The Importance of Effective Listening to the Homelessness Sector
- Matt Hatton
- May 2, 2024
- 2 min read
I know I keep banging on about this subject. You’ll find me constantly referencing the importance of listening skills in my social media posts, for instance. I do it unapologetically.
It really does matter!
It matters how we listen to clients. It matters how colleagues listen to one another.
The art of effective listening in the homelessness sector is a learned skill and like any honed skill, it has to be practiced. That’s why my own belief is that a basic understanding of Motivational Interviewing needs to be a mandatory aspect of anyone’s induction and it needs to be regularly revisited and reviewed as part of professional development. As the saying goes, if you don’t use it, you will lose it.
Let’s look at the reality of every day working life, though:
What if you are running a walk-in service for housing information and advice and the waiting area is chock full of people waiting to see you?
What if you run an accommodation project and there are several new tenants that all need a support plan created?
What if you have scheduled to see several staff members for 1-2-1s on the same day?
The temptation is always to put the paperwork before the person. To be led by prescriptive questions that help you to check a box. It’s so easy to revert to doing it this way when under pressure. When deep down, we all know that what needs to be created first is connection, relationship-building, rapport. Trust.
Putting the paperwork aside works well for any initial interaction so that ‘flow’ can naturally happen. And whereby, if you give deep attention to the person with you, you are more likely to get to the crux of what is happening for them than if there is paperwork filling or you are paying more attention to a computer screen than the person. That’s what breaks up the ‘flow’.
It can sound counter-productive if you are unfamiliar with this way of working. Yet if you try it consistently (it will feel awkward for some while), you will reap the benefits of having had a proper conversation with the person that then, more often than not, feels listened to. It can still be a time-bound conversation. But guess what? The person is more likely to return for another conversation if they feel you are invested in them.
Have I got these things right all of the time myself? Hell no! And that’s also the point. None of us are exempt from engaging in an improvement cycle of our deep listening skills whereby we also need to give time to the 3 Rs: Review, Reflect, Revise.
If you want to understand more about how effective listening skills in a high-pressured work environment relates to achieving a healthier work-life balance so that you and your team can best avoid burnout, I’d love to have a conversation with you.
It’s as simple as clicking the link here:
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