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Really Useful Conversations

Conversations can change and even save lives - are you talking about the things that really matter? Conversations matter!

We have worked with literally thousands of managers, from team leader to Board level, in a wide range of industries, from media to manufacturing, the fire service to refuse collection, since February 2000. Providing a range of online, self study, blended learning packages or interactive, participative training in groups, we receive excellent feedback on our style and approach. Each of our clients

is different and as such, each of the interventions provided has been different - all with one common theme - to make a positive difference. Whether running a management programme for 320 store managers for a major high street retailer or providing one to one coaching for a television producer moving roles, we invest every effort in making the experience a positive, enjoyable, worthwhile and valuable one - ensuring a good return on our client's investment. Our style is practical, pragmatic, down to earth and people can walk away from the training and directly apply it to their management role. Most of our business comes from recommendations and referrals, repeat business as HR professionals move on and take us with them. Drop me a line for a no obligation discovery call - conversations can change organisations, develop relationships and save lives.

30/05/2026

Time to come home after a fabulous few days in Rome and in the airport this catches my attention.

Punto Viola.

So I need to know more, obvs!

Punto Viola - a network of designated safe spaces for people experiencing gender-based violence or discrimination, located in everyday places such as airports, cafés, train stations, hotels and shops where staff who work there are trained to recognise concern, respond appropriately and signpost people towards specialist support if needed - genius 💜

The reality is that people don’t always disclose abuse, fear or distress to a police officer, social worker or specialist service - it might be the kind person serving them a coffee, the receptionist that asks about their journey, the airport information desk adviser, the lady in the chemist.

Punto Viola recognises something important in that early intervention isn’t just about specialist services but about creating more trained, informed and confident people within everyday infrastructure - not training them to become counsellors or experts but simply to notice, respond and help somebody take the next step towards safety.

It made me reflect on the “Dual Risk Training” I’m delivering which offers 3 different tiers of training about su***de prevention in a domestic abuse setting, each tier designed for different roles and levels of responsibility. Whether you are a GP receptionist, police officer or IDVA, for example, because not everybody needs to become a specialist, but more people do need to understand what they might be seeing, hearing or noticing, and what to do next.

Sometimes the most important intervention isn’t delivered by an expert but by an ordinary person who has been given the confidence to recognise that something isn’t right and respond in a way that helps rather than harms.

Every day conversations have the power to change and save lives and leaving Rome behind, I’m looking forward to getting back to work this week 😉

28/05/2026

Celebrating my husband’s birthday with a trip to Rome, and I spotted this sign in St Peter’s Basilica yesterday.

“Listening Space.”

A space to enter into dialogue with your thoughts, your doubts, your questions.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised how much we are missing that in everyday life because we live in a world that rushes to fix, to advise, to reassure. We want to offer solutions before somebody has even finished speaking - but how often do we create space to just listen? Really listen? Listen to understand not simply to reply?

The kind that helps somebody’s nervous system settle a little because they feel safe enough to speak honestly, that allows people to say the thing they’ve maybe been holding onto for weeks, months or years, the kind that says “You don’t need to have this all worked out already” ?

The more work I do around trauma, stress, domestic abuse, suicidality and emotional overload, the more I see that people don’t need a perfect script from us but simply presence, time, calm, compassion, curiousity and space. Somewhere to put down the weight they’ve been carrying for five minutes without feeling judged, rushed or dismissed, and this matters everywhere because conversations change when people feel genuinely heard.

Anyway… a little sign in the Vatican ended up giving me a very big reminder. We need listening spaces in more places than just holy ones and maybe we all need to get better at creating listening spaces for each other.

Time for morning coffee now 🇮🇹

27/05/2026

I was interested to read about an automated Trauma Tracker system being launched by Avon and Somerset Police to enable line managers and wellbeing professionals to proactively manage workforce exposure to trauma, and especially about how it will give officers and staff regular updates on the possible impact that traumatic incidents may have on their wellbeing too.

Within policing most of us would immediately understand why trauma might exist there. We think of trauma as the “big stuff” - sudden deaths, RTA’s, violence, serious incidents and the difficult realities that officers can be exposed to, but trauma is not always one major event.

😣 Sometimes it is cumulative.

