Residents may often approach a councillor with a range of problems from parking issues to neighbourhood disputes, overcrowded housing to education. These often complex issues are likely to have an impact on the relationships within the family or result from underlying relationship difficulties and as the pressure builds up councillors often feel out of their depth as to how they can help, especially if it is a problem which has no immediate solution.
During interviews with councillors we found that in order to manage difficult situations councillors use a number of avoidance strategies and didn’t feel comfortable dealing with any emotional issues that the resident may be experiencing.
Several said that they “shy away” from emotional issues and try and dissuade residents from raising them.
What you can offer
- time, attention and respect
- a real ability and wish to listen
- normalise when appropriate
- sensitivity
- skills of a Brief Encounter® in a range of situations
- share ideas or suggestions
- encourage self-help
- sensitive signposting – making relevant referrals in a non-rejecting way.
Don't panic
- use the basic listening skills (reflecting back) to give yourself a breathing space
- listen without taking sides
- put your own views and anxieties on hold
- remind yourself you do not have to ‘solve’ this problem
- have a clear idea of information that will help the resident
- be familiar with the protocol for referring/ signposting people on
- establish good support for yourself
Guidance
“I try not to get involved in the emotional issues myself. It is very difficult – there is a tension in that as a councillor you are not trained in any particular issues and yet you are supposed to know about everything.”
Being a good listener
Councillors expressed reluctance to ‘get involved’ with emotional issues due to their lack of skills and inability to resolve such issues. But allowing residents to express emotions is a healthy and natural part of developing a dialogue with them – even if it sometimes feels scary and uncomfortable. Often, what a resident needs most is someone who will really listen to them.
Not to solve problems or to come up with answers, but just to listen
Listening is the basis of good communication and is important in offering support. When we offer people time, attention and respect, we convey to them that they are worthwhile and valuable.
Our posture and responses encourage the resident to trust us enough to share their thoughts and feelings and this can be the first step in helping them to help themselves. A surprising number of people seem able to help themselves or come up with ideas for improving their difficulties after ‘just listening’ help.
When residents are ‘stuck’, they often need minimal intervention. A little skilled support to get ‘unstuck’ helps residents to focus and start to work through their situation.
As we use listening skills and encourage the residents to share their story they often become reflective and begin to think of what they might do to help themselves.
“Nobody trains you how to listen or deal with difficult situations – as councillors we get trained on how to use our laptops but not in listening skills.”
Hints and tips
Listening sympathetically to someone:
- gives them a chance to get their feelings out and to let off steam
- allows them to express their needs and begin to talk about how at least some of these can be met
- gives them a greater ability to face issues, or be strong enough to cope
- supports them be more proactive about moving things forward.
Guidance
“I would recommend that new councillors gain
a working knowledge of what external services and charities can take up issues and problems that are not really those for a local councillor.”
Listening responses include:
Reflecting back content: Restating in your own words what the resident has said. This skill helps the resident to focus more clearly and lets them know you are listening.
Reflecting back feeling: Similar to reflecting content, but emphasis is on the feelings being expressed by the resident. This helps them become more aware of their feelings and will enhance understanding of the situation and increase rapport.
Integrating feeling and experience: Feelings arise from our experiences. This skill helps residents identify the feelings and what caused them.
An easy way of doing this is to use the formula – ‘You feel...because...’
Acknowledging internal conflict: Sometimes residents are faced with conflicting feelings.
This skill demonstrates an understanding by acknowledging the internal conflict which may exist for the resident. This may be a mix of quite strong feelings.
The formula – ‘You feel... but you also feel...’ is an easy way to remember this skill.
Don’t advise unless asked: People rarely take unasked for advice. Wait to be asked, or make suggestions tentatively.
Don’t ignore the point: It may be tempting to steer the conversation into more comfortable waters. Perhaps the subject is too close to your own feelings and makes you feel uneasy. If you decide you are out of your depth, then it is always better to say so. You will help the resident far more by signposting them to relevant organisations for advice or support.
Do signpost with sensitivity: If you feel out of your depth then consider who might be the best person or agency to refer the resident to. It is important that signposting is appropriate and therefore knowing who to refer to is key and how comfortable the resident feels with this.
Activity 1 - what you can offer
Think of what’s going on inside you when trying to support someone in distress. You may want to think of an example during surgery or on a home visit.
Reflect on the example you have given previously in relation to the following questions:
- Can you listen well when anxious about coping with disclosures or afraid of making things worse?
- Are you unsure about your role in making what may be unwelcome enquiries?
- Did you feel as if you had to come up with a solution?
- Were you able to set out and stick to clear time boundaries?
- What can you learn from how you felt? Do you feel instinctively that something just below the surface is upsetting the resident? Or does your heart sink as you wonder what you are getting into?
The Brief Encounters® model
The Brief Encounters® model
provides a framework that maps out the three stages of an encounter that works well. The model encourages you to make choices about how to respond, if at all, when your instinct tells you that a resident needs to share something that is distressing them. Setting clear boundaries for you and the resident, that sound welcoming and positive is a valuable skill. Management of the available time and professional or personal boundaries is crucial to the success of a Brief Encounter®.
When a resident accepts an offer of help the councillor becomes an active listener, ‘coming alongside’ the resident and following their agenda but working within the agreed boundaries. Councillors stated that “…often the thing they are upset over are things that local government have no control over.” It is important that the councillor does not feel they have to ‘fix’ the problem.
