Managing Challenging Interactions

How to handle aggressive behaviour

Learn how to handle emotional or aggressive behaviours in an objective and empathetic way.

This workshop is designed for people with roles that require managing challenging interactions, whether they are emotional or aggressive. It is also relevant for team leaders managing these teams.

Participants will explore contextually what may be behind challenging behaviours and in doing so, will learn the skills and knowledge to handle these interactions in an objective and empathetic way.

Using Lifeline’s “Recognise, Respond and Refer” framework, participants will learn:

• Communication skills to assist with emotional and aggressive conversations.
• Strategies to de-escalate anger.
• What to do if someone is at risk of suicide.
• Self-care strategies to use before, during and after challenging calls.

This workshop is designed for frontline workers, including but not limited to retail, call centre, collections, customer services, complaints handling and escalations staff, case managers or anyone exposed to challenging interactions in the workplace.

Topics:

• Reflection on workers’ experiences of people in distress.
• Understanding the distressed client.
• Using the “Recognise, Respond, Refer” model.
• Strategies to de-escalate anger/aggression.
• Responding to distress.
• Avoiding enemies to empathy.

Format

This course is a 4-hour face to face or virtual workshop.

Resources: Participant Workbook.

Course brochure