Resound Training & Development

"All the world's a stage"

2008-07-12T04:01:36-07:00

With Great Pleasure..................

This week I attended the BBC Radio 4 recording of their perennial favourite "With Great Pleasure". It took place in the Balcony Room at Shakespeare's Globe and we were treated to an array of literary gems chosen by Dominic Dromgoole (Artistic Director at the Globe) and author Will Hutton. We learnt a bit about the presenters through their selection of pieces as well as learning about their chosen authors and poets.

"The better part of valour is discretion.."

These programmes will be aired in August and I'm not going to give away the pieces that were presented! But what was fascinating was the process and the number of retakes required...not least because yours truly started coughing! My attempts at trying to discreetly stifle my coughing were to no avail. Oh the shame! I was rescued by my friend who never goes anywhere without a bottle of water and the audience member who fainted - thankfully distracting everyone away from my embarrassment. (We were assured that the person concerned was fine - once out in the air!)

"Trippingly on the tongue"

But it got me thinking - the retakes were just part of getting it right, creating a flawless programme requires several goes - because of coughing or other interruptions; the Globe bell for example, or because a word or phrase didn't quite trip off the tongue, a piece needed clearer introduction and so on. And that's what experiential learning, work-based learning and training programmes are all about - trying something, reviewing, identifying changes, applying the changes and, in this case, delivering the line again.

So next time I need to do a 'retake' at work or have to apply changes to some project and start again, I shall think of our evening spent with great pleasure...because retakes lead to a flawless performance - oh and yes I have started taking water around with me for those annoying people who cough!

A Friday afternoon look at improving productivity!

2008-06-27T09:53:53-07:00

National Siesta Day zzzzzzzzzzzz!

This week saw the promotion of National Siesta Day, an initiation which encourages employees to nap during working hours to improve their productivity and alertness in the office, so we have asked the team for their favourite tips for maintaining energy and creativity throughout the day.

Slipping off the shoes!

Oh yes, a few pairs of shoes lurking under desks as staff wiggle their toes and walk about the carpet tiles bare foot! I'm pleased to confirm that we were wearing shoes when a client visited this afternoon!

Indian Head Massage

A great 20 minute treat that can be performed anywhere - even in the office, and no you don't have to remove any items of clothing! Alison Goldsmith of Holistic Harmony provides Indian Head Massages and says "regular treatments can help to increase alertness and energy, improve concentration and reduce stress and tension."

Meditation

My personal favourite, some chill out time with some relaxing music really helps to get the creativity flowing again ready to design some more training programmes.

What are your top tips for maintaining energy and creativity throughout the day?

Nothing is too boring for Press

2008-06-26T10:01:07-07:00

Bag by Steven Harkin Design

PR Course Update

Some great lessons were learnt thanks to our recent 'How to Write an Effective Press Release' workshop. PR trainer, ex journalist and workshop leader Adrienne Lowing boosted the confidence of small businesses by assuring them nothing is too boring for press! "Some of the delegates came along convinced their subjects were too mundane for press but went away realising they had a lot to talk about!"

The workshop also highlighted the financial benefits of press releases, "Advertising needs to be done regularly to be effective and is often too costly for small businesses, alternatively a small company can write it's own press releases to gain access to editorial space which is free and has more credibility than an advert!"

Barbara Pani from Steven Harkin Design attended the workshop and reaped the benefits of Adrienne's advice, "The workshop was really good and it has given me the confidence I needed to write and send PR already!" And I for one fell in love with the bags that Barbara brought along to show us! See above.

And some extra advice

Don't believe the rumours, not all journalists are lazy so make sure your contact details are clear in case they want some extra information!

Valuing the People who Care

2008-05-19T06:02:39-07:00

India Knight writing in The Sunday Times raises the uncomfortable issue of care for the elderly, or rather the lack of it.

Training and development for staff in the care sector has been a priority in recent years and continual learning and professional development - whether it be through NVQs, short courses, action learning sets - has a significant role to play in driving up standards. But recruitment and retention in this sector is a problem, with many care homes reliant on agency staff. And this is not surprising, after all, care workers have a lot of responsibility, work hard and don't earn very much.

