Definitions of challenging behaviour that ignore context aren’t just wrong – they’re actually damaging and cause more problems than they solve.
Tag Archives: mental health
Online video training
“Very thorough and high quality…” Abi, Student nurse
Now less than half price. Lifetime access for only £12.99
Do you work in mental health services?
Are you a support worker, student nurse or just an interested person who’d like to know how to make more sense of mental health and disorder?
Do you find it hard to see how all the different disorders and peoples’ approaches to them fit together?
Do you have difficulty getting other professionals to see things as you do?
Would you like to be more effective in working with the people you care for?
Then this online video course is for you.
People learn best when they have questions and they remember best when they have a ‘schema’, a ‘picture on the box’ to help make sense of what they’re taught. That’s what this training is all about. Over two and a half hours of video instruction alongside a range of information and exercises in the accompanying workbook help you to make sense of the seemingly overwhelming field of mental health and disorder.
And all for much less than the cost of a good night out.
You can have all this for less than you’d pay for a take-away meal. But unlike a take-away, the benefits of this training will last your entire career.
Click the link below to get full access to the course videos and workbook.
https://www.tamtalking.co.uk/p/onlive-video-training-the-picture-on-the-box/
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Video training online
Now less than half price. Lifetime access for only £12.99
Here’s the introductory video for the first of several video training courses with accompanying PDF workbooks and exercises. This one’s an overview of mental health and disorder for workers and carers called ‘The picture on the box’.
I also plan to develop video courses on…
Anxiety
Depression
Psychosis
Self Harm
Personality disorder
Mental capacity act
Risk appreciation in health and social care
And my own self-help method called ‘The No Surprises method’.
Apart from ‘The picture on the box’, if there’s anything that you (or your wider contacts, come to that) would prefer me to work on sooner rather than later please let me know, even if it’s not listed. I can cover a whole lot more mental health and/or social care topics that I haven’t yet planned out.
Go on, get in touch. You know you want to
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Webinar: Mental health recovery
What’s #recovery really about in #mentalhealth? For many it means so much more than a return to how we were. Join my one hour seminar to learn more.
https://tinyurl.com/recoversemi
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Self harm interactive webinar
Self-harm can be confusing and bewildering for both staff and service-users. Ideas about ‘manipulation’ or a ‘cry for help’ do little or nothing to help prevent future self-harm. This interactive webinar explores some alternative notions and examines ways that support workers can make a difference in a genuinely difficult situation.
There is a great deal that support workers and others can do to help people who harm themselves. The trick is to be able to see past the behaviour and to understand the person who cuts themselves, takes overdoses or otherwise injures themselves.
In the past this sort of behaviour has been written off as attention-seeking or as an attempt to manipulate workers and yet most self-harm happens in secret and never comes to the attention of the staff. It’s really not about us. Something else is going on and the tired old notion that it is merely ‘behavioural’ is both meaningless and irrelevant in a modern context of deliberate self-harm.
This interactive webinar covers:
Definitions of self-harm
A cry for help?
Is it all just attention-seeking?
Self-harm and suicide – are they linked?
Pain, the brain and self-soothing behaviours
The emotional purpose of self-harm
Helping people to ‘get past’ self-harm
Managing the risks
Dos and Don’ts
Click here to reserve your place on this interactive webinar
Please note – this is an educational seminar. It is not a group therapy session and we cannot make time for individual or group counselling or other intervention here,
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Book short webinars and TamTalking sessions here
If you’re looking to book training for your staff you’ll need to complete the online contact form below.
However, if you’re interested in joining a short, ‘public access’ webinar as an individual or small group of friends, students etc or to set up a TamTalk please visit the TamTalking.co.uk store here
.Whatever you’re looking for, if it’s mental health or social care related get in touch, even if it’s not listed. You’d be surprised at the bespoke products I can put together.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Stuart Sorensen
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Beware the saviour fantasy
Newcomers to care, especially mental health care often believe that they not only can but actually will ‘save the world’. They genuinely expect that their winning personality, supported only by a nice smile, a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive will solve every psychological problem there is. They’re the saviours and their naivety puts everyone at risk.
Most of us grow out of such expectations early on in our careers. We may have begun wanting to save the world but now we just want the world to go away and leave us alone. We’ve had the naivety of inexperience kicked, beaten or otherwise drummed out of us in no uncertain terms and we’ve learned that we can only do so much in our little corner of the system. We knuckle down, get good at our particular task or set of tasks and keep that original, positive spark of enthusiasm alive with realistic expectations and the ability to take delight in smaller successes.
