In this two-part series, we explore learnings from award-winning coaching programme, Coaching through Covid and Beyond, which offered pro-bono coaching to health workers during the pandemic.
Part 1: Enhancing coaches’ capacity to coach in challenging times. Liz Hall reports
The public inquiry into the response of the UK government to the coronavirus pandemic has catapulted the topic of Covid-19 back onto the UK press’s front pages, jostling for attention amidst tragic reports of war in Ukraine and the Middle East.
We’re reminded again and again of the fragility of life, the inherent uncertainty of existence, humankind’s capacity for cruelty but also for compassion. It was the latter that gave birth in March 2020 to Coaching through Covid (CtC; later called Coaching through Covid and Beyond – CTCaB), co-founded by Mark McMordie, Lindsay Wittenberg, Carole Osterweil and Liz Hall.
The programme, which won the Coaching at Work 2021 Editor’s Award for External Coaching Champion (organisation), delivered pro-bono coaching to around 650 NHS, care home and hospice employees (who wouldn’t normally have been offered coaching) at a time of intense need (see below: About the CTCaB programme, for more information about the programme, or visit www.coachingthroughcovid.org).
About the CTCaB programme
- The purpose
“To be of service to NHS front-line staff by offering high quality professional pro-bono coaching and timely, demand led resources which are bespoke to individual needs and schedules in a way that is relational, tangible and sustainable in order to support NHS staff to find meaning, learning and growth from their experiences, attend to their own wellbeing and deliver sustainable care to those they serve.”
- The coaching model
– Systemic
– Eclectic
– Relational
– Compassionate
– Enabling and resourcing
– Embodying: ‘Be present, be with and hold space’, offering generative attention and unconditional presence. Being emergent and curious about whether we needed to apply any techniques or processes at all, and if so, being sensitive to the client context in selecting from the wide choice available.
- Core values and ethos
– Be of service
– Reduce suffering
– Do no harm
– Ethics and integrity: ‘Do the right thing’, eg, follow an ethical compass without ego, always serve the whole in the best possible way.
– Agile: eg, adopting the approach of “speed not perfection” (this was how the World Health Organisation described its approach to dealing with the pandemic), not being centralised, not being anxious (actively managing our nervous system), identifying our Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
– Courage
– Compassionate leadership
– Psychological safety including modelling self-care and care of others for sustainable performance and compassion, cultivating psychological safety including through a team meeting protocol with mindfulness practice, check-ins, conversational turn-taking and generative listening, and through regular measurement and debrief on the Psychological Safety Index.
– Collaborate to ‘expand the frame’ from ‘me’ to ‘we’.
– Systemic awareness and a systemic frame
CTCaB has now wound down but we’ve undertaken a series of evaluations, gathering data from coaches and clients, and have held many core team explorations to harvest learning which we believe is relevant to coaches, coach supervisors, internal coaching champions and sponsors, and those setting up or enhancing a similar offer in times of crisis and challenge.
In this first article, we share learnings, reflections and recommendations with coaches in mind, in the hope these will inspire and support more coaches to step into working with clients in challenging times and contexts. We also share coaching client case studies, a case study of a participating coach and highlight potential benefits for clients engaging in similar coaching. In the following article, we will explore learning from the perspective of those running or setting up similar offers, sharing more data about what coaches valued about taking part.
Benefits for clients
More than three-quarters of client respondents to an initial survey by former core team member, Sasi Panchal, said they’d recommend the programme.
Because of the challenges of shift-working and issues such as overwhelm, CTCaB sought to be more flexible in delivery of coaching than would normally be the case, and clients said they valued the extent to which the coaching was tailored and self-led. In such times, it was also very important that clients felt safe with their coach, and the survey highlighted that clients did indeed have a sense of the coaching space being safe, and of trust, rapport and support within the coaching relationship. They appreciated the chance to reflect – particularly at a time of such pressure.
Clients reported feeling better resourced, more resilient, happier, less stressed, more in charge of their own lives (professional and personal), heard and valued. For some, these benefits extended to their families. Improvements were experienced in areas including:
- Sense of worth/purpose
- Drive, ambition and motivation
- Self-growth
- Relationships
- Self-confidence
- Calmness: less stressed
- Mindset and belief patterns
- Positivity
- Maintaining perspective
- Clarity
These benefits were especially important in the context of the pressure, stress, exhaustion, moral injury and anxiety that many NHS staff experienced during the pandemic. Some clients pointed to a toxic workplace culture in parts of the NHS which exacerbated their struggles during the pandemic.
We heard of systemic racism, bullying, poor leadership and conflict, for example, and coaching supported clients dealing with these. Some coaching clients mentioned that they didn’t know how they would have coped without the coaching.
What clients said:
In the videos linked below, two CTCaB clients share their experiences of being coached.
Dr Marc Wittenberg: https://bit.ly/3Ne7Ggo
Dr Ciara Donohue (who joined the programme’s core team): https://bit.ly/3GtbJSx
What others said:
- “I truly think it is the incredible and proactive support we’ve been receiving that is keeping us going through this crisis”
- “All the misconceptions that I had about coaching have disappeared. I’ve found the programme really helpful so far and it has definitely helped me find order in the chaos!”
- “Resilience coaching is priceless in the time of crisis”
- “I am noticeably calmer, more resilient”
- “I am feeling happier and calmer. It’s had an incredibly positive impact on all areas of my life”
Coaches’ feedback about benefits
We also asked CTCaB coaches to report the client benefits they’d witnessed and heard about. Some 95% believed clients benefited from taking part in the programme, according to this later survey, carried out by researcher Christina Silver of QDA Services and a member of the CTCaB core team.
