March has been an interesting month, with lots happening across different workflows. The big focus has been, and still is the new Durham stop smoking service which we are due to mobilise on the 1st April, less than 2-weeks to go!

What have we been working on this month?

This month I have been meeting with the stop smoking teams to understand the different skills and knowledge required to be an effective stop smoking advisor. I have a couple more teams to visit, and I wanted to take the opportunity to thank the teams I’ve already seen – your feedback and ideas have been brilliant. The long-term aim is to be in a position where I can launch role specific learning pathways. Although these pathways will be an ever-evolving piece of work as new evidence comes out and our contract needs develop, I am hoping to have a foundation level to launch over the next 6 months. The long time-frame is because the learning pathways are going to replace the role specific training section in the induction brochure, which means all the pathways will need to be launched at the same time.

One of the topics that came up across talks with the health coaches and weight management practitioners is the importance of active listening. As a result, a new module on listening skills, that focuses on Stephen Covey’s 5 levels of listening have been created. Reflective activities have been embedded to create self-awareness of our own listening skills and how to enhance them. This module is going through review and will hopefully be ready to launch in the next 1-2 weeks.

Successes

A key piece of feedback we have received from those completing the level 1 and 2 behaviour change courses, is the need to practice the skills they have learnt from the training. As a result, I have launched two workshops in May, one for each level. During these workshops, you will take on the roles of practitioner, client and observer to practice implementing behaviour change techniques in a safe environment. Booking links can be found on Totem.

Next steps

I’m continuing to meet with stop smoking teams over the coming weeks. Once the key themes have been collated, I’ll be reaching out to stop smoking advisors to see if anyone would like to get involved in creating content for their learning pathway.