Different Conversations

We know that the people who spend their time enabling others to move more are our most valuable resource in a healthy, active future.

This resource pool is bigger than you may realise.

Everyone has a role to play whether you’re working directly in public health, physical activity or something else.  

Therefore, we must support this extended workforce to feel comfortable and capable of supporting their communities, colleagues, patients, or service users to move more.

One way we support this is with our Different Conversations training, which is a practical programme that helps people feel confident talking about movement and activity.

You might know it by its previous name, Better Conversations.

Note: If you are in a clinical role, you can also access Physical Activity Community Champions training.

What is Different Conversations training?  

In 2021, GM Moving partnered with Collaborate Out Loud to design an approach that helps non-medical staff have improved conversations about activity and movement with people facing the biggest barriers.

We began in Manchester and Trafford, working alongside people with long-term health conditions. Since then, the approach has expanded into Bolton and Tameside, and is now part of our systems leadership approach as a key leadership skill. 

What’s happened to date? 

GM Moving completed our third phase of the Different Conversations work.

Phase 1: People with Long Term Health Conditions

Phase 1 of the workshop creation and delivery was to non-clinical staff who may have come into contact with people with a long-term health condition. 

The content focused on creating person-centred conversation, recognising our unconscious biases and their influence, and identifying barriers to successful conversations.  

Initially, ten workshops were delivered to 76 participants from 30 different organisations including Trafford Council, MCR Active, Manchester Mind, Southway Housing.  

Phase 2: Employability  

As part of second phase 2 of the ‘Better Conversations’, Collaborate Out Loud were commissioned by GM Moving to test the training with those working in employability services. 

GM Moving worked with Employability Partners in Tameside and Collaborate Out Loud to design workshops. These have been designed to help staff feel confident talking about movement with people getting ready to go back to work.

There is clear evidence that good work improves health and wellbeing across people’s lives and protects against social exclusion. On the other hand, unemployment is bad for health and wellbeing, as it is associated with an increased risk of mortality and morbidity.   

For many people, in particular those with long-term conditions such as mental health problems, musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions and disabilities, health issues can be a barrier to gaining and retaining employment.   

Therefore, it felt that the original principles and content of the workshops would be relevant to staff working in employability services due to the high prevalence of those with long-term health conditions who are currently out of work and the correlations of poor health with worklessness. 

In phase 2, we focused on employment advisors. The aim was to test the idea that co-produced training could help them understand how and why moving more supports both physical and mental wellbeing. With this understanding, advisors can better support participants to be ‘work ready’ and feel more confident having meaningful conversations about movement and physical activity as part of preparing for employment.

Phase 3: Systems Leadership

We are embedding this into our Systems Leadership approach and making it available to a wider audience.