Would you/your staff and volunteers like to be more confident talking about health with the people you support?

Would you/your staff and volunteers like to support people to make positive changes to their health and wellbeing?

If so, Making Every Contact Count (MECC) training could be the answer!

MECC is about using the day-to-day interactions we have with others to help people make positive changes to their physical and mental health and access the support they need.

Oxfordshire County Council’s Public Health team is supporting organisations across the county, including charities, community groups, mutual aids and other voluntary sector groups, to embed MECC in their everyday work.

MECC training gives support staff/volunteers the skills and confidence needed to have conversations with others about health and wellbeing and then signpost to support services. Public Health are calling on all third sector organisations to undertake MECC training.

The training is designed to support staff and volunteers to make the most of their everyday conversations and respond appropriately to cues for issues that come up in conversations and may be affecting people’s wellbeing such as money worries, finding a job, mental health and changes to lifestyle such as healthy eating or stopping smoking.

A MECC interaction takes a matter of minutes and is not intended to add to existing busy workloads, rather it is structured to fit into and complement existing conversations.

The nationwide MECC initiative is led by NHS England and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (formerly known as Public Health England).

There are various MECC training models to choose from:

• An e-learning MECC module (approximately 1 hour) provided by NHS England: https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/making-every-contact-count/
• An online face-to-face MECC practice training session on Microsoft Teams with a MECC trainer (2 hours)
• MECC Train-the-Trainer courses for those who are interested in cascading training to their own team and would like to become a MECC trainer. These consist of four 2-hour online interactive sessions. You’ll become a member of the MECC trainer network and be invited to other CPD and behaviour change focussed events. Organisations who are willing to cascade MECC training to their staff are encouraged to undertake the MECC train-the-trainer course.

The MECC training on offer in Oxfordshire is accredited by the national CPD accreditation body and the Health Education England (HEE) Behavioural Insights team (HEE has recently merged with NHS England).

To book a place on the MECC training, please email bobicb.personalisedcaretraining@nhs.net. To book a place on the MECC Train-the-Trainer course, please email clare.hodsdon@nhs.net. Depending on numbers, bespoke sessions can also be arranged for your team.

If you’d like to find out more about MECC, please email Imogen Coningsby in Oxfordshire County Council’s Public Health team imogen.coningsby@oxfordshire.gov.uk.