But some people never grow out of their saviour fantasy. They never overcome the innocence that may well have led them into the job but that also makes them beat themselves up every day because they haven’t yet fixed everything. They may not show it often but these overgrown saviours are racked with guilt because of the impossible task they set themselves. If you’re one of these saviours please read on…
It’s pension day and Mary, a kindly octogenarian toddles out of her local post office clutching a wad of notes in her gloved hand. She never did manage to catch up with all that modern internet banking nonsense and has always been a little suspicious of computers managing her affairs. ‘That’s what cheque books and cash are for’, she reasons. Her handbag hangs nonchalantly from her elbow as she fishes in the apparently inexhaustible, portable cavern for her purse.
Suddenly – two young thugs come dashing toward her. One snatches the cash, knocking Mary to the ground as he does so. The second stamps on her head for good measure, causing bright red blood to stream from her ear onto the pavement.
You run to her, screaming at passers-by to call an ambulance as you cradle the unconscious old lady in your arms. You feel helpless and angry as she breathes her last, still held tight in your embrace. You’re angry but you’re not guilty. You tried to help, after all. You never caused this and at least you had a go, unlike the rest of society who seem only able to cross the road and look the other way.
Mental health care’s like that. We didn’t cause the problems our patients have developed. Often it took them years to become this ill. That’s not your fault and you’re not to blame. At least you’re trying to help!
Beware the saviour fantasy
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The picture on the box
Making sense of mental health
Mental health work needn’t drive you up the wall!
Mental health work can seem so complicated… and not just for beginners. Many seasoned practitioners go on for years without a clear idea of how the different diagnoses, conditions and coping strategies fit together. It’s like trying to make sense of a 1,000 piece jigsaw without any real idea of what the overall picture is supposed to look like.
The confusion that arises can lead to workplace stress, unclear aims and difficulties in following care plans with different workers pulling in different directions whilst the service-user or client gets stuck in the middle of a whirlpool of confusion.
This course is intended to provide the ‘picture on the box’. It shows clearly and simply exactly how the different types of diagnosis and conditions fit together and even maintain and exacerbate each other. Delivered either online or face to face (with appropriate distancing, of course) it’s available to staff teams anywhere in the world, just so long as they speak English and have a working internet connection.
The course involves…
Session 1
Anxiety (the gateway to mental disorder)
Freeze, flight and fight
Session 2
Depression (when you’re tired of trying)The opposite of the FIVE ‘F’S
Psychosis (The Devil makes work for idle hands)
Session 3
Personality disorder (9 statements of vulnerability)
The symptom groups – are the same as the 3 clusters… are the same as the vulnerabilities
3 models – All roads lead to the same destination
Session 4
Dependence and self-reliance
Therapeutic optimism Expressed emotion
Get in touch to book this training for your own staff. Go on, you know you want to!
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Like face to face training – but online
It was refreshing to see this level of quality training
It took a bit of planning but I recently bit the bullet and transferred one of my popular training days online. Not the online training you masy be used to with a wealth of power point slides and me out of sight reciting the words on the screen as though the participants can’t actually read. Oh no. That would have been too easy – and far too boring.
Instead I took all the elements I used to include in the classroom or lecture hall and adapted them to an online format over Skype. We had quizzes, group exercises, group discussions, question and answer sessions, case studies and yes, even a little basic lecturing as well.
It went down so well I’m currently negotiating doing a similar thing overnight – not because the participants are vampires but because they’re in Australia. That’s right – lockdown has allowed me to take my training halfway around the world, and all from the comfort of my little home video studio.
Here’s what the lady who booked my first ever online training session had to say about it…
Despite providing training in an online format rather than face to face due to covid restrictions, Stuart was able to present and get across a personalised approach to training in an informative, approachable and thorough manner. There was plenty of time for breaks, questions and bespoke discussions about particular clients. Stuarts presentation manner was engaging, honest and thought provoking. We would highly recommend him for future training of all areas of mental health. It was refreshing to see this level of quality training within the private sector covering the areas which we required.
Holly Leach
Operations Director Invictus Complex care
Perhaps you’d like to pick up on training your staff where we all seem to have left off so long ago. Have a look at my training course list here and let me know if anything takes your fancy.
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Online mental health and/or social care training
I’ve always thought of myself as a face to face, engage with a live cohort/audience sort of trainer/speaker until…
I asked yesterday for volunteers to do tutorials with as a form of content marketing. The very first contact I had was for group training over zoom. A little thought later I agreed. I’m about to start a whole new voyage of discovery into online training.
If you’ve been wondering how to get decent quality, interactive training on mental health and social care in these days of lockdown, look no further.
Go on, you know you want to.
Mind The Care Training 