Training Prospectus 2024
Table Of Contents
Introduction to Imroc
What to expect
Our Training Approach
Our Trainers
The Training Experience
Training Courses
Mental Health Peer Support Pathway
Level 2 Foundations of Peer Support
Level 3 Certificate in Peer Support Work
Next Steps in Peer Support
Peer-informed Supervision Training
Team Preparation Training
Autism Peer Support Programme
Autism Peer Support Training
Autism Peer Supervision
Training Team Preparation
Recovery College Workshops
A Quiet Revolution
Setting up a Recovery College: The Practicalities
Vehicles for Transformation
Co-production Part 1
Co-production Part 2
Defining Features
Train the Trainer
Other Training and CPD Opportunities
CPD Opportunities
Peer Leaders Network
A Space to Think
Coaching skills for Recovery
Introduction
Who We Are
Imroc is a Registered Charity, we offer training, consultancy, thought leadership and research. We offer a wide range of opportunities for people to develop new and existing skills. Our offer includes accredited and non-accredited training, coaching, facilitated reflective spaces and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities.
Imroc has been established for nearly 20 years, when a group of individuals came together to consider the challenges faced by mental health organisations seeking to embed Recovery focused practice, conversations, and values into services. The barriers to making Recovery a reality within services were identified by co-producing a methodology with benchmarks that organisations could use to agree priorities for change. One of these benchmarks was transforming the workforce through development of the Peer Support workforce. This led us to develop our successful Mental Health Peer Support Pathway and our Autism Peer Support Programme.
Imroc Vision
Imroc exists outside traditional systems to challenge and improve existing paradigms and generate new cultures and practices in health and social care. We want to help create systems and communities that provide hope, control and opportunity to all of us, and enable us all to live well in an inclusive and equitable society.
What to Expect
Our Training Approach
At the heart of Imroc training is the principle of co-production, meaning that courses are developed and delivered in partnership with people who have lived experience of being supported by services, providing and receiving of Peer Support and working in NHS and voluntary sector organisations.
While Imroc training is rooted in robust theoretical frameworks, there is a strong emphasis on the practical application of concepts and skills learned. Participants are encouraged to consider how the training can be applied in their own contexts, with the aim of bringing about tangible improvements in services and support. This focus on application ensures that the training has a real-world impact, contributing to the development of trauma informed, and neuro-inclusive practices. Hope, control and opportunity are the cornerstones of our work and are an integral part of all we do.
Our overall approach aims to offer training that not only informs but also inspires and empowers participants to make a positive difference in their fields of practice and their own lives.
Our Trainers
All our trainers bring lived, life and learnt experience, and deliver in teams that offer a variety of relevant experience to each training cohort.
Our trainers complete relevant training to facilitate learning environments that are safe, accessible, friendly and values led. This is no easy feat; our trainers are continually developing their personal and professional skills and progressing their own recovery journeys to create a positive learning environment.
Our trainers are supported by our leadership team who bring extensive experience of Peer Support, education, and training. This team ensures there are continual opportunities for support, reflection and ongoing learning.
“I love that Peer Support is timeless, would always have existed from the first time two humans connected on a shared experience and will exist always. I love that the qualification for Peer Support (apart from completing the training!) is having a story to tell and having the compassion to listen.”
– Imroc trainer
The Training Experience
Imroc training is designed to be inclusive, providing a welcoming and accessible learning environment for all participants, valuing the experiential wisdom each person brings.
Recognising the importance of active participation, Imroc training sessions are interactive and engaging, incorporating a variety of teaching methods to cater to different learning styles. This includes group discussions, practical exercises, case studies, and opportunities for reflection. Participants are not passive recipients of information but are actively involved in their learning and unlearning process.
We have different support systems in place for participants depending on the length of and requirements of the course.
All courses listed here are Online. To discuss face-to-face course delivery, please get in touch. Online courses require a stable Internet connection and access to Zoom.
