Consulting Circles - is a specialist training consultancy delivering skills and therapeutic interventions training services statutory and voluntary sector providers across the UK. Set up in 2007 by Sonia Yeandle and Ray Jenkins, Consulting Circles are dedicated to providing innovative approaches to the continuous professional development of staff and managers through bespoke training courses, operational consultancy and workforce analysis.

Our training courses and workshops are specifically designed to enhance the capacity of staff within generic public sector agencies. We work with Tier 2/3 substance misuse providers and social care organisations to develop high quality engagement, care planning and evidence based treatment interventions.

At Consulting Circles we place great emphasis on delivering quality services to our clients. Our products are developed from the core skills of our Directors and Associates. We have more than 15 years experience at a strategic and operational level of organisational development, third sector service delivery, contract management and fundraising. Our strength is our knowledge base which brings tangible value for our clients by achieving measurable results quickly and cost effectively to meet your training requirements.

Ray Jenkins,Dip. Couns. MBA - is the former Development Director for CRI, a national social care provider delivering substance misuse intervention within the criminal justice system and community. He is a former member of the UK Anti Drugs Co-ordination Unit (UKADCU) advising on the implementation of the Government’s 10 year Drug Strategy. He has extensive knowledge of staff and workforce development that is supported by an operational background in delivering community services across Tiers 2, 3 & 4 services as well as a range of Criminal Justice initiatives including; DIP, CARAT, DRR, PASO and PPO.

Sonia Yeandle, Adv. Dip. Couns. - has more than 17 years experience of working in the social care field with Social Services and local authority legal departments. Her expertise encompasses workplace policy writing, implementation and training as well as stress audits and ISO Project Management. Trained by BSI (British Standards Institute), Sonia has worked with a number of small charities to help them prepare for ISO certification status.

Sonia also runs a successful private counselling practice in East Sussex. She holds an Advanced Diploma in Integrative Counselling, Diploma in Integrative Group-work and a Diploma in Supervision. Sonia also designs and runs CPD Workshops for Counsellors, Key-workers and Social Care & Health staff across the UK and is currently teaching Counselling at the Wealden Institute in Kent.

Associates
Consulting Circles work with a small number of select associates with senior operational management experience and proven track records in the delivery of social care training and consultancy. We ensure that all our associates have the right skills and qualifications to match an organisation’s business and training needs.

Circles Training Approach

Consideration is always given to the fact that training sessions must be delivered on behalf of purchasers in such a way that ensures commissioned services remain functional. This is why we suggest that a number of two day sessions are scheduled to ensure all operational staff have the opportunity to contribute and benefit from our training.

Training will be informed by pre-course discussions with Managers from the purchasing organisation in order to establish the required learning outcomes, available resources, core service profile, workforce development plans and skill levels.

• Training materials will include case studies taken from spent case loads to achieve the specified learning outcomes and will be selected for their relevance to the purchaser’s core service portfolio.
• Training content will reflect the operational knowledge of the Trainers, Managers and the operational staff themselves. All Consulting Circles training courses are developed from evidence based practice in accordance with NTA quality requirements.
• Senior Managers will be provided with written summaries of each training session in order to highlight operational/skills deficiencies identified during the training.
• Consulting Circles trainers will make recommendations for ongoing training and support for individual staff members following the training programme in accordance with the purchasers professional development frameworks (PDF) and audit processes.
• Trainers would encourage Service Managers and Administrators to participate in elements of the training programme in order to gain first hand knowledge of current workforce practice, systems knowledge, operational approach and skills capacity.
• All participants will be supplied with pre-course questionnaires to establish learning styles, current knowledge base and audit skills in order to design appropriate course training materials.