Building on the success of the Covid-19 Vaccination Webinar workshops responding to building vaccine confidence, we have worked in partnership with Health Education England to commission a similar workshop to align with what will be a highly important Autumn/Winter vaccination programme for 2023/4.

We particularly wish to target participants who come into contact with low vaccine and screening uptake populations, including: areas of high deprivation, ethnic minority groups, parents of 2&3 year olds and school age children, and those in at-risk categories and care home settings.

We would be very grateful if you could promote and cascade this training opportunity far and wide to reach as many of the following as we can:

• Key VCS partners and/or local authority Community Champions Lead

• Drug and Alcohol services

• Interpretation services

• Traveller communities

• Religious/faith leaders & groups

• Healthwatch

• Ambulance staff

• Sure start children’s centre workers

• Education settings to support conversations in schools

• Food bank staff

• Health Visitors

• Reception/Admin staff

• Care home settings/Managers

Concept and Objectives

The primary objective of the autumn booster programme this year will be to increase protection against severe COVID-19 disease for those at higher risk. In addition, there is an added need to address the inequalities in uptake of flu vaccination.

Low vaccine confidence amongst some eligible populations can present a risk to population health and more often negatively impact some of our poorest communities and/or risk groups.

Our conversations our powerful, therefore the provision of skills training that uses the principles of Making Every Contact Count (MECC) and Motivation Interviewing provides staff with an important resource that can be utilised to combat disinformation and myths, whilst providing the necessary reassurance and confidence in what is a safe and effective vaccine.

The skills training covers:

• How can we work together to build vaccine confidence, what we know and how this links to health inequality

• Core skills and processes (OARS, Evoke-Provide-Evoke, Decisional Balance, and the 3As)

• Skills practice – Building confidence in the vaccine

• Resources that staff can use to respond to questions and concerns

The session will be interactive and include modelled conversations that showcase the core skills and processes being used. The application of this work can be far-reaching. Although this is focused on winter vaccinations, these skills can be utilised for conversations about a range of other issues, for example, childhood immunisations, cancer screening, and other health-promoting activities

This provision has been funded by Health Education England Y&H in partnership with the NHS Public Health Programmes Team Y&H. Each workshop can cater for 30 people and lasts for 1.5 hours, dates available from the 23rd June 2023 to 31st August 2023.

Conversations about winter vaccinations - Free webinar programme