“I'm not sure there are the words to describe, or words that are strong enough. This has been emotional for me in the best way possible. I have re-framed my entire life from this course. You guys have helped me see my value, I'm really grateful for that.”
– Autism Peer Support Trainee
“I felt safe enough within the group to share elements of my lived experience. I felt supported, heard and seen by both my fellow peers and the tutor team.”
– Mental Health Peer Support Trainee
“This is without doubt the best training course on any subject I have ever attended - thank you so much to the presenters and my fellow trainees. Some great Peer Support workers are going to emerge from this group.”
– Autism Peer Support Trainee
“I thoroughly enjoyed the course, and definitely benefited from the teams’ efforts. I appreciated that fact that the course was held Online as it allowed me to work with a far more diverse group than is likely to have been possible had the training been held in person. I would thoroughly recommend the course to anyone either with an interest in becoming a PSW, but also to those who were looking to build PSW support into the services they offer.”
– Mental Health Peer Support Trainee
Mental Health Peer Support Pathway
Overview
The first Peer Support training course was co-produced and delivered in 2007. Imroc have continued to deliver Peer Support training for roles within the NHS and voluntary sector organisations ever since, including delivering courses for international partners.
In 2021 Imroc started to deliver the NHSE contract where our delivery of training went from around 2-5 cohorts a year to up to 40 cohorts a year. With this increase we developed a progressive pathway for Peer Support training. We now offer a course for those beginning to think about peer work, those in paid peer roles, and established peer workers looking for career progression.
We continually work with our trainees, and trainers to develop, adapt and improve our content, offer and experience of training. Recently, we commissioned an external evaluation of our Peer Support training by Matter of Focus. This has given us an opportunity to reflect on what is going well and where we can make improvements.
Imroc has been working with national qualification awarding organisation, NCFE to accredit Peer Support courses and ensure our training is of the highest quality (www.ncfe.org.uk). We are also registered with CPD UK to provide CPD accredited learning opportunities (www.cpduk.co.uk) that meet current learning and development quality standards.
Level 2 Foundations of Peer Support
Overview
This customised Level 2 qualification, accredited by NCFE/CACHE, is designed to meet the needs of individuals who deliver Peer Support (formally or informally) who do not require the depth of knowledge provided by our Level 3, longer-form Peer Support training. Such individuals are likely to work or volunteer in non-professional, people-facing roles where they provide values-based, safe support to others. This could include people working in community spaces outside of mental health settings, e.g. people working in community centres, food-banks etc.
The Level 2 Award also provides a stepping stone to our Level 3 Certificate in Peer Support Work for individuals who are at an earlier stage in their mental health recovery journey or who have been out of education for a long time.
The Foundations of Peer Support course will enable participants to:
Define ‘Peer Support’ and what it means to be a peer
Appreciate the importance of connection as the foundation for Peer Support
Recognise how to promote the safety and well-being of self and others when providing Peer Support
Understand how to engage in intentional and progressive peer support conversations
Gain insight into how to support people in times of distress know how to connect people to their communities of choice
Be equipped with the knowledge to set up and run effective peer support groups
Level 3 Certificate in Peer Support Work
Overview
This customised qualification, accredited by NCFE/CACHE, is designed to equip trainees with values, knowledge and skills that will enable them to deliver safe, effective Peer Support in the NHS or voluntary sector organisations.
The course maps to the 9 domains of Peer Support work as set out in Health Education England’s ‘Competence Framework for Peer Support Workers in Mental Health’.
The Level 3 Certificate in Peer Support Work will enable participants to:
Recognise and value the expertise they have gained through their own lived and life experience
Understand and implement the evidence-based principles and values that underpin Peer Support
Draw on their lived and life experience to offer safe, effective, person-centred and recovery-focused support to help people live the life they want and live it well
Utilise strengths-based, progressive approaches that focus on the potential of every individual they support to find their own personal route towards recovery
Promote inclusion and respect difference to deliver equitable Peer Support to people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
Promote the rights of people they support and inspire recovery-focused practices in the workplace
Work in a collaborative and co-productive manner with other professionals and services
Next Steps in Peer Support
Overview
This course empowers Peer Support professionals to step into senior roles with confidence, bolstering knowledge while upholding vital peer values. Geared towards enhancing skills in peer service development and gaining bespoke leadership and management skills, it’s co-produced by a dedicated group with relevant experience in the peer realm.
