Training Day 2006

general | programme | workshop details | case studies

Workshop details

Workshop 1
Understanding and working with suicide – Patti Wallace

This workshop will address the following questions:

• How do people think, feel and behave when they are suicidal?
• How can we best help people who are suicidal?

The workshop leader will present an integrative approach to understanding suicide and will discuss specific interventions based on this approach.

Patti Wallace is a BACP registered counsellor and a UKCP registered integrative psychotherapist with 30 years' experience as a clinical practitioner, service manager, supervisor and trainer in the field of mental health and psychological therapies. She is currently assistant dean in the School of Human and Life Sciences at Roehampton University. Patti has particular expertise in working therapeutically with individuals who are suicidal or who self harm. She has worked with a number of EAP and occupational health counselling providers to develop services and policies for working safely and effectively with this client group.

Workshop 2
The dynamics of death in organisations – Rachel Uren

Death within organisations can be particularly tough to deal with, especially in a residential or institutional context. Staff will be required to support the family and friends of the deceased as well as dealing with their own and colleagues’ reactions. The experience of ‘managing the death’ brings additional and often intense dynamics in such situations. Drawing on direct experience of work in the prison service, this workshop will consider how best staff dealing with a complex range of relationships can be supported in the workplace.

Rachel Uren is the Occupational Welfare Services Manager for HM Prison Service. She has 10 years’ experience in the € eld and trained as a counsellor, debriefer and workplace mediator.

Workshop 3
The power of peer support: mobilising supportive resources within workplace teams – Elspeth Schwenk

This interactive workshop will explore the value of mobilising good peer support within workplace teams where a sudden death occurs. While professional support and therapeutic interventions have their place, colleagues are often best placed to offer informal support to one another, thus enabling teams to get through a crisis. Taking a systemic perspective, and through an experiential case study, workshop participants will explore the pros and cons of using formal and informal peer support structures, taking the role of the workplace counsellor/supervisor and organisational culture into account.

Elspeth Schwenk is a BACP senior accredited independent counsellor and supervisor, with a particular focus in developing systemic approaches to the needs of both client and company, and in delivering one-to-one and group workplace and employee assistance (EAP) counselling supervision. Exploring the scope of portfolio/affiliate work prompted a doctorate researching workplace counselling, the multi-tasking roles and the need for a structured pathway in career development for practitioners.

Workshop 4
Suicide and sudden death: whose responsibility is it? – Annette Greenwood

This workshop explores the psychological impact for employees and organisations when suicide or sudden death occurs in the workplace, and how at times there may be a conflict of need. To help work through these difficult issues a psychological framework will be used. The framework has been developed over a number of years from work within the NHS and other public sector organisations. The workshop will include real case studies and an opportunity for participants to be involved.

Annette Greenwood is head of service for one of the largest staff counselling services within the NHS. Psychological support of staff within the NHS is the main part of her role. Since the beginning of the 1990s Annette has set up services for staff that have been in major traumatic incidents within the NHS. She is the psychological advisor for Leicestershire for adverse events and is responsible for setting up and providing psychological services after major incidents.

Workshop 5
Managing and assessing suicidal thoughts in clients – Kevin Friery

This workshop aims to help counsellors:

• assess and manage suicide risk, exploring how counsellors can be proactive in potential suicide situations and ask the right questions to ascertain risk factors
• examine the ethics of responsibility in cases of suicide risk and explore whether they are constant across all cases and contexts
• consider what the expectations of disclosure are in particular contexts, eg who needs to know about suicide risk in an organisation or outside it
• consider whether responsibilities for appropriate disclosure are the same in private practice as in organisations
• look at support systems available to counsellors managing high levels of suicidal risk.

Kevin Friery is Clinical Director of Right Corecare, a major UK EAP provider. An accredited counsellor and trainer, he was also formerly a Counselling Services Manager in the NHS. He is responsible for ensuring that risk is assessed and managed in a service that provides counselling to over 7,000 adults a year and in which some 5% of clients are assessed as being at risk.

Workshop 6
Continuity management – balancing the needs of the business and the employees – Pam Williamson

This workshop will help participants explore the dynamics of dealing with the impact of a sudden death on the organisation, colleagues and others. There will be a brief description of risk assessment and the impact of sudden death in the workplace. This will be followed by a risk assessment of a sudden death. The last part of the workshop will look at the practical needs of the bereaved family:

• background to risk assessment
• understanding the impact of a sudden death in the workplace
• exercise on dealing with a sudden death
• meeting the family's needs.

This workshop will be of value to human resource practitioners and counsellors interested in understanding how organisations approach the management of sudden death at work.

Pam Williamson is a BACP accredited counsellor and Director of pamwilliamson consultancy based in Edinburgh and SW London providing coaching, trauma support, counselling and supervision. Pam is also a Consultant for Noreen Tehrani at ARC providing psychological assessments for rehabilitation.

Workshop 7
Employees who commit suicide: the ultimate therapeutic failure?

How to work effectively as an EAP counsellor in the aftermath of death – Colin Grange

This workshop aims to explore how employee assistance services work to prevent suicide among employees of client organisations. The workshop will also explore how employee assistance professionals can support staff in the aftermath of the suicide of a work colleague. The impact on a workplace counsellor of a client committing suicide will be explored.

Colin Grange is Chair of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association UK and has been Clinical Director of the Ceridian LifeWorks EAP service for € ve years. He has worked in EAPs for more than 12 years and before this was senior lecturer in counselling psychology at Wolverhampton University, running a Master’s degree in psychological counselling. He has practised as a counselling psychologist in business, clinical, educational, and private practice settings. Colin is a highly experienced employee assistance consultant with extensive experience of developing and managing the delivery of clinical and information services to individuals and organisations, including the design and delivery of feedback to employing organisations. He is a specialist in providing clinical, coaching and training services to employees and managers at all levels within client organisations.

Case Study

This session will be a facilitated discussion in small groups looking at a case study related to either a suicide or a sudden death situation. Delegates can indicate on their booking form which case study they would prefer to discuss and the case study information will be sent out prior to the event to allow delegates to familiarise themselves with material.

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