Welcome to Harrison Training
We are pleased to welcome you to the Harrison Training website which we hope you will find easy to use and informative.
In a rapidly changing and fast developing world, there is a need to be responsive and adaptable. This is particularly true within the areas of health and social care provision, which are currently undergoing significant change.
The demands on healthcare workers, professionals, and teams in these sectors are increasing all the time, and include the need for them to be current and evidence based in their practice, flexible and creative, but also demonstrating adherence to standards of quality and excellence
At Harrison Training, our overall objective is to provide the ‘stepping stones’ by which our clients, individuals or teams, can acquire and develop the skills needed to respond to these demands effectively, now and in the future. We are not interested in delivering quick and easily forgotten training courses. Instead, we work with our clients to provide high quality training which develops teams for the long term, helps with staff retention and improved service standards, and is built on adult learning principles as supported by the latest evidence. We do this by providing, either ‘in-service’, or organised events for individuals to attend:
- team development/training days
- clinical skills development pathways for modular learning
- individual courses
- advice or consultancy, e.g. service review and development
- mentoring or supervision
In addition, all staff at Harrison Training are strongly committed to ensuring that skills and resources are also shared with those people and communities whose access to good quality health and social care is severely limited. As such, we are currently working with projects in Romania and Tanzania to equip and support local providers, and facilitate the development of services.
Hot Topics
Creating the Highly Effective Healthcare Team
Many teams within the health and social care sector are coming under increasing pressures, exacerbated by increased budgetary restraints and reform. In addition, new, often multidisciplinary, teams are being created with a view to cost-saving by a Trust. This 2 day course provides an upbeat, motivating and inspirational look at what teams can achieve, and practical skills that equip all team members to achieve effective goals
Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) Course(NA7)
This course demystifies CIMT and demonstrates that the approach can be simple to apply, and provides an important treatment option for patients who are motivated and have some return of hand activity
CIMT is an innovative treatment approach aimed at improving functional use of the affected arm following hemiplegia. It involves restraint of the unaffected arm, usually with a mitt, combined with intensive task practice to promote use of the affected arm. It has a strong evidence base and is now a recommended intervention in the National Clinical Guidelines for Stroke (2008), for patients who meet the criteria.
Despite the evidence base, CIMT is underused clinically and has not made an effective transition from research into clinical practice. CIMT is challenging to us as therapists and involves a new way of of thinking. It allows the patient to ' struggle' to achieve upper limb function, and requires an intensity of practice (mitt wearing for up to 90% of waking hours, coupled with up to 6 hours of designated task practice) that we are not used to promoting
While many therapists working in neurological rehabilitation will be familiar with the research on CIMT, there has been a lack of training courses in the UK on how to practically apply the approach to patients. To improve access to training, a 1 day course has been developed, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK. The course covers the evidence and underlying principles of CIMT but crucially, provides a step-by-step guide to implementing and evaluating a CIMT programme
Facilitators Annie Meharg, a physiotherapist, and Jill Kings, an occupational therapist, developed their interest in CIMT while studying for their Masters degrees in neurorehabilitation at Brunel University and remain strong advocates of the technique.
The course is suitable for physiotherapists and occupational therapists working with clients with neurological problems resulting in hemiplegia of the upper limb.
Date: 11th September
Location: Sevenoaks Hospital, Sevenoaks
Cost: £202.10 (£172 +VAT)
The First UK specific Functional Capacity Evaluation course – the UKFCE
With Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) developing rapidly in the UK there is growing demand for knowledgeable, well trained VR professionals in the public and private sectors. To best serve the needs of this growing market, it is critical that VR practitioners learn and maintain state of the art skills, knowledge, and systems to facilitate the establishment of high standards in the UK. To achieve this goal, Obair Associates Ltd has partnered with Roy Matheson Associates Inc, USA to offer a UK Functional Capacity Evaluation (UKFCE) training course.
A Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) is a systematic method of measuring an individual’s ability to perform meaningful tasks on a safe and dependable basis[1]. In 1983 the RMA Certified Work Capacity Evaluation training programme, which was renamed the RMA FCE Training programme, was initiated and to date over 10,500 clinicians in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia have trained in the RMA FCE.
Based on the well known and respected RMA FCE Training Programme, and endorsed by Roy Matheson, Obair Associates has developed a UK version of the training programme targeted at rehabilitation professionals who are responsible for conducting in depth work-related functional assessments. The UKFCE approach develops the rehabilitation professional into a “thinking evaluator” and therefore does not dictate the use of particular equipment. Rehabilitation professionals may find that their department already has useful equipment and standardised tests that can be readily utilised in a customised UKFCE.
Course facilitators are Anne Byrne and Jain Holmes, both Occupational Therapists. Anne and Jain have a combined experience of 51 years of carrying out functional assessments and 26 years carrying out Functional Capacity Evaluations. Anne and Jain are both trained in the Matheson FCE approach and in other FCE systems and have carried out 1000’s of FCE’s between them, and so have a wealth of practical experience.
Dates: 27th September to the 1st October 2010 (5 days inclusive)
Venue: Novotel, York. For more information contact Jain Holmes on 0845 094 9822; jain@obairassociates.com
Mindfulness: A Mind-Body Approach to Mental Health and Pain Management
Mindfulness has been gaining credence within the health sector over a number of years, and has been introduced to particularly good effect in stress reduction and pain management programmes. In addition, NICE recognises its effectiveness in preventing relapse in chronic depression sufferers.
Mindfulness is both a meditative practice and an approach to day-to-day living, drawn originally from Buddhist tradition and adapted for secular use. It teaches a specific and purposeful form of moment by moment relaxed awareness of breathing patterns, bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions and external stimuli, helping the practitioner to disengage from automatic reactions and behaviours that can negatively impact on physical and mental health.
Mindfulness is not a distraction technique; participants are taught to recognise & accept whatever is present for them in a calm, non-judgmental manner, and to become more fully aware of the link between thoughts, feelings and behaviour so that they are in a better position to choose an effective response, particularly at times of excessive pressure and challenge.
Mindfulness can therefore: Most of the programmes run in the West are based on the pioneering work of Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre, and on the Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy approach developed by Segal, Williams & Teasdale in the UK and Canada. There is a 30+ year history of the effective use of Mindfulness in treating stress, depression, anxiety and the psychological effects of chronic pain; this includes a number of clinical trials that produced the following results: Harrison Training is now able to offer introductory courses in Mindfulness for Pain Management and Mindfulness for Mental Health. These courses will explore the theory and practice of Mindfulness, drawing on current research and allowing participants to directly experience some simple Mindfulness practices. We will discuss how Mindfulness can be integrated into treatment programmes and explore training and development opportunities for professionals who would like to learn more about this highly effective approach to mind-body health and wellbeing. Course 2: Mindfulness for Pain Management (MH6) Further Information
Course 1: Mindfulness for Mental Health: Regaining Stability in the Face of Stress and Depression (MH5)
Date: 27th September
Location: London
Cost: £202.10 (£172 +VAT)
Date: 8th October
Location: London
Cost: £202.10 (£172 +VAT)
Application Form Adult Learning Principles
Harrison Training aims to maximise the learning for each participant attending our training events. For that reason, we not only work with expert trainers but ensure that our approach is current and rooted in the latest evidence. To this end, we regularly review adult learning principles and the latest evidence for these, and are committed to not only incorporating them into our course delivery but to develop appropriate tools and resources for our Associates to use. If we adhere to these principles, training which involves packing a room with lots of people and teaching them from the front (whilst potentially more financially rewarding) is not what we offer. Instead we want each individual to have the opportunity to engage in a process which starts with them, what their learning needs are, and facilitates them to move forward in a relevant and meaningful direction to gain the skills and knowledge required. The core principles are as follows:
(Steve Park 2008)
