Making Families Count provides inspirational training, helping organisations to positively engage with families and learn from families’ experiences. This transforms the experience of family members and improves the care provided.
Our webinars have all been updated to assist organisations in preparing and using PSIRF (Patient Safety Incident Response Framework).
In addition to webinars, we offer bespoke in-house training as well as Virtual Training Packages tailored to the needs of your organisation.
2025 Webinars
27 March 2025 – Introduction to Making Families Count Training (FREE)
24 April 2025 – Family Liaison Services – Working with Families, for Families
30 April and 21 May 2025 (two-part webinar) – Life Beyond the Cubicle – Training the Trainers
13 May 2025 – Building Trust and Engagement with Families in Mental Health Services, using PSIRF
15 May and 18 June 2025 (two-part webinar) – Life Beyond the Cubicle – Training the Trainers
17 June 2025 – Introduction to Making Families Count Training (FREE)
26 June 2025 – Building Trust and Engagement with Families in Acute Services, using PSIRF
All participants will receive the programme and background information about Making Families Count in advance. Everyone who attends will also receive a resource pack (including a shareable PDF guide and the speakers’ slides) and a certificate of attendance.
“Your speakers were fantastic; really down to earth and impactful. I came away from the session with some tangible, practical things that I can start to use in my practice immediately. The message you are sending is very powerful and “spot on” for the people who attend your webinars.”
Amy Stanley, Clinical Investigations Manager, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
For more details about the individual webinars, see below.
“Introduction to Making Families Count Training“
Dates:
Thursday 27 March 2025 (SOLD OUT)
Tuesday 17 June 2025 (AVAILABLE)
Time: 12.30pm – 1.30pm
Price: FREE
This new webinar is a free introduction to the work of Making Families Count (MFC) and focuses on who we are, what we do and why we do it. Speakers include Julie Kerry, who co-founded MFC in 2014 and is now one of our directors, Len Hodkin, family member and director, and Rosi Reed, our development and training coordinator. MFC aims to offer training which supports healthcare professionals to better engage with parents and families. This introductory webinar illustrates what our training offers in terms of facilitating staff to have the necessary skills to work well with families, particularly around the PSIRF guidance.
The aims of this webinar are:
- To offer an initial introduction to the work of Making Families Count
- To improve your understanding of the importance of engaging well with families in the PSIRF context
- To facilitate conversations about your team/organisation’s current practice
Speakers:
Julie Kerry, Len Hodkin, and Rosi Reed
This webinar is open to all healthcare professionals who are interested in knowing more about the work of Making Families Count and the training we offer.
“Family Liaison Services – Working with Families, for Families“
Date: Thursday 24 April 2025
Time: 12.15pm – 3:15pm
Price: £90
This new Making Families Count webinar is designed specifically for NHS staff who are committed to engaging positively with patients and families after a serious patient safety incident.
The programme seeks to create a unique learning experience for those in Family Liaison or Patient Engagement roles across the NHS. It focuses on learning from the lived experience of patients and families after serious patient safety incidents, contrasts the family liaison roles within the NHS and other sectors, and shares the learning from experts who have developed and run Family Liaison services in other parts of the NHS. The model of delivery enables delegates to interact with each other and with presenters, learning from each other and developing or expanding their peer support networks, which will be beneficial beyond the event itself.
This webinar is for…
- Family Liaison Service Teams
- Patient Engagement Teams
- Directors of Nursing and Patient Services
- Staff involved in Serious Incident Investigations
- Staff involved in PSIRF implementation
Speakers:
Louise Pye, Karen Lascelles, Rosi Reed, Stephen Habgood, Len Hodkin, Kirk Wilson, Sue Massingham and Julie Kerry
Learning Outcomes
- Contrasting the model of family liaison within the NHS and other sectors to create an understanding of alternate approaches, training, and service delivery.
- Develop a deeper understanding of the impact and long-term consequences for families of poor engagement during protracted incident investigations. Hearing the family’s perspective after an incident involving serious harm or death.
- Consider the crucial link between the NHS Trust and the family as they negotiate the difficult and complex NHS investigation process and related processes, e.g. inquests.
- Developing strong communication skills, being able to listen and empathise to build trust with families.
- Develop an approach to create an ethical relationship with the family by building trust, sharing information between families and the investigation lead, providing information about additional services available to families, and signposting to relevant support agencies. Consider the continuation of support, if needed, when the investigation closes.
- Consider your own peer support network and opportunities for expanding this further and use this webinar to reflect upon additional training and development needs and how these can be met.
“Life Beyond the Cubicle – Training the Trainers“
This training webinar runs over two days and both days must be booked.
Day 1: Wednesday 30 April 2025, 12pm – 2pm / Day 2: Wednesday 21 May 2025, 11am – 2pm (SOLD OUT)
Day 1: Thursday 15 May 2025, 12pm – 2pm / Day 2: Wednesday 18 June 2025, 11am – 2pm (AVAILABLE)
Price: £150
Our new Life Beyond the Cubicle resources are designed to help clinicians work well with the family and friends of people who have mental health crises in order to improve care and safety.
Dorit Braun and Dr Karen Lascelles, who led the development of the resources, will facilitate a new training programme which aims to give participants the confidence to use the Life Beyond the Cubicle films and audios in groups of NHS staff. Such groups might include clinical supervision, peer support, or learning events.