Peer Informed Supervision Training
Overview
This CPD certified course offers Imroc’s best practice for those in supervisory roles to Peer Support Workers. To create this thought-provoking and informative course, we gathered the most progressive thinking around providing peer-informed supervision.
This training explores the importance of being a Peer-informed Supervisor; not merely taking a recovery-focused approach to supervision, but providing supervision that encompasses a recovery focus whilst holding a comprehensive understanding of the peer role and the unique challenges Peer Support workers face.
Team Preparation Training
Overview
This CPD certified course provides a range of considerations for teams integrating Peer Support Workers into their service and to identify positive supporting factors and areas for development.
The session will cover what a Peer Support Worker is, what do they do (what work do they undertake, what values do they work to), give space for teams to explore their thoughts and feelings about working alongside Peer Support workers and where needed exploring assumptions about the role. We will explore what steps a team needs to take moving forward and leave with some guidance around next steps and ideas that are bespoke to your team.
Autism Peer Support Programme
Overview
The autism peer support training course was developed because Imroc became aware that autistic people accessing the mental health peer support training were not aways able to engage with some of the content. The course was designed by a co-production group which included autistic people, parent family members of autistic children who may or may not be autistic themselves and peer experts.
This group felt it was important for autistic people to support others to acquire the knowledge, skills and confidence to advocate for the support they need. Also, for those hearing it to be able to understand and respond in a way that embraces and supports the individual through the challenges they are facing so that they are able to live authentically in an inclusive and equitable society / community.
The new course was piloted by the Autism Co-production Working Group. The course is fully compliant with the Autism Peer Support Capability Framework. This group and the now fully formed Autism Peer Support Programme is led by Liz Walker (Programme Lead).
Following the successful pilot of the training, NHS England (NHSE) commissioned Imroc to deliver training for autism peer support workers and their supervisors. We are currently the only NHSE provider of Autism Peer Support training. The training supports the development of skills and capabilities of those undertaking autism peer support worker roles. The roles may be employed or voluntary capacity. The training equips peer support workers to deliver safe and effective care and support to autistic people and their families and carers within a multidisciplinary environment and in the third sector.
Through all our work what is most important is bringing about change, reducing the inequalities faced by autistic people and empowering autistic people and their families to have a voice in discussions about their futures.
As a new and emerging programme, we are actively exploring and expanding our reach. We work to identify opportunities for connection and partnership; to explore how we may extend our offer of autism peer support training into areas most in need, and which require something a little different.
Autism Peer Support Training
Overview
This training will equip Peer Support workers to deliver safe and effective care and support to autistic people and their families and carers within a variety of settings.
The course is delivered by a team of experts; all team members will be either autistic themselves, parent carers/family members of autistic people who may have a diagnosis of being autistic and/ or subject experts.
The team usually consists of Trainer 1, Trainer 2, Classroom Support and Technical Assistant. There may be additional supporters in the team depending on what has been agreed with individual students who have additional support needs identified via their reasonable adjustments passport.
Support for Trainees
We recognise that neuroinclusion is not just simply adapting information, communication and environments – the most important and vital part is working to understand why such adaptations are required, what autistic and other neurodivergent experience feels like. This ethos underlies everything. We utilise experiential knowledge to ensure we are flexible and adaptive to the different needs of each cohort. At the forefront of the co-production of the course were strategies and tools that would enable trainees to participate fully.
Many of the adjustments or support that an individual may need are implemented as standard throughout the course ensuring that every effort has been made to accommodate a range of learning and communication styles, emphasising potential differences in processing inherent in neurodivergent people.
