Engaging in the Field
Upcoming course dates
Date:
March 27, 2025
Duration:
1 day course
Cost:
$695 + GST
Places are limited!
Course overview
Face-to-face – Brisbane CBD (full day)
Are your staff safe when they are working with people in the field?
At some point in our lives, we all find ourselves having difficult conversations. It might be with a work colleague, a stakeholder on your project, a client or customer, or even a family member. Often these conversations leave us feeling shaken and worried, and playing over in our minds the things we should have said, or wished we hadn’t said.
But these conversations can be even more challenging when you are working in a remote location in the field. Other challenges emerge and saying and doing the right thing at the time may be paramount to ensuring your safety.
Previously named Difficult Conversations in the Field, this specialised training program, can help to keep staff safe when they need to engage with the public.
It’s designed for working those situations where you may be working remotely (sometimes alone) and you may need to have a difficult conversation – perhaps with someone who is hostile, emotional or aggressive. You can learn to manage these conversations differently – the unexpected ones and the ones you plan for.
Bringing situation awareness, facilitation and mediation tactics together to keep technical and engagement staff safe this course helps to ensure your staff feel confident and have skills to help them conducting their work.
The course is Ideally suited for staff visiting community members and hosting meeting at the kitchen table and those conducting landowner meetings, property inspections, environmental testing, surveying and working in remote locations.
Our Engaging in the Field training can open the door for you to feel more confident in approaching every type of conversation with stakeholders at all levels.
In this one-day course, you’ll:
- ^Understand what defines a difficult conversation
- ^Learn – and practice - the listen–respond–manage model
- ^Have a strategy to manage difficult conversations from initial meeting to resolution
- ^ Tune up your listening skills with a framework you can use in any conversation
- ^Have a kitbag of tactics to draw on even when your project is full of non-negotiable
- ^ Know how to prepare for a difficult conversation (yes, it’s okay to prepare ahead of time)
- ^Have more understanding of how body language – yours and your client’s – influences your communication
- ^Know how to de-escalate an argument or misunderstanding.
Best practice theory alongside tools you can use immediately. You’ll:
- ^Understand how your organisation values community and stakeholder engagement
- ^ Understand models of communication, tools and tactics for a variety of circumstances
- ^Consider what’s needed to plan for, take part in and debrief a difficult conversation
- ^Build skills for effective communication to confidently work with conflict, anger and aggression
- ^Use emotional intelligence and empathy to listen and deliver complex messages
- ^Consider body language and use tactics to appropriately respond to a range of challenging behaviours
- ^Practice communications skills to help you think on your feet and manage your own responses to difficult conversations in the field
- ^Build skills to confidently make sound decisions in the field and use situational awareness to continually assess and uphold health and safety.
Who is this course for?
- ^Staff visiting community members
- ^Hosting meetings at the kitchen table
- ^Conducting landowner meetings
- ^Property inspections
- ^Environmental testing
- ^Surveying
- ^And working in remote locations.
Delivery
- ^8:30am – 4:30pm (includes morning, lunch and afternoon breaks)
- ^Prerequisites: No prior study necessary
- ^Cost: $695 + GST
Training participants say…
“Alice is super supportive and brings everyone’s ideas and inputs into the course, and provides relevance.”
“Amanda has delivered many training session for us and I trust her completely to do a great job. She receives a significant amount of praise from participants who are impressed by her leadership and vast breadth of knowledge in the community engagement field as well as her friendly, engaging training style.”
Yesterday I went to bed later than I am used to. Not because I had insomnia, but because I was participating in the brilliant #digitalengagement webinar
promoted by Articulous Communications in Australia, and lead by Alice Sherring.
I have to say, it was amazing!! It made me change my way of understanding digital engagement. I now believe it CAN be as powerful as offline #communityengagement. It can even produce better results, especially for engaging with #GenZ and for effectively “meeting people where they are”.
Let’s be clear: digital engagement is NOT only #Zoom and #SocialMedia. I’m impressed with the strategic view of the digital engagement tools presented
in the webinar.
I can’t wait to know more about it! Alice and Articulous Communications,
thank you very much for this experience!
“Alice delivered exactly what I didn’t know I needed to know.”
“Amanda Newbery is the best trainer I have had to date. She was knowledgeable and engaging. She also went into the group work in Miro and made suggestions in the breaks – which has never ever happened before in a training course i have done with IAP2.”
Your trainers
Alice Sherring
With more than a decade of experience developing innovative stakeholder engagement strategies for complex projects, Alice is a highly sought-after facilitator, trainer and strategist.
An experienced trainer, Alice is known for her ability to clearly articulate and explore complex concepts and problems with diverse groups. Alice has provided executive coaching services for managers and executives in Queensland.
Amanda Newbery
Amanda is an international award-winning engagement and communications expert who has led multiple ground-breaking projects. Widely recognised for her ability to quickly understand attitudes, perceptions and markets, Amanda leads a team of senior professionals at Articulous, the award-winning company she founded.
Amanda is a high-energy facilitator who can inspire innovation and deftly bring people to consensus. Her passion makes her a highly sought-after speaker.
Articulous Academy Alumni
All our course graduates are invited to join the AAA! Watch your email in the days after the course for your invitation.
Articulous Academy Alumni is growing group and you receive special goodies:
- ^Monthly email with a detailed case study that you can learn from and apply to your own practice
- ^Early notice and special pricing for all our courses
- ^A quarterly webinar on engagement hot topics
- ^priority access and special pricing for group coaching
- ^And more – we're planning new goodies all the time!
