From time to time, anyone dealing with customers will have challenging situations to deal with. It just goes with the territory. It’s inevitable.
Properly prepared, however, dealing with a challenging situation doesn’t have to be a stressful, difficult or negative experience. Competence, courtesy and confidence are ‘all’ it takes. Perhaps ‘all’ sounds like quite a lot? That’s where this workshop comes in.
- Identify the stages of bereavement that individuals may experience
- Avoid the key mistakes that people can make with the bereaved
- Be able to explain the Egan three-stage module for communicating with people who have been bereaved
- Use different communication processes appropriately, including questioning, listening and summarising
- Use empathy to demonstrate understanding
- Introduce sources of help sensitively and appropriately
Expert trainer
Miranda has more than twenty years’ experience as an independent learning and development consultant and trainer. Much of her work is focused on the public service and VCSE sectors.
Session outline
This is the overview for the half-day, face-to-face session. Timings are approximate and will flex depending on the needs of the group. Virtual delivery follows the same content and sequence but with different timings and excludes the additional practise section.
1. Understanding bereavement
- Bereavement and loss
- Bereavement and loss
2. Fundamentals
- Identifying what our role is – and what it isn’t
- Common mistakes when communicating with the bereaved
- Communication styles to avoid
- Behaviours to adopt
- Behaviours to avoid
3. Communication style
- Voice and tonality
- Questioning skills
- Listening skills
- Non-verbal behaviours
- Using summarising techniques
- Awareness of cultural diversity in bereavement
- Avoiding becoming hooked into someone’s grief
- The ‘drama triangle’
4. Safeguarding and signposting
- Basic introduction to safeguarding
- Safeguarding fundamentals
- Signposting to other support agencies
- Taking care of us