We strive to meet the needs of all trainees to ensure they are able to get the most out of the training and all it offers. We do this by asking all trainees to complete forms that help us tailor particular aspects of the course to their needs.
Where we may be unable to accommodate the request, we would work alongside the nominating or supporting organisation to negotiate additional support.
“Being on the course has been the first time that I feel my learning has come naturally and everything has just felt natural. I have been pleasantly surprised by the diversity in the autism community and this course has been the positive experience and constant in my life that I have needed over what has been a very difficult 6 months. The course has helped me to believe that it’s ok to be autistic, I have felt understood and have been confident to express myself. I am coming away from the course feeling exhilarated not exhausted, knowing it is OK to express what I need.”
- Autism Peer Support Trainee
Autism Peer Supervision Training
Overview
For Autism Peer Support Workers (APSWs) to practice in hopeful, strengths-based ways, they need a supportive, appreciative and reflective space for self-directed learning.
This course will enable trainees to develop and learn the skills required to provide peer led supervision that maintains quality, integrity, and safety of peer practice.
The course has a practical focus on how to support and supervise Autism Peer Support Workers sharing common challenges in the workplace for autistic people. We will discuss and share a variety of strategies and tools to overcome the challenges.
The tools shared on this course are the same tools that are shared with trainees as part of the Peer Support course, we talk through utilising the tools and encourage all participants to use and adapt them to your specific environment.
Team Preparation
Overview
We offer a series of 3 workshops to organisations to enable them to prepare for and consider the ways in which they will integrate Autism Peer Support Workers into their existing teams and workforce, and how they will provide support through supervision adapted to the needs of an autistic person.
Workshop 1: Team preparation
The workshop will cover what a Peer Support Worker is, what do they do (what work they undertake, what values they do work to), give space for teams to explore their thoughts and feelings about working alongside Peer Support Workers and where needed exploring assumptions about the role. We will explore what steps a team needs to take moving forward and leave with some guidance around next steps and ideas that are bespoke to your team.
Workshop 2 and 3 are designed to be additional supports to teams considering employing or employing autism peer support workers. Members of the wider team are encouraged to attend with team members e.g. HR, Wellbeing Practitioners.
Workshop 2: Responding to Communication Needs and Presentation Differences
In this workshop Imroc explores different communication needs and challenges and how these may impact on the Peer Support worker and the people they support. Being able to communicate is essential to our autonomy as a person, even where the individual is articulate it does not mean they can always communicate effectively. The aim of this two hour workshop is to develop a greater understanding of communication challenges, what can cause them and how they can present. Through developing awareness of different presentations, the support offered can be more effective as it enables intervention before anxieties escalate.
Workshop 3: Considering Environmental and Sensory Processing Needs
This workshop links to the Responding to Communication Needs and Presentation Differences workshop; it builds and expands on why an individual’s presentation may change from time-to-time and how the environment and sensory processing can affect the communication needs of the peer support worker and the person they are supporting. For autistic Peer Support workers there is a fine balancing act between considering their own sensory needs, how these might affect their work with those they support, and ensuring they provide inclusive and safe environments for the autistic people they are working with.
This workshop explores what sensory processing differences are, what sensory processing differences could be experienced within different environments and how these could be a barrier for the Peer and the person they support to live the life they want to live. We will consider how to respond to sensory based behaviours when someone has a sensory system that experiences the world differently and things may always seem too loud, too bright, too strong, too hard or vice versa.
Imroc will facilitate discussions on how this can have a significant effect on the way the world around us is perceived, how safe it feels and how integrated someone is able to be within the teams where they you work as well as in society.
Recovery College Workshops
The Imroc Recovery College Team comprising consultants and trainers with longstanding and current experience of setting up and delivering Recovery Colleges facilitate workshops and courses, alongside bespoke consultancy, which provide a pathway of information, learning opportunities and resources to support you to create, develop and review a Recovery College that is specific to your organisational culture and priorities.
