Box Hill Corps hosts training day focusing on safe, compassionate care
- 24 minutes ago
- 2 min read
BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE
Box Hill Corps, in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, recently hosted an Occupational Violence and Aggressive De-escalation Training Day for its staff and volunteers.
The training, held on 29 July, went for most of the day, with 20 staff and volunteers, including Corps Officer Major Karyn Wishart.
Karyn said as someone with a background in education, she believed training was paramount, and it was important to ensure all personnel were actively improving their skills and learning new things together.
She said it was also valuable to have a follow-up conversation after the training during their usual staff meeting, where the team discussed the concept of people being like an iceberg – that we need to take responsibility in how we see the whole person and not just what is visually presented in front of us.
“Sometimes our own biases can get in the way of actually helping people,” Karyn said.
“So, how can we make sure we are conscious of [there being] a whole iceberg underneath, representing all the things that we don’t know about a person.
“Those types of conversations are important, they help us keep ourselves in check so we don’t get complacent in how we serve people.
“We want to make sure we’re serving people to the best of our ability. We want them to come in, be made to feel welcome, seen, heard and for them to actually find hope from coming into this place.
“So, we need to keep ourselves and the team in check to make sure we’re being the most compassionate, loving, gracious team; so that when people can come in, they feel like their lives have been impacted for the good by The Salvation Army and not have had a different type of experience.”
Images: Supplied.
She said it was great to see our staff and volunteers from a wide range of life experiences getting involved – some who have worked in high-capacity roles in the past and others who may never have encountered people facing substance use before.
“It was a good day for everyone to be in the room to openly chat about past difficult situations that the team had been faced with, to discuss how we would deal with them differently if they were to happen again, and how we could possibly prevent events from becoming a possibility in the future,” she said.
Karyn said the team were more frequently interacting with members of the public experiencing mental health distress or presenting under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. The fact is that we are seeing this happen every day.
“It’s really important for us to make sure that people discuss and work through how they – personally and as a team – can confidently deal with all sorts of different scenarios,” she said.
Amy Graham from Eva Burrows College facilitates this training program, and to find out more, contact the college here.
