QCP
Who?
Quality Care Partnership represents and supports health and social care employers. It drives for excellence in the quality of services, providing support for workforce planning, training and recruitment.
What?
There is a wealth of interesting, diverse jobs in the NHS and they don’t all revolve around scalpels, needles and thermometers. QCP wanted to empower their team of NHS Ambassadors with the workshop skills to show the children that there is a range of opportunities in the organisation; many more than there appears to be on the surface.
How?
For Dead Earnest, this project was not simply about creating some useful workshops for the NHS Ambassadors and then sending them off into various schools to regurgitate them. Instead, we very much wanted to give the ambassadors the power and skills to devise their own workshops, to understand the devices that are used, to understand the theory behind it and the effects it can have.
For this particular workshop, spread over three days, we made use of our riverside rehearsal space to gather everybody together and take part in the workshops, which focussed not only on creative techniques but also on building confidence, teamwork and understanding. For example, when communicating it is important to remember the importance of body language – studies have shown that this communicates far more meaning than both what you say and how you say it. Our work with the NHS Ambassadors was about passing on our skills and giving them the ability to produce workshops for the children together.
We covered topics such as questioning – what should be asked, why should it be asked and how should it be asked? When should an open question be used over a closed question? And why? How can provocations help to loosen up the audience and get them talking amongst themselves? We didn’t just show the group examples of this; we showed them how and why it could work, especially with children. We also devised activities based around how to listen – how it feels to be listened to or ignored, what it can mean to someone’s feelings and how it can help everyone to communicate more effectively.
The three days were designed to be fun and exciting whilst also teaching the ambassadors – people not used to working specifically with children – the various skills they would need to be successful.
Sounds like a pleasant few days by the river, how did they get on when they were thrown in with the lions?
The participants felt well equipped to work with the young people in a fun, age-appropriate and relevant way. They enjoyed the training and felt it had help them to grow in confidence and understanding of how to work with young people.