This workshop aims to equip frontline care and support staff with the skills and understanding that they need to ensure that their relationships with service users are healthy, positive, appropriate, and safe. Rather than focusing on a list of rules, we discuss the reasons why it is important to manage our relationships effectively, the power of healthy boundary setting, and the risks and potential damage caused by failing to consider the impact of poor boundaries to the people that we support, and to support staff themselves.

The course is developed based on the idea that the process of developing and managing often complex relationships in a healthy manner is complex, and that it is normal for staff to find this challenging, and I encourage participants to share real life experiences and bring real cases to the table for discussion as a group. The session is interactive and involves the use of real-life scenarios and case studies. Having worked frontline in complex needs services I am also able to discuss real life situations that I have encountered, including occasions in which I made mistakes and how I rectified those mistakes.

Following the session staff should have an increased understanding of the nature of a therapeutic relationship and be better equipped to judge potentially complex encounters and make informed judgements about how best to manage that relationship in everyday situations, as well as how to respond to situations in which they may have made mistakes.

Following the session staff will be able to better understand how abuse can occur and be equipped to identify it at the earliest possibility and be confident in how to respond and their specific reporting and recording responsibilities. It is vital that staff working with vulnerable adults have these skills.