I'll always remember a fantastic group of domiciliary care managers from Devon who attended a training course I ran on supervision skills. They were interested in their own learning and totally committed to their work. We talked about motivations and I asked them why they chose to do the work they do - after all they could earn as much doing something else. A silence fell over the group whilst they considered their response. Then one of the group said "Seeing someone's face light up when you arrive and knowing you are the only person they will see all day - you know you are doing a really important job"

Of course abuse must be stamped out and "disgusting nursing homes"closed or brought immediately up to an acceptable standard, but we must learn to value highly the many excellent people working in care who are doing what we can't or won't do - caring for our elderly relatives.

A skilled workforce that is trained to a high level, valued and respected for the work they do and paid accordingly is the starting place to attaining the quality of care we want - and it will be our turn to receive it soon enough. How do you want to be cared for when the time comes?

Write Effective Press Releases - how your business can hit the headlines

2008-05-07T05:15:59-07:00

We've just added a new Courses & Workshops page to this blog where we'll be adding various training and development courses, teleclasses and workshops as they are announced.

The first listing is for a really useful 1 day PR course with our expert PR trainer, Adrienne Lowing (pictured) of Words Worth Public Relations.

Ever wondered what makes a press release effective... and how to write one?

Adrienne will be sharing how you can raise your business's profile, reaching a wider audience, in a cost effective way. This informal course takes place on Tuesday May 13th in Colchester, Essex and is a 'must' for anyone responsible for marketing within their organisation. And at a very affordable £150 (+ vat), the potential return on your investment is huge.

Full information and a downloadable BOOKING FORM can be found here

Presentation Skills Training - top tips for overcoming 'presentation anxiety'

2008-05-02T09:53:41-07:00

Amongst our top selling programmes is High Impact Presentations, delivered either as a one-day course to a small group or as 3 x 2-hour 1:1 coaching sessions.

One of our top tips for overcoming 'presentation anxiety' is to get the thinking right! When you change the focus from ‘I’m feeling so nervous’ to ‘What does this group need to learn from my presentation?’ not only does the fear subside but the presentation starts to meet the needs of the most important people in the room – your audience!

We have now developed our Presentation Skills Workbook - made up of some of the exercises which have proved to be highly successful in helping our delegates get the ‘thinking right’. What's more, we've decided to give it away as a little 'thank you' gift when you sign up to our mailing list! Simply enter your details in the box at the top right of this page to claim your personal copy of Resound Training & Development Presentation Skills Workbook now.

Whether you have a presentation coming up and want some help, or you are a trainer looking for more resources, we hope you enjoy the workbook. We would love to hear from you – so drop us a line and let us know how you are getting on.

Empowering users - forum theatre approach boosts NELA performance

2008-04-30T08:40:00-07:00

Last week, we posted a 'forum theatre' Diversity & Equality Training case study with you. Today, we want to share another; this time the client was the North East London Advocacy Service and here we talk in more detail about the process and delivery.

Case Study: North East London Advocacy Service

The Client:

North East London Advocacy Service (NELA) is a confidential and independent organisation promoting the rights of people with learning difficulties and mental health problems.

The Challenge:

To design and deliver a forum theatre programme to an audience of service users, advocates, clinicians and managers focusing on the different ways an advocate can support service users. NELA set Resound Training & Development the challenge of raising awareness of its services alongside empowering users to speak up, challenge and promote their Human Rights. And it all had to be fun!

The Solution:

Resound worked closely with the organisation to identify story lines that would be realistic, relevant and sensitive to the needs of the audience. Detailed research

was carried out by each actor/facilitator to enable them to build characters with whom the audience would empathise in situations which were recognisable. Gaining a clear understanding of the perspectives, concerns and priorities of service users and professionals was imperative. It was also important that the event was lively, fun and encouraged a high level of participation from people who use the service.

The first scene portrayed a Care Plan Assessment meeting between a young woman who uses the service and her Consultant Psychiatrist. The actors, taking advice from the audience, were able to recreate the scene to show how an advocate can help the service user to get across what they want to say and ensure their voice is heard in these important meetings.

The second scene focused on Michael, a character with a learning disability who wants to leave the family home to live an independent life. The audience became passionate about supporting this character to make the changes required to enable him to move into supported living accommodation.

The Benefits:

The audience members instantly engaged with the characters and story lines, providing instant feedback to the actors and offering solutions to the problems portrayed in the scenes. Audience members spoke with enthusiasm, vitality and purpose as they re-directed the scenes to provide better conclusions. The event was lively, heart-warming and thought provoking.

