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Restorative, Just and Learning Culture
This session can be delivered in person, or virtually.

Why have  a restorative, just and learning culture?

By fostering an atmosphere where staff feel safe to speak up without fear of blame, this culture paves the way for improved patient safety, accountability, and organisational learning—ensuring that both patients and professionals can thrive in a fair and transparent healthcare system.

We already know that creating a restorative and just culture is essential for fostering safety and learning, but why isn’t it widely adopted? Despite its clear benefits, many organisations and individuals struggle to implement these principles due to the deeply ingrained emotional barriers and fear that often surround accountability. Staff may feel vulnerable, defensive, or afraid of retribution, especially when rigid, process-driven systems are in place.

Why have this session?

Through experiential learning using a true story, participants will have the opportunity to see things differently; examining how empathy and compassionate leadership underpin a restorative culture, helping organisations move from blame to learning, accountability, and system improvement. This session aims to address these emotional complexities head-on, digging deeply into the underlying feelings and dynamics that prevent open dialogue and reflection, allowing organisations to move beyond the theoretical and into real, sustainable change.

​Some key learning outcomes

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  • Understanding of Restorative vs. Retributive Practices: Dig deeper into a thought-provoking journey through a patient safety incident, understanding  some of the complex emotional component, demystifying some of the myths. 

  • What is a Just Culture and Empathy in Practice: Participants will explore develop the ability to apply and promote empathetic practice and the psychological benefits of restorative practices that foster trust and transparency.

  • Seeing Perspectives for Culture and Change: Understand emotional motivations within behaviour and how easily we all see things differently and come from a place of fear.    

  • Unpacking the ‘Funnel of Life’: Enhancing Compassionate and Inclusive Leadership while Cultivating Self-Awareness of Our Own Funnel

  • Restorative Care - Emotions at the Heart of Stakeholder Support: Explore how a restorative culture nurtures patients, carers, and staff by addressing emotional challenges and managing difficult incidents.

  • Psychological Safety for Team Health: Understand how a lack of civility, empathy and emotional awareness has the potential to cause psychological harm, negatively impacting on being a just, fair and learning culture.

  • Shifting Perspectives: From Surface Critique to Systemic Restorative Thinking: Explore how psychological safety influences professional communication, and is all empathy useful for a restorative, just and learning culture?

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Testimonial

 

I met Carolyn for the first time in July, 2024 when she both sympathetically yet expertly delivered a session for our Senior Clinical Leaders Programme (SCLP). However, this wasn’t the first time she has delivered sessions to senior leaders here at Northumbria Healthcare. Such has been the tremendous feedback from her sessions by those who have attended it, that we now have them as a permanent fixture on both the SCLP and also our Strategic Leadership Programmes (SLP).
 
I had heard a lot about the impact that the session Carolyn delivers, has on its attendees. I heard about Carolyn's story around which the session is usefully based, but wondered how this could possibly be delivered in such a way as I would say I enjoyed it. Yet, the session and its content is truly powerful, and the learning which comes from the discussions Carolyn creates, has such resonance and relevance to leadership in the NHS today that most delegates feel it should be a mandatory session for NHS employees. I found it a thoroughly thought provoking and yet engaging and enjoyable all at the same time.
 
When I spoke to some of the delegates following the session, they used superlatives in virtually every case. All those I asked found the session excellent, engaging, thought provoking and something that can be used both in the workplace and at home. The majority of the senior leaders I spoke to said that the session highlighted the need for them to listen with more intent, which ultimately could result in positive behavioural change. This can only be a good thing, as the NHS looks to make cultural changes and allow more open and honest communication between staff at all levels as well as with patients and their families.
 
I would thoroughly recommend C&C Empathy Training Ltd and Carolyn's approach to development sessions to any organisation. I am already looking forward to seeing Carolyn again on our next Cohort of SCLP.

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Jamie Deighton, Specialist Practitioner – Leadership & Organisational Development 
Organisational Development. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust  

To find out more, just email Carolyn.
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Stressed nurses
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