Our workshops are based on evidence and practical examples from Imroc’s extensive work with Recovery Colleges around the world. Our approach encourages co-production, collaboration and generative conversations within the workshops, key ingredients which sit at the heart of a Recovery College’s operation.
Recovery Colleges: A Quiet Revolution
This workshop explores each of the 6 key dimensions which underpin a Recovery College, understanding how these might be evident in a college, how existing good practice might be strengthened, what challenges there might be and how these might be overcome.
Setting up a Recovery College: The Practicalities
This introductory workshop explores your ambitions to develop a college and considers key practicalities of setting up a Recovery College such as the underpinning dimensions/principles, structure and location, the student journey, team and curriculum development, quality assurance and evaluation.
Recovery Colleges: Vehicles for Transformation
Recovery Colleges form a core part of the development of more recovery-focused services. They can be central to shifting an organisation’s practices and culture from one which reduces symptoms to one which focuses on the rebuilding of lives, modeling different conversations and understanding whilst challenging practice, attitudes, behaviours and prejudices.
Recovery Colleges can become catalysts for change across the workforce as staff learn alongside those using services – hearing firsthand what helps and what might get in the way of delivering inclusive and empowering services. The co-learning environment challenges power dynamics, deficit-based approaches and stigma as new meaning and understanding is co-developed and acknowledgment of the potential that people are capable of becoming experts in their own care grows.
This workshop explores what the evidence tells us about Recovery Colleges and how this knowledge can inform shifts in practice and culture.
Recovery Colleges and Co-production Part 1
Underpinning all aspects of Recovery and wellbeing is co-production. This entails active, and supported partnerships between the College and all others who have a stake in the work. At an individual level, this means shared decision making between Trainers and the students they support; at a college team level, it means engagement with current and former students in making decisions about how things are done: from day to day routines to documentation, staff recruitment, curriculum and course development etc. At a service level it means having access to a properly recruited, trained and supported pool of trainers with subject expertise, lived experience and trainers with professional expertise who can be accessed, according to strengths, interests and experience to co-produce and co-deliver training, to develop, review and evaluate the college and to support students to access the college.
In this workshop, we define co-production and how it works in our everyday practice. This includes the principles used to model co-production and how this approach can benefit those who use our services.
We consider current evidence and spend time thinking about what that means and how this approach can be implemented in a Recovery College. We look at how co-production in a Recovery College is different to service user involvement and how, when we work collaboratively, can create an environment in a Recovery College where co-production can flourish.
Recovery Colleges and Co-production Part 2
In this optional second Workshop, we explore the challenges and barriers, both organisationally and personally, that may arise and will consider how we might overcome them. In this session you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned in Part 1 and co-create an operational aspect of your college’s delivery such a ‘Mission Statement’, an outline of your future operation policy, deciding who the college is for, and how everyone can be involved and valued for their contribution.
Recovery Colleges: Defining features
We will work closely with all Recovery College stakeholders to co-produce an in-depth review of your Recovery College utilising the 6 Imroc Recovery College defining features (Educational/ Adult Learning, Coproduced, Community facing, Recovery focused, Progressive and Inclusive) as a framework for 6 workshops. Each of these workshops, together we will explore:
What the principle means in the context of Recovery Education
How you are currently implementing this principle in all aspects and at all levels of your College
How current practice might be improved and developed within the Recovery College
How best practice might be extended across the organisation
How best practice might be extended into local communities and facilities.
Your short, medium and long term priorities for action on this principle
This review will identify potential areas for development within the College as well as ways in which the College can become a vehicle for transformation across the organisation and beyond. It will form the basis for clear action plans owned, led and implemented by participants in the workshops who bring lived experience, professional expertise, subject knowledge (for example as a family member, a community group leader, key stakeholder).
Recovery College: Train the Trainer
This 6-session course will provide an overview of how to develop and deliver Recovery College workshops and courses. We will consider what makes an effective Recovery College Trainer, review learning and teaching styles, develop skills in planning, delivering and evaluating workshops.
