Behaviour Change Training for Hampshire County Council

We developed a two-part training programme that enables professional and volunteers to embed behaviour change principles within their roles. The training focuses on delivering brief interventions around diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption, addressing some of the greatest modifiable contributors to poor health outcomes and reduced healthy life expectancy.

The interactive training course was developed to provide an overview of key behaviour change theories, including models such as COM-B, before enabling participants with the tools to support their conversations with local residents. These include:

• Techniques to facilitate health-related conversations
• Ways to assess someone’s readiness to change
• A structured framework to follow in conversations
• Tools for difficult conversations
• Goal setting and action planning techniques

Over 95% of participants would recommend this training to others and found the skills section particularly helpful.

All participants from the initial course could then opt to attend our themed Embedding Behaviour Change sessions, exploring how their newly learnt skills can be applied to specific topics. Some of the topics covered include:

• Complex cases
• Breaking bad habits    
• Handling Resistance

The programme has been well-received and continues to gain traction with teams across Hampshire including public health, primary and secondary care, local government, and various voluntary organisations.

If you are considering upskilling your teams in using a motivational approach to behaviour change conversations, get in touch today!