Description:
This is an essential programme for Councillors who want to be more aware of their personal safety.
Designed to sit within any organisation’s policy, the session is based on sensible advice and established good practice.
In addition to exploring issues around personal safety, the programme will make participants more aware about the reasons why people can behave in negative ways, and explores practical ways to avoid situations becoming uncontrollable.
Many of these approaches can be relevant to a wide range of situations including chairing difficult meetings, or interacting with groups of unhappy residents.
Programme Objectives:
By the end of this programme delegates will be able to:
- Create a strategy for personal safety and awareness
- Describe the underpinning motivators of aggressive or inappropriate behaviour
- Explain the anger cycle and early warning signs that a situation is deteriorating
- Identify behaviours that act as accelerants and that can inflame an individual
- Use calming techniques to avoid situations becoming more heated
- Recognise when the situation is becoming irretrievable and learn how to walk away or summon help
- Develop sensible use of senses and instinct.
Further information:
The programme is very participative and draws on the experiences of delegates. The theme of the course is diagnostic; encouraging delegates to identify areas where they can prevent aggressive situations from occurring and become aware of personal behaviours that unwittingly may create problems for others.
Programme
10:00 Coffee and registration
10:30 Welcome
- Introductions
- Objectives – personal and programme
10:45 Our Role
- What are the situations to which we may be exposed
- Defining lone working situations
- Lone working and how this changes risk
11:30 Personal Safety and Early Choices
- Good practice guide to working safely including:
- Using public transport
- Meeting people in their homes
- Having visitors to our home
- Meetings
- Walking, cycling and driving tips
During this session we will stop for a brief refreshment break
12:45 Lunch
13:15 Behavioural Awareness:
- Why do people become aggressive or violent?
- Understanding behaviour patterns and cycles
- Patterns of anger
13:45 The Anger Graph
- The behaviour triangle
- Calming a situation down
- Helping and hindering behaviours
- Talking people ‘down’
14:30 Techniques for Coping with Aggression
- Interrupting and use of distraction techniques
- Non-verbal behaviour
- Sympathy, empathy and apologising
- Standing our ground gracefully
- Avoiding becoming ‘hooked’ into arguments
- Making use of the Council’s complaints/feedback process
15:15 What next?
- Incident reporting – signposting to in-house policy and procedure
- Reporting procedures
- Coping with the aftermath
15:30 Key points from the session
- Review
- Evaluation
- Close.