When we piloted the Life Beyond the Cubicle resources, we found that meeting in groups using some of the films and audios was a good way to encourage clinicians to work through the modules. We also found that each film could provoke extremely rich and supportive discussions among colleagues. But often colleagues wanted more support to feel equipped to plan a programme suitable for groups of clinicians from services in their own Trust. This course will equip you to do that.
The Training the Trainers programme is suitable for anyone with clinical supervision responsibilities whose work covers staff who work with patients and families in mental health crises. You need to have access to the NHS learning hub. The sessions will be interactive. Numbers are limited to 15 per Training the Trainers programme. Participants are expected to attend both sessions.
The Training the Trainers programme offers two linked sessions:
Session 1: Introduction. A two-hour session introducing the Life Beyond the Cubicle resources and providing an overview of how they can support improved practice in working well with families.
Session 2: Putting it into Action. A three-hour session to develop participants’ confidence and skills to develop bespoke training for groups you facilitate.
There will be a task between sessions 1 and 2: we will ask you to select and show one of the films or audios to a small group.
We recommend that you familiarise yourself with the Life Beyond the Cubicle modules in advance of the course. The programme will make use of the Guide for Group Based Learning, which is free to download from the NHS Learning Hub.
Please note that we can offer this programme as a bespoke Training the Trainers programme for individual Trusts. If you are interested, please contact [email protected]
“Building Trust and Engagement with Families in Mental Health Services, using PSIRF”
Date: Tuesday 13 May 2025
Time: 12.15pm – 3:15pm
Price: £90
This webinar focuses on using positive family engagement within the new PSIRF framework to transform the investigation experience of patients, families, and staff. We will provide clear information on when and how to develop positive family engagement during investigations, in line with PSIRF. The webinar has been developed in line with the national NHS Patient Safety Standards introduced as part of the NHS Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and the Engaging and involving patients, families and staff following a patient safety incident PSIRF supporting guidance.
This webinar enables you to hear the first-hand experiences of staff and families in a powerful and engaging way. It gives you the opportunity to discuss and share your experiences and that of speakers and other delegates in a non-judgmental and positive learning environment.
This webinar is for…
- Patient Safety Leads / Manager / Advisors
- Family Liaison Service Teams
- PSIRF Implementation Teams
- Governance Leads / Managers / Directors
- Clinical Leads in Safety & Quality
Speakers:
Julie Kerry, Lucien Champion, Stephen Habgood and Sam Fairhurst
Learning Outcomes
You will have the opportunity to achieve the following learning objectives:
- Understand the challenges and opportunities of engaging positively with families. Using PSIRF to develop an approach that recognises the importance of a collaborative investigative process that is thoughtful, compassionate, and supportive to families and staff. Appreciating the long-term adverse impact of poor engagement.
- Consider the family perspective after a patient safety incident, learning from the lived experiences of families to ‘walk a while in their shoes’, in relation to creation of actionable insights from these experiences which will influence your own future practice.
- Challenge yourself on your approach to the delivery of duty of candour and whether it meets the needs of families after a patient safety event.
- Increase your confidence in managing issues of information sharing and confidentiality. Developing approaches to how families can be supported to be part of a safety plan for patients.
- This would also specifically include working well with families who have experienced loss through suicide.
- Focus on an investigative and engagement approach which avoids compounding harm. Recognising the positive impact even small expressions of kindness can make and determining what makes a meaningful apology.
- Develop an approach to report writing after a patient safety incident, which has the family at the centre.
“Building Trust and Engagement with Families in Acute Services, using PSIRF”
Date: Thursday 26 June 2025
Time: 12.15pm – 3.15pm
Price: £90
This webinar focuses on using positive family engagement within the new PSIRF framework to transform the investigation experience of patients, families, and staff. The webinar will provide clear information on when and how to develop positive family engagement during investigations, in line with PSIRF. This webinar has been developed in line with the national NHS Patient Safety Standards introduced as part of the NHS Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and the Engaging and involving patients, families and staff following a patient safety incident PSIRF supporting guidance.
This webinar enables you to hear the first-hand experiences of staff and families in a powerful and engaging way. It gives you the opportunity to discuss and share your experiences and that of speakers and other delegates in a non-judgmental and positive learning environment.
This webinar is for…
- Patient Safety Leads / Manager / Advisors
- Family Liaison Service Teams
- PSIRF Implementation Teams
- Governance Leads / Managers / Directors
- Clinical Leads in Safety & Quality
Speakers:
Ashley Windebank-Brooks, Dr Karen Lascelles, Julie Kerry, Rosi Reed, Joanne Canning, Derek Richford
Learning Outcomes
You will have the opportunity to achieve the following learning objectives:
- Understand the challenges and opportunities of engaging positively with families. Using PSIRF to develop an approach that recognises the importance of a collaborative investigative process that is thoughtful, compassionate, and supportive to families and staff. Appreciating the long-term adverse impact of poor engagement.
- Consider the family perspective after a patient safety incident, learning from the lived experiences of families to ‘walk a while in their shoes’, in relation to creation of actionable insights from these experiences which will influence your own future practice.
- Challenge yourself on your approach to the delivery of duty of candour and whether it meets the needs of families after a patient safety event.
- Increase your confidence in managing issues of information sharing and confidentiality. Developing approaches to how families can be supported to be part of a safety plan for patients.
- Focus on an investigative and engagement approach which avoids compounding harm. Recognising the positive impact even small expressions of kindness can make and determining what makes a meaningful apology.
- Develop an approach to report writing after a patient safety incident, which has the family at the centre.
Refund Policy
You can find our refund policy here.