This one day course is designed to equip staff with the skills and confidence to handle challenging conversations with customers or employees in a sensitive and professional way.
A person’s emotional state can affect their reactions. Understanding how this happens can help you resolve conflict more successfully.
The Samaritans trains their volunteers in active-listening techniques using a model known as the ‘listening wheel’. This course will cover these techniques to help you build rapport with a person in order to alleviate their distress and de-escalate any anger and aggression, which can be used to great effect in the workplace.
For full details and dates, please click here: https://parliament.learningpool.com/mod/facetoface/view.php?f=518
Attendees will discuss the causes signs and symptoms of mental health, how to respond to and deal with a situation and how they can support and unburden themselves after the event.
For full details and dates, click here: https://parliament.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=260
Having a good level of emotional resilience can positively affect teams, colleagues, other individuals and one’s own wellbeing, increasing productivity and performance in the workplace. Individuals will have a better chance of delivering results at work if they are able to deal with stressful life events.
The course will focus on managing emotional health and empowering delegates to support others. It will help delegates to identify and respond to increasing demands in a way that helps them to get through challenging situations and continue to learn and grow.
For full details and dates, please click here: https://parliament.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=575
This course will cover the essentials of good writing which are needed for drafting briefings such as content, structure, layout & use of language that meets the reader’s needs, and the process of drafting, editing and clearing a briefing.
For full details and dates, click here: https://parliament.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=553
This course is open to Members’ Staff who are Office Managers and want to explore people management in more depth and achieve a CMI management accreditation.
This course aims to develop office managers to manage people to greater effectiveness and build respectful and positive relationships and working environments. There will be a series of three workshops each one taking one day to complete. The workshops will focus on building effective relationships, leading, motivating and creating a culture of empowerment to get the best out of people and the benefits of good recruitment. It is necessary to attend all three workshops to complete the course. Material will be sent out in advance of the course starting in order that attendees may profile themselves beforehand and the course can be more specifically targeted to them.
For full details, click here: https://parliament.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=1270
Training
The main resource for training for Members’ Staff is The Members and Members’ Staff Services Team .
Courses take place online, on the Parliamentary Estate and regionally, and if a course of interest is not available at a convenient location or date, they will endeavour to accommodate specific requirements, subject to sufficient demand (12 delegates and above).
Courses are free of charge to all Members’ staff who are paid through IPSA’s staffing allowance and travel costs to training events can be met from the expenses scheme administered by IPSA.
The full course catalogue is available via Act – the Parliamentary learning management system. Some courses are advertised as being for House staff, but MPs’ staff can still sign up for some of them, such as some of the courses from Parliamentary Digital. If in doubt, please do contact L&D for advice.
If you see a course you’d like to do, but there isn’t a session advertised yet, please do put yourself on the waiting list so that the MMSST knows that people are interested. This will also ensure that you get a notification of when a session is available.
email: mmsst@parliament.uk
House of Commons Library
The House of Commons Library arranges inductions, training and events for MPs and MPs’ staff. Visit the Library’s website to find out more.
To receive information on all upcoming Commons Library training courses and events, sign up for email updates for MPs’ staff and bookmark the Library’s ACT page.
Latest Training Courses
Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment from the University of Dundee will be delivering a series of workshops for Members’ staff this autumn. These interactive sessions are designed to encourage peer learning through discussion and breakout groups. The workshops will provide participants with the opportunity to share experiences, explore key topics and issues, and learn from colleagues across…
Time: 14:00 – 15:00Date: Wednesday 19 August 2026Location: Online via TeamsBooking: book via ACT We’ll be joined by staff from the Housing Ombudsman and Library subject specialistsOnline booking closes 90 minutes before the forum meeting. To request a place after online booking has closed please email LibraryTraining@parliament.uk
Time: 14:00 – 15:00Date: Tuesday 11 August 2026Location: Online via MS TeamsBooking: Please email mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk from your parliamentary email address Work Well Being In this 60-minute introductory talk we explore what we mean by the term psychological safety and why it matters. We share a neurobiological model to understand and master our own internal sense…
Welcome to Parliament. The new joiner induction sessions are available to book via the ACT portal. If you have a new joiner in your office, please share with them. This session will welcome you to being part of the Parliamentary community and cover essential information from key House services that will help you to settle…
Time: 10:30 – 11:30Date: 9 July 2026Location: Online via TeamsBooking: https://parliament.learningpool.com/mod/facetoface/view.php?id=9728 This talk will analyse the decisions made on local government reorganisation in March 2026, and the implications of any developments since. It will then reiterate the timetable for the implementation of the policy. It will also trace the implications for Government decisions on the…
Training session with the Bank of England Time: 13:00 – 15:00Date: Tuesday 7 July 2026Location: ParliamentFurther information and booking: https://parliament.learningpool.com/course/view.php?id=2339 Inflation, Setting Interest Rates & the MPC Join Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Megan Greene, for a Lunch & Learn followed by Q&A on how the Bank of England sets interest rates to meet the 2% inflation target.
Time: 1400Date: Tuesday 7 July 2026Location: Online via MS Teams With Melanie Gower for the Commons Library. For booking and further information, please see ACT.
Time: 10:30 – 11:30Date: 2 July 2026Location: Online via TeamsBooking: https://parliament.learningpool.com/mod/facetoface/view.php?id=9857 The government has set a milestone to deliver 1.5 million new homes over this Parliament to July 2029. This will require building more than 300,000 homes per annum on average, a level of housebuilding that was last achieved in the 1960s. The government says…
Time: 10:30 – 11:30Date: 25 June 2026Location: Online via TeamsBooking: https://parliament.learningpool.com/mod/facetoface/view.php?id=9875 Access to Work is a demand-led grant scheme to help people get, or stay in, work if they have a physical or mental health condition or disability. Funding may pay for things like specialist equipment, support workers such as a British Sign Language interpreter,…
The NATO summit will take place in Ankara on 7 and 8 July. Join Library experts from our International Affairs and Defence team to find out more about the key topics for discussion and what we might expect from the Summit. Time: 10:30 – 11:30Date: 18 June 2026Location: Online via TeamsBooking: https://parliament.learningpool.com/mod/facetoface/view.php?id=10108
