once did I feel he was the teacher and I was the learner – I enjoyed his role play
videos and learnt a lot form them. The slides Steven prepared were very
informative and useful and easy to follow which makes a world of a difference.
Steven is a very caring, and down to earth person, and treated everybody equally
and fairly.
I would appreciate to be invited to any further training sessions Steven will be
delivering in future.
I wish Steven all the very best in what he does as he has changed many lives and I
am sure he will change many more – well done Steven! you are an inspiration to all
you train and work with – you inspired me. Thank you.
I will score 10/10 for his training! 5 Star training session it was!
The group was lovely too.
I would appreciate if a session could be arranged with the same group again in the
future to see how people are getting and to share our learning skills from Stevens’
training.
I could go on for ever – I really enjoyed it honestly – Please let me know for any
further training with Steven - thanks.”
Musarat
“The session we did with Steven was fantastic. I learned a lot and Steven was great and his enthusiasm made the sessions engaging. Thank you so much Steven. I am looking forward to using these techniques when I’m speaking with my residents.
One of the things that would have made it better for me is if the training was done in person. I struggled with understanding the responding to resistance portion of the training so I would have liked more time on that. Steven did pick up on this and said we may have more time on that in the future.”
Georgia
“Trainer was great, explained things in an easy-to-understand manner, came into the breakout rooms where we could ask questions in a smaller amount and get a better understanding. Steven’s knowledge was top notch. I look forward to any more trainer delivered by him.”
Adeyinka Paul