Getting started with staff training
There are two forms of training available to support the Implementation Guide and Toolkit approach. These have been designed to meet the needs of staff delivering MECC.
These different methods each cover the key areas required to ensure staff are competent and feel confident to raise lifestyle issues. They also fulfill the knowledge and understanding criteria of the MECC competence identified within the Behaviour Change Pathway and Competence Mapping Resource.
When implementing MECC you should choose the training that is most suitable for your organisation and put it into context for staff to ensure it is meaningful and relevant.
Insight work has shown that face-to-face training better supports staff to overcome some of the barriers to talking to people about their lifestyle. It also increases their confidence and competence by learning from colleagues, discussing opportunities for MECC and practising skills.
Regardless of which training you use it is important to ensure the organisational infrastructure is in place to support staff to put their learning into practice.
Option 1: Face-to-Face training
The MECC Skills Workshop Training Slides have been made available as a face-to-face training resource. They have completed notes pages to give the person delivering the session guidance on the content of each slide and how they might want to use or tailor the slides for their audience.
Option 2: e-Learning
A generic e-learning tool, developed within the West Midlands has been made available to help prepare all staff to give brief opportunistic advice. The e-learning tool is part of a generic lifestyle behaviour change framework that incorporates two levels, ‘brief advice’ and ‘brief intervention’. The tool will facilitate large scale training of all staff enabling them to give opportunistic advice and support to patients who wish to adopt healthier lifestyles. This tool is primarily for all staff who have opportunistic contact with patients.
Your own or other training presentations
Your organisation may have its own training presentations, or know of other suitable training that is available. You may choose to use separately or alongside the face to face or e learning training referred to above.
Whatever training you use you should ensure it is put into context for the audience. You should also map your local training to the knowledge and understanding MECC competence identified within the Behaviour Change Pathway and Competence Mapping Resource that can be downloaded from the panel on the right.