😣 Sometimes it is chronic stress.

😣 Sometimes it is years of emotional overload, fear, coercion, grief, burnout or living permanently in survival mode.

The nervous system does not only respond to obvious catastrophe and we need to recognise that the constant drip-drip effect of stress and threat can be just as damaging over time, and so trauma-informed training matters everywhere, especially in roles where people may be distressed, vulnerable, in crisis or at risk.

By understanding trauma properly means we stop asking “What’s wrong with this person?” and start asking “What has happened to them?” and therefore reduce the risk of organisations and systems unintentionally re-traumatising the very people they are trying to support.

I hope that by learning more about trauma for themselves, people such as these police officers will learn more about the impact trauma, in all shapes and sizes, can have on the people they are dealing with too.

25/05/2026

I generally avoid commenting on anything political on here, following the proverbial wisdom to “don’t talk about politics religion or football” BUT when we currently have headline news about lenient sentencing following r**e AND a man standing for election to public office with views such as these - I’ve started the day feeling incensed by the way women’s experiences are still minimised, doubted or weaponised in this way.

I know people hold different political views and I respect that and yes, healthy debate matters, but comments that appear to dismiss or undermine the realities of sexual violence are not “just politics” that we should ignore.

We are already not having enough difficult conversations around violence against women, coercive control, trauma, disclosure and why so many victim-survivors, both female and male, struggle to come forward in the first place and we cannot keep saying “Why didn’t she report it?”
whilst at the same time creating a culture where women fear they won’t be believed and men laughed at.

This is not about party politics for me.
It’s about humanity, decency, respect, safety and the kind of conversations we don’t challenge. Those well worn out tropes quoted by KC’s in defence of alleged abusers, casual comments made on social media, throwaway lines about women lying, exaggerating or “regretting it afterwards” all feed into something much bigger and we really do need to speak up.

Please Makerfield, don’t put this man in a position of power 😞

17/05/2026

After Dad’s funeral, a friend hugged me tightly and said:“The worst is still to come” and I think she was right 💔

Losing both my parents so close together was never something I’d imagined. We knew Dad was struggling but then Mum died so suddenly and unexpectedly - I think losing her accelerated something in him too.

At the time though, you just keep going because you have funerals to arrange, people to contact, forms to sort, visitors calling, cards arriving, people checking in.

You move into practical mode because you have to.

But then life quietly carries on around you… and everybody else returns to normal and honestly, I’ve never felt so alone 😢

This week I had some great news. I was told I’d be a suitable candidate for the Masters programme I want to do at Uni, but I put the phone down and absolutely bawled my eyes out because all I wanted to do was ring my Dad and tell him 😢

Today is and I’m researching more around trauma as part of my Dual Risk work, and recognising myself within what they call ‘functional freeze’ - a term I’ve not come across before that describes my current state really well.

- You still work.
- Still reply to messages.
- Still show up on LinkedIn
- Still function.

However, underneath the surface, your nervous system is exhausted.

- You procrastinate over tiny things.
- Feel overwhelmed by simple tasks.
- Can’t summon the energy to bounce out of bed.
- Scroll mindlessly.
- Feel emotionally flat one minute and overwhelmed the next.

The irony is that the research I’m doing around trauma, su***de risk and nervous system overwhelm is incredibly valuable for my work… but I suspect it might be helping me understand myself a little better too ❤️‍🩹

14/05/2026

Action over awareness is the theme this week and my “Beyond Shame, Stigma & Silence” webinar attracted a large number of folks, from all sorts of organisations.

I talked about why ‘Reach Out’ is not enough and how the weight that people carry can mean they are not able to do so, and therefore why ‘Reach In’ is something we all need to learn to do - whether as professionals and practitioners or simply as decent human beings.

I’m so glad the message landed 🧡

11/05/2026

“Reach Out” is simply not enough.

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week 2026 and the theme is ‘action’ - which is exactly right, because we have become very, very good at awareness.

💚 We have the posters, the emails, the lanyards, the lunch-and-learns.

💚 We know the statistics. We share the statistics and then we go back to saying "my door is always open" and waiting for someone to walk through it.

Here's the thing about an open door. It means nothing to someone too weighed down to walk through it.

