‘Bitesize pieces of a PIE: Reflections on our new Centrepoint psychologically informed staff training offer’
18.06.2021: This week has been a very busy week for the Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) Team as not only are we now offering ‘PIE day’ training to all staff across the organisation, but we have now commenced the ‘PIE modules’ training across the organisation following the launch of our new Support and Housing operational model: HOMES (c.f. blog post here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/creating-psychologically-informed-homes-reflections-on-the-launch-of-centrepoint-s-new-d4015359eaca). Therefore, for this week’s PIE blog from the national youth homeless charity: Centrepoint, I have been reflecting on this new training programme and the first few training sessions that have been delivered so far as well as what is to come over the next year. For Centrepoint staff reading this blog, I would encourage them to check out the training on our U-Learn training system and sign up to courses that of interest to them and/or have particular relevance to the work that they are undertaking with the homeless young people that they support.
For the PIE Team, the launch of the PIE training modules represents the culmination of months of planning and development work in conjunction with the Support and Housing Management Team, the Skills and Development Team, and our internal Health Team. We have also been lucky to appoint an amazing PIE trainer to support the PIE team in the delivery of these due to the scale of the task (we have over 300 frontline staff at Centrepoint and over 500 staff nationally!). Consequently, the past week or so represents the start of an important delivery phase that is likely to be ongoing for many weeks, months and even years to come! However, staff training is a key part of developing our Centrepoint psychologically informed environment or PIE, and is also an important part of our ongoing ‘People Strategy’ within the organisation.
Specifically, Keats et al (2012) in the PIE Good Practice Guide (c.f. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340022/1/Good%2520practice%2520guide%2520-%2520%2520Psychologically%2520informed%2520services%2520for%2520homeless%2520people%2520.pdf) notes that ‘staff training and support is therefore central to the transition into psychologically aware services’ (p.21). However, they also rightly note that staff training is just the start — what is critical is the embedding and reinforcement of any learning from training in order for it to be most useful: ‘these trainings are reinforced and supported through clinician-led clinical supervision, and through reflective practice groups’ (p.22). This latter point is important because I am sure we have all been on training in our professional careers to date that has felt inspiring, interesting, useful, and has taught us something valuable. However, when we have got back to our day to day roles and are faced with the inevitable challenges and demands of our workplace, it can be hard to remember to put his learning into practice! Hence, it will important for any PIE training to not only have day-to-day relevance and clear theory-practice links (rather than being overly theoretical) but for ongoing supervision and reflective practice sessions to continually reinforce any learning gained from the PIE training modules.
Other objectives for staff training in a PIE have been outlined by Homeless Link (2015; https://www.homeless.org.uk/sites/default/files/site-attachments/Creating%20a%20Psychologically%20Informed%20Environment%20-%202015.pdf). These include ensuring that ‘staff competencies and confidence are developed in working with complex trauma’ (p.8), that ‘all staff feel confident and supported to work flexibly and creatively with risk and challenging behaviour’ (p.8), and that organisations ‘develop a core training programme, which supports the implementation of psychologically informed practice’ (p.9). Moreover, the Mental Health Foundation (2016) in their literature review of PIE’s within the homeless sector (c.f. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/pies-literature-review.pdf) highlight that ‘on a managerial and organisational level, implementation of a PIE approach requires an upfront investment into assessment of the service, training of staff and time to implement the PIE approach effectively’ (p.5). Therefore, training staff in a psychologically informed way of working is arguably a critical piece in the development of any PIE.
When I first joined Centrepoint, now over two years ago(!), I had the pleasure of visiting all the Centrepoint services around the country (e.g. London, Bradford, Barnsley, Sunderland and Manchester), which at the time was about 60 ‘frontline’ services. There was a great variety in these services from rough sleeper teams, our national helpline, young parents’ services, unaccompanied minors services, care leaver services, floating support services, and high, medium and low supported accommodation services. This variety rightly at times necessitates a local response to the homeless young people that they support. However, one (of actually many similarities between services) was that the staff that I met with all wanted more training to develop within their roles. Many of our staff have a significant amount of skills and experience, but nevertheless they still recognised the value of continuing professional development (CPD) and learning. As a psychologist, CPD is a key part of maintaining my professional registration, but I have also come to recognise and appreciate the value of life-long learning — after all, none of us can ever claim to know everything!
