What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme of 'How can we improve across system boundaries?​

As part of a system wide self-harm improvement collaborative across Lancashire and South Cumbria, individuals with lived experience of self-harm attended focus sessions to share their  experiences of care they have received. A key theme was a lack of trauma informed approaches from professionals across  the system. This can lead to service users feeling unable to trust or seek support from organisations. A suggestion from the focus sessions was for all professionals to attend training in trauma informed communication to help improve the way they engage with service users who self-harm.

Individuals who self-harms can have contact with multiple parts of the system, including emergency services, healthcare and voluntary sector organisations. These organisations typically work in silos with limited multi-agency working. Opportunities to attend self-harm trauma informed training varies across Lancashire and South Cumbria and there is no training available that brings together professionals from different organisations within the system.

What does your project aim to achieve?

This project aims to develop a training programme, which is co-produced with individuals with lived experience of self-harm, and will focus on trauma informed and compassionate communication. This training will be available to all professionals across the system who support individuals who self-harm. This will improve professionals’ knowledge of trauma informed approaches, how they communicate with service users and will improve service user experience.

Each cohort of the training will be made up of professional from primary care, emergency services, accident and emergency, mental health clinical teams and third sector organisations. This aim of this is to create a space for sharing best practice, building knowledge of available services across the system and to develop relationships and interface between organisations.

How will the project be delivered?

Multi agency collaboration has already begun. Following the lived experience focus sessions, discovery days were held with professionals from a range of organisations across the system. An expert faculty of stakeholders from healthcare, third sector, emergency services and people with lived experience has been established to steer the improvement work.

Phase 1

·       Establish the training needs of professionals across all organisations in relation to trauma informed communication.

·       Initial workshop to agree the content and structure of the training programme.

Phase 2

·       Co-design the training programme via workshops ensuring that organisations and service users are represented

·       Development of supporting resources

Phase 3

·       Testing the training programme content with a cohort of professionals representing organisations across the system

·       Evaluation of the test programme

Phase 4

·       Updating the training programme based on the evaluation of the test programme

·       Roll out of the training programme

·       Evaluation of the training programme using Kirk Patrick’s Four Levels of Training model

How is your project going to share learning?

We are dedicated to sharing the learning and understandings gained throughout the development and roll out of a multi-agency approach to delivering trauma informed communication training. An evaluation of the test training programme and subsequent training programmes will be conducted and findings will be shared via the system wide self-harm improvement collaborative which is hosted by Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation and the self-harm steering group which is hosted by Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board. We will feedback the results within the Advancing Quality Alliance QI operational leads network sessions. We will disseminate our findings further via written reports and workshops to Q members and the wider healthcare, emergency services and third sector community. By sharing our findings we hope to inform and encourage other professionals and organisations to replicate successful results.