Take homes from Module Four (by a recently qualified Mobility Mentor)

I recently finished my Mobility Mentor training, with the fourth module taking place in Shropshire as a face-to-face workshop alongside other Mobility Mentors. There was a morning classroom session followed by a visit to a farm.

I felt I was in a strange predicament as I had engaged a farm on the Healthy Feet Lite programme, and had just completed the facilitation visit, but I was only able to get the farmer’s son to attend alongside the farm staff, not the primary farm manager himself. Following the first facilitation, they asked me if I could come back to do a similar exercise with a smaller group, but to include the father (farm manager). In the interim, I was able to attend the Module Four session which gave me a valuable insight how to refine the facilitation process and allowed me to understand how other mentors would approach the challenges we face in facilitation.

Hearing about other mentors discussing the personality types that they had worked with to develop a lameness control programme through the Healthy Feet Programme (HFP), and understanding different approaches they each took to ensure that the facilitation ran as smoothly as possible really encouraged me to use a consistent, yet adaptable approach in delivering a HFP.

We gave a brief presentation around our own facilitation and HFP delivery, and gave feedback to each other. Then we went to a local farm and implemented a 'mock HFP' with the farm owner and herdsman in attendance. Seeing the way in which Owen Atkinson facilitated a meeting amongst the delegates attending the module and the farm staff was very impactful in my understanding of the 'less is more’ approach utilised by facilitation. We (as hoof trimmers, vets, consultants, etc.) have a lot of technical knowledge we can impart upon the farmer and when we bombard them with it they can be daunted. Furthermore, farmers are technically minded people, and will likely have some comprehension of lameness control already – AHDB have been extensively funding research and supporting its dissemination for many years now. So, to have large volumes of information that they already know dictated to them can seem patronising. The approach of facilitation moves away from direct technical consultancy and allows the farmer to find solutions to their own challenges, with support where required.

The exposure that the Module Four gave me to this process really emboldened me to use open questioning and not to rely on farmers taking my technical advice at face value. Simply put, I just needed to let go and follow their lead. Indeed, I did this at the visit with the father a couple of days later and, during that meeting, it was decided that they would carry out three changes to the farm within the next three months. I followed up a month later to see how they were doing and they had done all of the changes, alongside changing the roof-structure of the barn to aid with ventilation during heat stress (which, in my opinion, would be the biggest challenge to mobility on this farm). I was amazed that through deciding their own action plan and setting their own goals, they had not only met them, but had worked well beyond them!

This farm presented a range of different personality types and I feel that hearing the other Mentors’ experiences really gave me a valuable insight into how to best interact with and facilitate a meeting between the farm team.

Editor’s note: The Module Four workshop day is the final part of a Mobility Mentor’s initial training. However, any Mobility Mentor may attend one of these and it makes for a very valuable refresher day. Book through BCVA – details in Dates for Diary. (Owen Atkinson).