Working Positively with Difficult Client
This experiential two-day course aims to provide practical and constructive strategies for working effectively with difficult clients.
Anyone who works with people in a helping capacity will be aware of how some clients seem to create that “heart sink” feeling. This is where the client’s behaviour can in some way manifest as disruptive, exasperating or unpredictable. The result can be emotionally draining, stressful, and frustrating. These feelings sap our energies and disrupt the effectiveness of our work, and can even lead to burnout.
Utilising a variety of psychological approaches, blending theory and skills, this training offers insights into dealing with these situations better. Building on existing skills, it aims to enhance confidence and reduce stress. This can help to increase effectiveness while preserving emotional well-being.
Course Content
• Identifying different reasons why clients can seem challenging and trigger negative emotions in workers
• Learning how to protect yourself emotionally and reduce personal stress by dealing with the fight or flight response.
• Using simple guided relaxation and meditation techniques to centre and quieten the mind, and so improve well being
• Using the body’s energy system to release difficult emotions
• How to manage our own emotional state to make us more creative & effective
• How to be flexible and maintain rapport
• The importance of keeping communication channels open
• Identifying how difficult feelings can be guiding tools towards more useful ways of working.
(Please note that this is not a course on ‘handling violence & aggression’, or breakaway techniques, it is about working effective with clients who may be difficult to engage positively
The course is mapped against the following Drug and Alcohol National Occupational Standards (DANOS) Units, and against the Health and Social Care National Occupational Standards (HSCNOS) level 3 Units:
DANOS: AA2, AB1, AB2, AB3, AB6, AI1, AG2
HSCNOS: HSC379, HSC336, HSC354, HSC31a, HSC33, HSC35, HSC328, HSC331b, HSC337, HSC356, HSC397