Handling Difficult Conversations - Face to Face Workshop

This workshop is designed for people with roles that require handling difficult conversations whether they are emotional or aggressive. It is also relevant for Team Leaders managing these teams.

Participants will explore contextually what may be behind challenging behaviours and in doing so, will learn the skills and knowledge to handle these interactions in an objective and empathetic way.

Using the Lifeline's ’Recognise, Respond and Refer’ framework, participants will learn:

• Communication skills to assist with emotional and aggressive conversations
• Strategies to de-escalate anger
• What to do if someone is at risk of suicide
• Self-care strategies to use before, during and after challenging calls

This workshop is designed for frontline workers including but not limited to retail, call centre, collections, customer services, complaints handling and escalations staff, case managers or anyone exposed to difficult conversations (including yelling & aggressive behaviour) in the workplace.

Topics:

• Reflection on workers' experiences of people in distress
• Understanding the distressed client
• Using the "Recognise, Respond, Refer" model
• Strategies to deescalate anger/ aggression
• Responding to distress
• Avoid enemies to empathy

A certificate of attendance will be issued however, participants must complete the entire session in full.