Case Study: Active Calderdale
Since 2021 Active Calderdale has booked almost 300 people onto the Active Conversations courses!.This is their story...
Active Calderdale works with many organisations and communities to make physical activity an embedded part of day to day life in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.
Active Calderdale works with many organisations and communities to make physical activity an embedded part of day to day life in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.
Since 2021 Active Calderdale has booked almost 300 people onto the Active Conversations courses!.This is their story...
Richard Croker
LDP Programme Manager, Calderdale Council
Supporting our staff
Ensuring staff across different sectors feel confident and able to have good conversations about moving and being active with the people they support is a major determinant to whether those conversations take place. This training has been a great enabler for us to support staff and ensure they have the confidence and ability to have good conversations about moving and being active.
"It's helped me to approach conversation about activity in a positive and non-judgmental way."
Eileen Kelly
Business Support Officer, Calderdale Council
Impact of Active Conversations
Staff from adult social care were some of the first people that we trialled on the Active Conversations course, and I happened to be working in that team at the time. The staff were mainly social workers, regularly visiting adults aged 65+ in their own homes, to carry out an assessment of their needs. Once training was completed, all members of staff were asked to have a conversation with every client about being active.
The Service Manager was fully engaged with Active Calderdale and its work, so much so that she embedded Active Conversations into the service by adding a question to the assessment forms (which is no mean feat in the council!) ensuring that staff discussed being more active with all clients.
This could be as simple as (if they were able):
- Encouraging them to make their own cup of tea/opening the curtains in the morning before their carer arrived
- Opening the door when the carer arrived rather than letting them use the key safe
- Walking to the corner shop, or taking a short wellbeing walk
- Suggesting they join a local Chair Yoga or similar session for the over 60s
The form that staff used to close a case was also amended to ask what discussion the staff member had with the client about being more active. If they didn’t have a discussion they had to explain why.
The knowledge that staff gained from the training has been embedded into social services (and many more organisations) as a result of this training.
"This training gives the professionals that we work with the confidence to have conversations with clients about the health and wellbeing benefits of being more active in their daily lives, however small that activity might be."
Who is benefitting from Active Conversations?
Here are some of the organisations and job titles of those who have attended Active Conversations training since 2021. As new starters come to their organisations, they continue to put their names forward to attend future courses, so they clearly believe it is of value.
Halifax Opportunities Trust
- Family Outreach Workers
- Family Support Workers
Pennine GP Alliance
- Care Co-ordinators
- Social Prescribing Link Workers
Hebden Bridge Community Association
- Staying Well Workers
- Community Engagement Co-ordinator
Children & Young People’s Services, Calderdale Council
- Family Intervention Team:
- Key Workers, Family Group Conference Facilitators
Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Trust
- Physiotherapists
- Advance Practice Physios
- Community Therapies Team
- Diabetes Care Co-ordinators
North Halifax Primary Care Network & Upper Valley Primary Care Network
- Care Co-ordinators
North Halifax Partnership
- Community Organisers
Domiciliary Care Providers
- Care Supervisors
- Carers
- Office Administrators
Active Calderdale Staff
- Community Project Managers
- Active Champions (volunteers)
300
Course enrollments and counting!
No place like home!
When Active Calderdale enrolled multiple staff members onto the Active Conversations course, they had the added benefit of their very own branded home within the Moving Medicine online education platform.
Imagine a personalised, bespoke dashboard with your brand and colours. Team leaders with the ability to run custom, in-depth reports on a wide range of parameters. Even the potential to upload your own educational content, just for your team members!
Reward completion by offering points and badges, and make it competitive with a leaderboard to encourage your team to complete their training.
Contact us to discuss this option or ask us any questions about the Moving Medicine education platform and Active Conversations online course.