Tomorrow at 12:30pm I'm hosting a free 45-minute webinar "Beyond Stigma, Shame and Silence" and the whole session is built around one shift: stop telling people to reach out, and start reaching in instead.

We'll be talking about why the people who most need help are also the least able to ask for it, what gets in the way of those conversations (and it's not what most people think), and a practical three-step framework you can use straightaway, in any context, with anyone.

It may be a colleague feeling overwhelmed by life, a client afraid to make a disclosure, a friend dealing with some really challenging personal stuff - whoever it is, you want to be able to take action, not just be aware of how they might be feeling, right?

If you want to know more about ACTION and the difference that you can make, come join us. It's free. It's 45 minutes, and it might just change how you show up for someone this week.

06/05/2026

“Neighbours claimed that Joanne had just moved to a terraced home on the Bristol street to escape her ex-partner. They say she had been complaining to the police for some time before this incident, and he had been harassing her.”

A friend commented that “Last week she sounded so happy that she was finally safe and free from her ex.”

Leaving the relationship does not always equal safety.

We need to acknowledge that, in fact, leaving can be a trigger for the risk to escalate further. In many cases, separation is one of the most dangerous periods for victim-survivors.

And in this case, Jo Shaw was murdered on the doorstep of her parents’ home 😔

My heart goes out to her little boy, family and friends.

This is why we need a far deeper public understanding of coercive control, stalking, post-separation abuse and escalating risk.

Because too often people wonder “Why didn’t they just leave?” or “Well they’ve left now, so they are safe.”

Leaving is not easy and in so many cases, it is not the end of the story.

For many people, it is the point where the danger intensifies.

We have to stop misunderstanding domestic incidents as “just a relationship issue” and start recognising it for what it often is:
a pattern of entitlement, control, obsession and escalating harm.

I don’t know the full back story here but I do know that awareness and myth busting and conversations like these matter.

I’d also love to see the red tops not using the description of “Ryan Kelly and Joanne Shaw have been named locally as the victims of the Bristol gr***de explosion” - there was only one victim - this was murder 😢

We have much work to do.

(MEN photo)

05/05/2026

How did you spend your weekend?

I spent mine nose-deep in cults and undue influence and had an absolute ball!

I have done a lot of reading over recent months, the people that are obviously doing great things that are relevant to my work - Tim Woodhouse, Lee Curran, Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE, and many more but then something struck me and I’ve been off down a different, but very relevant path and this weekend I immersed myself in the work of Steven Hassan, PhD and Gillie Jenkinson, PhD learning about cults and exit support and recovery.

It turns out that once you start to better understand how someone ends up psychologically trapped and then helped to get free, you start to see coercive control in a different way and begin to appreciate even more why they ‘didn’t just leave’.

Dark stuff in some spots and I have been all over the place with it, in the best possible way, and I think I am nearly ready to share where it has all landed.

Nearly.

Watch this space.

And thank you to all the folks whose learning has pushed my learning!

04/05/2026

What do the Moonies, Chinese Communist re-education programmes and domestic abuse have in common?

More than you might think.

The more I dig, the more that gap I keep talking about starts to look less like a gap and more like a huge, wide valley as my research into su***de prevention within domestic abuse settings keeps pulling me down roads I didn’t expect to travel, and I am finding it fascinating.

The mechanisms of psychological captivity, the science of how human beings are broken down and rebuilt in someone else’s image, the way coercion operates not through brute force alone but through the systematic dismantling of a person’s sense of self and reality. It turns out the architects of thought reform and the architects of coercive control were working from very similar blueprints.

Albert Biderman developed his Chart of Coercion studying Korean War prisoners held in Communist captivity. Decades later, that same framework became foundational in how we understand domestic abuse. That is not a coincidence.

It matters enormously when we are trying to understand why leaving isn’t simple, why the risk doesn’t end when someone walks out of the door, and why the two risks I’m addressing in my Dual Risk training (the risk from the person causing harm and the risk to the victim’s own life) are so deeply and dangerously connected.

I’m loving the learning and the little light bulb moments and can’t wait to share!

May the 4th be with you too 🚀

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Golborne

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http://www.confidentconversations.co.uk/

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