TRAINING
Standing in front of a group of people to present anything used to fill my insides so full of butterflies that I thought I would explode! But with practice and confidence, I began to learn how to facilitate groups and training sessions to support group discussion with a more relaxed atmosphere. I now see my role as a training facilitator as someone to provide information on topics, while supporting the participants to learn from each other. This collaborative style of training has grown my love of facilitating different training sessions related to my core areas of Occupational Therapy intervention.
Manual Handling Training
Traditionally care workers are very client focused and often do not pay attention to themselves during the performance of manual handling tasks. Training places an emphasis on the support worker’s movements to assist them in understanding that they play a critical factor in the safe manual handling of clients. It can also be difficult for support workers to ask for assistance from management if they notice a deterioration in an individual’s physical ability, instead adjusting the way they support the individual, ultimately putting more pressure on their own bodies. This training addresses the importance of support workers identifying risks if this situation occurs.
After supporting a lot of support workers and direct care workers improve their and their client’s safety through improving their manual handling, I developed a Manual Handing Training called “Moving Focus”. Moving Focus is divided into two parts and is facilitated by me.
The first part involves a face-to-face group session discussing the key concepts of safe manual handling. It is conducted in an interactive way, to encourage questions and discussions to ensure that each participant has a firm understanding of the importance and implications of hazardous manual handling. Each participant is provided with and encouraged to complete a workbook to help them consolidate the knowledge that is discussed.
The theory aspect of the training lasts for approximately 2 hours.
The second part of the training looks at putting the theory into practice and the content is tailored to suit each organisation. The organisation is provided with a list of different practical techniques so that they can choose what they would like their employees to cover through the session, depending on what is relevant to the support workers. This session attempts to raise the support workers’ awareness of how they are doing the tasks and as such is very practical and “hands on” in nature. Training provides the opportunity for learning, practicing and gaining feedback of the performance of manual handling tasks.
A customised Competency Checklist can be developed to give the employer the peace of mind to know that each worker has demonstrated safe manual handling.
The practical aspect of Moving Focus lasts for approximately 2 hours.
Feedback from people who have attended Moving Focus:
Pressure Injury Identification and Management
Occupational Therapists act as detectives when someone develops a pressure injury to determine the contributing factor or factors to the development of the pressure injury. They are also an integral part of pressure care management to promote the healing of the area, through assistive technology and education on positioning strategies.
It is imperative that Support Workers and Direct Care Workers understand what to look out for when observing a person’s skin to note the pressure injury when it has just started forming, to increase healing potential and decrease the severity of the area.
My Pressure Injury Identification and Management training provides information to Support Workers and Direct Care Workers so they can be empowered to provide a high quality of care and feel confident in the prevention, identification and management of pressure injuries.
Feedback from people who have completed Pressure Injury Identification and Management training:
Sensory Processing
Sensory processing involves the way that the brain interprets the sensory information that is provided by the senses. The brain processes sensory information differently and some people are more or less sensitive to certain stimuli. If our sensory system is not processing sensory information appropriately, it can impact our ability to pay attention, learn new information and function in daily tasks. It can also cause outbursts for both children and adults. Therefore, having an understanding of our sensory processing and sensory preferences, we can alter a person’s ability to cope and reduce behaviours of concern.
The Sensory Processing presentation is perfect for childcare workers, parents or disability support workers who support adults, to help them have an understanding of how sensory stimuli can impact mood and behaviour. It looks at the eight senses (sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch, vestibular, proprioception and interoception) and discusses the most powerful senses to modify someone’s arousal levels to suit the task at hand. The presentation also helps you to understand HOW the brain interprets information differently for different people.
Sessions can be tailored to suit your purpose, and length of presentation can be dependent on the depth of information you would like to explore. As a general guide, the presentation goes for 1 hour.
