Inspiring Young People to Change with Shropshire Council
Quite often, I am blown away by the amount of work professionals undertake, day in – day out. Literally blown away by the vast array of skills that I bear witness to and the challenges faced by ever increasing demands. I think because I have worked in social care, education, sexual health etc. I understand the demands on services and the staff themselves. This ability to empathise with the workers puts me in the enviable position of explaining how I changed as a worker and became an outstanding teacher and a much sought-after trainer / support worker.
Sometimes I train entire teams and this can be a challenge. I have also seen for myself when staff morale starts to slide. Under-valued, under-performing, targets, targets, targets, paperwork, cut, cut, cut.
This was certainly NOT the case in Shrewsbury!
This past week I have been training staff from Shropshire Council and I can honestly say I have never enjoyed training a team so much in all of my working life. A really cohesive team of people who support one another, laugh with one another, enjoy the workplace banter (‘KFC anyone?’) and want nothing but the best for the young people that they are supporting.
There were some challenges along the way, some heated debates (and who doesn’t loved them) and a great deal of understanding with regards the demands of the job and how my training could assist in making the work environment less stressful, more productive and most importantly inspirational and exciting for the young people.
The team appear to work tirelessly under the leadership of the truly wonderful Jo and Matt, making sure that young people are empowered and encouraged, protected and stimulated.
So, thank you to, Adam, Alan, Ash ('Prime Minister one day Steve'), Calum,('call me ahtever you like!'), Chloe (Disney Princess), Hervin, Jayne, Kirstie, Nikki (the natural) and the legend that is Sue.
My ‘Inspiring Change’ course seemed to be just the tonic that was required, feedback consisted of:
“I loved the course. One of the best ones I’ve been on. Very hands on trainer, great fun learning with Steven. I hoped to gain new skills to use with young people and their families, which has definitely been achieved. Very useful techniques which will aid me in my job.”
“This was a brilliant two days, thank you Steven, I look forward to more from you. I wanted a better knowledge of working alongside young people and families and how to interview them. I would like more time to digest this new way of listening to people and I found it hard not to keep asking questions!”
“What a fabulous trainer! This was a new way of working / communicating with young people and colleagues and yes my learning needs were met.”
“Were my learning needs met? Yes! And I recognises that I will still need regular and frequent opportunities to put the skills of Motivational Interviewing (MI) into practice. Should we consider building on this training by having reflections on MI skill development built into our supervision?’
“I wanted to make positive changes to help in my role with service users and the staff team. The course exceeded my expectations. Thank you Steven.”
“This opened my eyes to new / different ways of working with young people. Really enjoyed the two days.”
“This was a good session and the trainer was brilliant. Ten out of ten.”
“I have learnt a lot. This was a very nice approach to training and made it easy to follow and easy to learn.”
“What I learnt – the language to avoid, how to positively create discrepancy and experiencing how the approach can make customers feel better. Your anecdotes brought the learning alive, thank you!!!”
“I wanted to learn how to respond to young persons’ behaviour and situations, I did this by looking at paraphrasing and language. The trainer was excellent and made the two days informative and enjoyable.”