Stage 1 – Signals and choices
There is recognition and acknowledgement of the signal, a sign of distress given by a resident when they are troubled and need to talk, whether explicit or covert. When appropriate the councillor then chooses whether to make an offer of help, taking into account the time available and the limits of their own competence.
This is framing an offer and constitutes ‘a working agreement’ that states the purpose of the encounter and the boundaries necessary to allow both resident and councillor to make efficient use of the available time. In practice some residents are too distressed and their situation demands a high priority response.
Activity 2 – what factors might affect your decision
When you choose to invite some exploration of the resident’s distress, check out that it is acceptable to the resident, and it may help to establish how much time you have to offer – but be positive. Even ten minutes of really listening with attention and respect is valuable and will be appreciated.
Write down a list of the factors that might affect your decision. Some points to consider:
How much time have you got?
Can you create some privacy?
Would it be better to acknowledge the distress or the signal and offer a time in the near future?
Be aware of your own feelings eg you may be very tired, coping with your own distress or the residents issues may raise unresolved issues in you – often called ‘personal baggage’.
Guidance
Stage 2 – listening, exploring, understanding
If the offer of help is accepted, the councillor uses good listening skills to help the resident focus on what is troubling them.
Really listening means you fine tune your ear into what is being said. Concentrate absolutely to hear the content and the feelings in the story you are hearing. Put on hold all your own thoughts, anxieties and feelings. Your role is to hear what you are being told. You are tracking every word that is said, and you will have to stop them quite often to let them know what you have heard and what feelings were expressed or hinted at. Don’t ignore strong feelings. This creates an opportunity for the resident to talk and brings them close to voicing their needs. As the councillor listens and encourages the resident to explore their difficulties both the councillor and the resident gain understanding.
Good listening skills (and enough privacy) are essential to create a sense of rapport so that you can engage with the resident. Councillors may be in a position to put the resident’s experiences sensitively into perspective and share information that may help. Empathetic responses make it possible to keep a balance between normalising problems and trivialising them. As the resident shares something of their difficulties and underlying issues become clearer the resident may begin to understand and gain some insight in how to move things on. It is important for the councillor to keep in mind that the issues that the resident presents may be masking underlying relationship difficulties and the relationship is likely to be impacted by the overwhelming nature of the external difficulties (see Couple relationships – Appendix 1).
‘Personal baggage’
Everyone has personal experiences, the stuff of their own history. It can help us to empathise, or it can make us want to avoid certain subjects.
If you find this happening, it might help to think about whether:
- You are having difficulty managing your own feelings. Where you might get support?
- You are afraid you won’t be able to cope with the resident’s feelings, or of being swamped by their demand. What do you need to do to feel enabled?
- You aren’t confident about your own skill? Where might you get further training/support?
Case study
This case study illustrates how the Brief Encounters® model has been used in a typical scenario when a ‘signal’ has been picked up during a phone call from a resident.
As the local councillor, I had a call from a young woman about the transfer of a tenancy agreement. She suggested that it would not be possible for her to have the tenancy of the house in which she lived as her name was not on the agreement and her husband, in whose name it was, had left her for someone else.
She – and her father, who also rang me – were raising the spectre of eviction and being out on the streets with her children.
It was unfair, she said, that she would be homeless whilst he had a flat with his new partner. I made a number of enquiries with the housing authorities and they assured me that no eviction was planned and that she could indeed have the tenancy transferred into her name. However, both parties would be needed to sign off the old agreement and then a new one could be established.
She had told them that she would not come in to their office to sign the agreement at the same time as her estranged husband as she did not want to meet him again.
After another call to her and some discussion, I arranged with her to attend the office before her husband, so she did not meet him. Then he followed to do his signing at a later appointment. The real problem was not a possible eviction, but a breakdown of the relationship between the two parties and it was good to know that the solution was an easy one to arrange and not the extreme problem first raised with me.
Activity 3 – good listening
Describe a time when you used good listening skills. What made it
a good experience for you and the resident? Write down the factors that you would consider being important in good listening.
Look at the answers you have given and compare them to the guidelines on page 17.
Reflect on the situation of good listening that you described above. If you had the same situation again would you respond in the same way or would you respond differently?
What are the reasons for your answer?
Guidance
Stage 3 – review and ending
As the time limit for the discussion is reached it helps to review any change or progress that has been made during the discussion, and to check out with the resident that their story has been accurately heard.
Can a further offer of help be made or can partners, friends or relatives be involved to offer support? There will of course be times when the councillor is faced with residents who have more serious problems, that need more structured and professional help and a referral may be necessary as a way of ending the Brief Encounters® session.
Suggestions for moving the resident on:
- Councillors and residents will find it useful to summarise what has been shared.
- This skill increases understanding and encourages action from the resident to help themselves.
- Invite suggestions by asking – how would you like things to be, or what would be happening if things were better?
- A reminder of how residents have resolved difficulties in the past is affirming and puts them back in touch with their more coping self.
- Some residents will feel unable to make changes but experience relief at being listened to and understood.
Activity 4 – moving on
Think of a situation when you offered support to a resident in
distress with particular focus on the ending. How did that encounter end?
What factors influenced the ending?
Activity 5 – reflection
(See Reflection and Learning section p14. Write down your thoughts if this helps) Reflect on the example in relation to the following questions:
- How serious and pressing was the situation?
- Were you able to manage the resident’s difficulties by listening and perhaps offering information or tentative advice?
- Were there other sources of help the resident could make use of, such as self-help groups?
- Were they able to get help from supportive family or friends?
- Would the resident have benefited from more specialised help?
- Are you familiar with the services available in your area or do you lack knowledge, confidence or support?