Other Training and CPD Opportunities
CPD Opportunities
Imroc has developed a number of bespoke recovery-focused and peer informed sessions to meet the needs of people working within recovery and peer roles and settings. If you have a specific training request please contact poppy@imroc.org
Some examples of our CPD Sessions:
UNEARTH : the things that divide us
This session will explore stigma from a few different angles, exploring the ways in which stigma can manifest and how we can challenge it. Instead of taking an academic approach, which often allows for us to detach themselves from being perpetrators or carriers of stigma, this session will take a creative approach, utilising analogy and storytelling.
Home In The Mind
Most people associate home with safety. One of the challenges in mental health is creating a sense of safety in our minds. This session will help us think about how we can make our mind a safe place to be. We are going to look at the power of containment and develop ideas for creating a “home in the mind.”
UNEARTH : whose language are you speaking?
This session will first take a broad look at how language has evolved and how that evolution is based on radical changes brought about through history. Then, we will explore the ways in which this evolution has impacted the language of mental health and how we can restore the power and agency back to those who speak it.
Room to GROW
Do you have a challenge you would like to work on?
This session will involve a practical exploration of the GROW coaching tool in the service of developing ourselves as trainers, Peer Support workers, clinicians. Attendees will have an opportunity to practice coaching skills using this tool and create a personal action plan to develop an aspect of their support style.
Peer Leaders Network
The Peer Leaders Network brings together people who coordinate, manage, support, develop and define Peer Support within their places of work.
Each session focuses on a different group-identified area of challenge and provides a space to learn from similar challenges, share stories of success and collaborate to find practical ways forward.
It aims to offer a values-based space with a focus on sharing information, generating solutions and building networks.
A Space to Think: Creating Communities that can Transform Culture and Rekindle Compassion
A Space to Think is a development programme that brings together Acute Inpatient Ward Leaders to create a more recovery-focused, trauma informed, compassionate and supportive culture. The programme emphasises collaboration, drawing on the individual needs and aspirations of the diverse range of people who use inpatient wards and those who are close to them. Key principles include; bottom-up approaches to change, recognising the centrality of relationships, the power of small changes, and the importance of staff well-being.
Imroc’s development programmes provide a structured space for ward leaders to reflect, celebrate achievements, and strategise for cultural change. Expert facilitators with diverse experiences guide participants through sessions focused on values, relationship-building, safety, co-production, and staff well-being. The goal is to align actions with values, reduce burnout, and enhance service user experience and recovery.
The development programme is designed to support and extend the national ‘Culture of Care’ programme. National programmes can only work with a limited number of wards whereas the Imroc programme aims to create a community where inpatient ward leaders can come together to share ideas and create change in the culture and practice of inpatient wards.
Feedback from past participants on Imroc development programmes:
“In 29 years, it was the best training I have attended as it was meaningful and allowed us to think through all we do.”
“Wow, what a day yesterday. Thank you for being so brilliant, engaging, and informative.”
“I just wanted to say what a brilliant session yesterday was. In all the years I have worked in the trust this was the most interesting and engaging training session around making us think and reflect on our services. I thoroughly enjoyed every second and I know the staff I have spoken to since did as well.”
“It was so enjoyable and really makes you stop and think. Lots of ideas coming out of yesterday that I am going to implement.”
Coaching Skills for Recovery
This course begins to explore basic coaching skills and how they may be utilised as a key tool and an effective way to support and promote recovery and wellbeing in all areas of health and social care. We emphasise personal choice, responsibility and self-management. This helps increase self-awareness and confidence, resulting in effective interpersonal communication.
This is a very interactive course that includes taught material, as well as group activities and skills based role play exercises, that provide opportunity to practice learnt skills. Participants will take it in turns to adopt the roles of coach, client and observer. A strong emphasis is placed on reflection of personal experiences and, of our own strengths, leadership and development needs, applicable to your role and to begin a process of change, while becoming knowledgeable in the Coaching approach.