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 can do that is through our Different Conversations training, this was previously called Better Conversations. 

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

What is Different Conversations training?  

GM Moving partnered with Collaborate Out Loud in 2021 to co-design and deliver an approach to help non-medical staff have better conversations about activity and movement with people that face the biggest barriers. Starting in Manchester and Trafford alongside people with long-term medical conditions, it has since grown into Bolton and Tameside and it is now embedded within 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 closely with Employability Partners in Tameside and Collaborate Out Loud to co-design workshops to support staff in employability services to feel comfortable to talk about movement in their conversations with people looking to get back into employment.  

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. 

By focusing phase 2 on employment advisors, we wanted to test the theory that by providing co-produced training to those who work with people who are out of work to help them get back into work - they will increase their understand how and why people moving more can support both better physical and mental wellbeing, therefore supporting participants to be more ‘work ready’, as well as feeling more comfortable/able to have good and meaningful conversations with work programme participants where movement and physical activity is encouraged and advocated to support people get work ready. 

Phase 3: Systems Leadership

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