What the Client said:

“Thank you for all the work you and your team put into making the event informative, fun and subsequently very successful. The actors were all fantastic. We’ve had extremely positive feedback from both service users and professionals.”

North East London Advocacy Service

Diversity & Equality Training - Theatre lifts curtain on appropriate behaviour

2008-04-18T13:28:00-07:00

People often ask how Forum4Change, where - working with actors - we create 'forum theatre' around specific issues, might work as part of their training and development programme. You can find out more about Forum4Change here, and the following case study - where we delivered Diversity and Equality training - will also give you a better understanding of what we can achieve together:

Case Study: London Borough of Havering

The Client:

London's third largest Borough, with a population of over 220,000, employs over 8,000 staff and holds both “Corporate Investors in People” and “Positive About People with Disabilities” awards.

The Challenge:

To design and deliver a forum theatre programme for Public Realm employees focusing on managing inappropriate behaviour at work. The outcomes set for the programme included:

Raising awareness about bullying and harassment issues
The support routes available to staff
The Council's expectations of staff and managers as set out in its policies.

The programme also needed to address how staff manage their responses when faced with challenging behaviour by the public.

The Solution:

Resound worked closely with departments within Public Realm to identify storylines that would be realistic, relevant and reflected the needs of the different staff groups. Working with Public Realm’s Equality and Diversity Group, Resound created a dynamic and innovative programme which included a high level of participation from delegates. There was also facilitated group work discussing the issues from the scenes and underlining the key learning messages.

The Benefits:

Over 500 delegates attended one of the 18 workshops. Delegates rated the course very highly and significant outcomes were achieved.

What the Client said:

“We have used Resound Training twice to deliver our Diversity and Equality training. Our first cycle of training used Forum Theatre to explore bullying, harassment and inappropriate behaviour. Over 500 delegates attended the halfday training events. It was so highly rated we commissioned them again to explore racial harassment and zero tolerance. This time around even more have attended and the results have been even better.

“Resound's strengths are their preparation and tailoring to local circumstances. Gill is also a strong and confident facilitator and course designer – important qualities when designing bespoke training and dealing with sensitive and emotive issues.”

Dylan Champion
Head of Customer Services and Lead for Equalities in the Public Realm Group
London Borough of Havering

Supervision and feedback - vital to the workplace

2008-04-16T09:01:00-07:00

Good supervision = good staff performance

I HAVE to admit to being a great advocate of supervision so it is no surprise to my team that it's a recurring theme! Looking back over my working life I can see just what a difference it makes when we receive high quality supervision, but was it always like that...

Going back 20 years, like many people working in care today, I was juggling a part-time role as a care assistant in a local residential home, alongside caring for my young family. I enjoyed working with the resident sand I know they valued me but there was no supervision, just a list of tasks to get through on my shift. More-importantly, there was absolutely no feedback from my manager, so I had no idea if I was doing a good job.

We know from research that positive feedback is more than just making someone feel good - it actually helps that employee maintain a high level of performance. Ten years ago I was working as part of the training team in a supportive living scheme for young homeless people aged 16-25. Again there was no formal one-to-one supervision and yet we were working with vulnerable young people with very high support needs. I look back and ask the question: “How much more effective could we have been if we had received one-to-one supervision?”

Let's look at a positive experience - the one that really made me take supervision seriously. I was about to start work with a Mental Health Trust on a year-long project and I was sitting at home reading through the contract. I have to admit to feeling a bit put out by the line: “You will receive fortnightly one-to-one supervision”. My first thought was: “Don't they trust me to do the job?” followed by: “I don't need supervising!” Fortunately a friend of mine popped in for a coffee and chat and asked about my new role and I said casually: “Oh it's great, I'm just not sure about this line in the contract that says I have to have fortnightly supervision.”

She immediately retorted with some force: “Supervision is your right - make sure you get it!”

I was completely taken aback. As a then recently-qualified social worker she had, and still has, strong views on supervision! But it opened me up to a very different way of thinking about supervision. Just as well for I was about to be supervised by someone much younger than me and with limited knowledge of the work I was delivering!

But I learnt a valuable lesson - if your supervisor wants you to succeed and listens with intent to what you say, asks challenging questions and follows through on the actions then supervision becomes a very meaningful experience. Of course, I too had to play my part as the supervisee but looking back I know the project would not have been a success without my supervisor's support and constructive feedback.