Consequently, when speaking to staff during this initial scoping exercise, one of my questions to them was what additional training (above what Centrepoint was already offering to staff) would be helpful, particularly from a PIE perspective? Therefore, as per a PIE, the now launched ‘PIE modules’ training offer was ‘co-produced’ with staff to ensure that it was the right fit for them and met their needs. These ‘PIE modules’ are designed to be in an accessible format for staff, that balance a mix of theory and practice, didactic and experiential or interactive learning, space for reflection and additional resources for further learning post-session. Most importantly, they are designed to provide staff with some ‘takeaway tools’ that they can immediately start to utilise when working with homeless young people (c.f. https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/pie-training-whats-in-your-psychological-toolbox-d80da6f17346).
Feedback from staff was also that when working on the ‘frontline’ it can be difficult to find time to attend day long training courses, because of the time away from direct delivery and the potential costs associated with locum cover for services. Consequently, with the exception of the mandatory PIE day training session (which covers the basics of PIE, attachment theory, relationship building, trauma informed care and staff self-care), which is now part of our Centrepoint induction training, all further psychologically informed training are in the form of ‘PIE modules’ or ‘bite site’ sessions (lasting around 2.5 hours). These are developed for both online and face-to-face delivery to enable them to be accessible from a work or home setting, or they may be offered within services for teams by the visiting PIE psychologists, perhaps following or before the monthly reflective practice session.
Topics that have been developed and launched so far include the following:
1. Engagement and Endings in Relationship Building.
2. Risk Assessment and Management.
3. Motivational Interviewing Skills.
4. Professional Boundaries.
5. Basic Counselling Skills.
6. Bereavement Awareness and Support.
7. Managing Difficult or Negative Thoughts.
8. Managing Difficult or Negative feelings, including Self-Harm.
9. Managing Challenging Behaviour and De-escalation Skills
10. Anger Management for Young People.
11. Mental Health Awareness.
12. Drug & Alcohol Awareness.
13. Strengths based Approaches and Building Self-Esteem in Young People.
14. Working with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Learning Disabilities.
As per a PIE, we also plan to continue to monitor and evaluate this training offer, including staff uptake, learning and satisfaction, and as a result may revise or add further topics. Moreover, the above list is also only those training modules developed internally. We will continue to partner with other organisations for other relevant training (e.g. suicide prevention: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/education-and-training/) or other specialist training covering subjects such as Country Lines or Domestic Violence as well as more focused housing sector training (e.g. via Homeless Link). The key principle in action is that staff are offered high quality and relevant training to their role, in order that they can work with homeless young people and achieve the very best outcomes for this vulnerable group. Of course, this principle does not just apply to our ‘frontline staff’. Whilst the above PIE modules may not be relevant to some of our ‘support teams’, access to high quality training relevant to our job role and part of our ongoing professional development linked to clear appraisal objectives is important for all Centrepoint staff if our organisation is truly to be a PIE. Investing in our workforce is equally applicable to all teams in the organisation as we ‘future proof’ the charity, improve staff satisfaction and well-being, and reduce staff attrition.
On reflection, one of the biggest challenges in developing the PIE modules has been to translate training from a face-to-face format, to be deliverable online as well. I have certainly had to learn fast about technology platforms such as Zoom or MS Teams in order to be able to share screens, play videos, create breakout spaces and manage participants’ screen fatigue! Having spent most of my psychology career delivering face-to-face training, switching to the delivery of online training is noticeably more challenging and of course can limit what you can do in terms of interactive exercises. However, one interesting unintended positive consequence that I have noticed this week is that staff have attended sessions from across the country, which has created opportunities for connection across the organisation that perhaps did not exist before thereby reducing any risk of ‘silo’ working or division between different regions. Staff who work in similar services have had the opportunity to connect and share good practice and challenges, and hopefully these connections or relationships once created in an online training session, can continue thereafter. Consequently, even in the post pandemic world, we plan to keep a mixture of face-to-face and online training opportunities for staff to engage in.
Finally, as I reflect back on the first week or so of offering the ‘PIE modules’, it is clear that the training offer has been received positively by our staff in both formal and informal feedback received so far. Perhaps because many of our ‘frontline’ staff spend significant amount of their time encouraging our homeless young people to engage in education, training and employment to realise their potential and improve their future prospects, there is recognition of the importance of life-long learning. Moreover, a significant investment in staff, through training, sends a clear organisational message to staff that they are ‘valued’ and are ‘worth’ that investment. Of course, as the quote at the start of this blog highlights, this investment is actually a ‘win-win’ situation for Centrepoint because improving our staff training offer not only benefits the staff receiving that training but as a result of their increased psychologically informed skills and knowledge, also positively impacts on the wider outcomes for homeless young people as well…
