From The Heart

We very recently carried out a day's development and training delivering our "Conflict to Confidence" programme to a training organisation that engages with disaffected 14-16 year olds and delivers Entry to Employment and Apprenticeship training to groups with high risk and vulnerability factors.
Part of the programme asks participants to develop a "Two of Us In a Lift" conversation; the premise of which is to as participants to think of someone who they admire, would like to meet and to imagine that you are in a lift with this person-they ask you "What do you do for a living, what makes it the right job for you?" You have 60 seconds to reply and get your message across. When I've delivered this before I've had some really interesting, comical and sometime raunchy characters make their way into the lift-all great fun. This time was made different by 3 participants, two of who chose their deceased fathers as the person they would most want to tell how well they'd done and what they'd achieved. A third chose his grandfather, a stroke victim whose speech has been affected-he wanted the chance to have a "real" conversation with him.
Presenting programmes is great-it's one of the very best parts of our work. This occasion was a powerful reminder of the worth of "Good Work" in contributing to our awareness of who we are and what we stand for in an often difficult and challenging world.