How Tackling Tobacco training empowered Yes Unlimited to address smoking
About the service
Yes Unlimited is a not-for-profit, community-based organisation based in Albury-Wodonga that offer youth, family and homelessness services. They believe that empowering people with the knowledge, support and resources needed to overcome life challenges creates better and healthier communities.
One of Yes Unlimited’s core values is to create trusting environments for their team, clients and the broader community. They do this by providing services through Broughton House Youth Refuge, Betty’s Place Women’s Refuge, The HIVE Youth Resource Centre, and Counselling and Therapeutic Services.
Many of Yes Unlimited’s clients experience unemployment, disengagement with education and school, domestic violence, and homelessness. These factors increase their likelihood of smoking.
Taking part in Tackling Tobacco
Yes Unlimited joined the Tackling Tobacco program to increase their organisation’s capacity to address smoking. They wanted to train staff in effective cessation support and help clients quit smoking.
All 46 staff members across their sites, including their CEO, attended the Tackling Tobacco face to face training, and they achieved a 100% staff completion rate of the eLearning modules. The training space was furnished with bean bags, break out spaces and a snack table for break times to encourage attendance and engagement.
The Tackling Tobacco champions encouraged all staff to participate in the training by sending prompting emails and providing reminders at team meetings. Training was made a priority by their leadership team which also contributed to the high training participation rate.
Empowering staff through training
As a result of the training, Yes Unlimited staff had new perspectives on smoking. They felt confident in delivering brief interventions and talking to clients about nicotine replacement therapy. They were also equipped with the skills to implement organisational changes, like introducing a smoking policy and ensuring clients had access to quit support.
Yes Unlimited continues to implement the learnings from the Tackling Tobacco program and offers smoking cessation support as routine care across all their services. They hope this consistent support will empower their staff and clients to quit smoking.
Staff will take part in Tackling Tobacco refresher training every two years, and new starters complete the eLearning program as part of their induction process.’
Tackling Tobacco training gave staff practical knowledge and skills to address smoking, challenge existing attitudes and beliefs, and feel confident delivering the 5A’s brief interventions. All staff did [the Tackling Tobacco training], which means everyone is on the same page and this helped with staff buy-in. Training also made more people more receptive to policy change.”
– Serena Kent, Yes Unlimited