Of the 250 or so coaches on CTCaB’s ‘books’, 84 responded to the survey. Coaches reported the following benefits:
- Positive impacts on clients’ organisations or working relationships: 55%. These included in the areas of confidence and impact at work (45%), working with others (31%), self-awareness (14%), line management – down (14%), up (12%) – and dealing with conflict (7%)
- Having space: 61% of coaches
- Feeling ‘supported/listened to’: 26%
- Gaining perspective: 19%
- Building resilience: 13%
- Building self-care: 12%
In one, perhaps more, cases, coaching had possibly even saved lives. One CTCaB coach shared the following feedback from their client with the
core team:
“I received wonderful feedback today from my coachee who wanted me to know the difference this is making in her life. The example she shared was of saving a patient from committing suicide, and reflected that she couldn’t have done this without the coaching support she has been receiving.”
The following four case studies highlight what clients gained from receiving coaching on the programme.
Case study one: ‘Richard’ – Do you still think coaching can help me?
“I’m not sure how coaching can help me…but I promised my wife on New Year’s Eve that I’d get some help for my mental health. Every day is the same: a 12-hour day or night shift – they all blur into one. Walking the long corridor towards the intensive care unit is like entering a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Donning my PPE to sweat and breathe through constricting masks…the noise, the heat, it has been relentless – with no end in sight…and it’s not just here at work. Covid-19 is everywhere. Constant bombardment from the news channels, daily briefs from Number 10, radio coverage…it’s all anyone talks about.
Sitting on the underground travelling to work, headlines in the newspapers, family and friends asking for my opinions and how am I coping. How can I tell them? It’s worse than in the news. I have never had to work like this before…and it’s been 11 months now…11 months of listening to really sick people having to say goodbye to their loved ones on an iPad before we had to put them on a ventilator to help them breathe. Knowing that they’d probably not recover…they’d become another statistic…seeing the fear in their eyes and the sadness that I see in my colleagues’ eyes. Do you still think that coaching can help me?”
A coaching chemistry or discovery call is usually a gentle introduction to coaching, getting to know each other to get a ‘feel’ if there’s a connection, which during the CTCaB programme was especially important. With Richard, there was nothing gentle about what he was experiencing or feeling.
Richard was coming to the end of his anaesthetic registrar training and had been working in an intensive care unit at a London hospital since February 2020, with only a few days’ holiday over Christmas and New Year. His approach up until now had been just working, sleeping and talking to his colleagues, with family time restricted to his days off. His wife had suggested that he get some help and he’d heard about
CTCaB so had reluctantly contacted the website.
The match with me as his coach was arranged quickly and our first contact call arranged. During the first call we explored what could be helpful for him.
“Just talking saying out loud what I can’t say when I go home, I just want to stop and breathe again, it’s beautiful where I live, green fields and spring all around me, but I don’t have time for
any of it.”
We’d decided to try telephone coaching while Richard walked in this countryside. Wearing headphones while walking meant he could walk and talk… every so often we’d pause the conversation and take some deep breaths…having some mindful moments where he’d describe the scene he was looking at…the green shoots of the daffodils bursting through the borders of the path or the wide expanse of the fields tingling with the chilly, frosty morning.
After four sessions Richard thanked me for my time, he said that he felt he had his headspace back, was able to reconnect with his life, had some new perspective and that I’d never know what a ripple effect that this coaching had created.
Fiona Setch, CTCaB coach and member of the CTCaB core team
Case study two: Hospital doctor ‘James’ – Replenishing resilience
‘James’ is an NHS hospital doctor, working mainly on the intensive care unit (ICU) as Covid hit in March 2020. By early April 2020 he was spending his days in hot, claustrophobic, uncomfortable protective equipment.
It protected him physically but also inhibited his connection and communication with patients, which they needed in order to allay the terror of the dangerous unknown.
James was not only looking after many critically ill patients, but also leading response teams going to A&E or to patients who had deteriorated on the wards.
He was also dealing with his own fears and anxieties, among them the fear of taking Covid home to his family. He struggled to walk away from the sadness and tragedy all around him – including colleagues being admitted as patients to ICU, and some not surviving. His sleep suffered, and his exhaustion increased over the months. Even walking through the entrance door to work became a matter of will, and then he needed the strength, stamina and resourcefulness to deal with patients who had developed complications exacerbated by Covid, and which remained an unfathomable threat for some time.
Like all his colleagues, James was frequently presented with situations that he didn’t know how to deal with, requiring repeated ad hoc approaches. Such situations compounded the sense of moral injury, particularly when patients died. He felt out of control of his work, adding to the misery.
He jumped at the chance of coaching through CTCaB, and the opportunity to decompress, manage the high degree of stress and anxiety, and replenish his resilience.
When he first joined the programme he needed a space in which he could articulate and make sense of his situation. His working patterns had changed completely: he started doing long night and day shifts, dealing with a huge volume of very, very sick patients and some hugely emotionally challenging situations.
His coaching programme offered him space to articulate these challenging experiences in a safe, confidential and independent environment, totally unconnected with his hospital or the wider trust or NHS system. He commented that his coach was brilliant: she recognised straight away that what he needed was a space in which he could just talk. She listened with great empathy, and enabled him to make sense of his experiences and feel some control over what he was experiencing.
Not only did he himself benefit but his colleagues and his family were also impacted, as he was able to deal better with the stress and anxiety.
Later in the coaching programme, James’s coach facilitated him to identify his anchors and values, so that he could structure his thinking. This also gave him confidence that he would be able to structure that thinking more effectively in the future, including in the light of fears about a second wave of Covid (which, of course proved – sadly – well-founded). He felt that he would be better able to deal with the pressures on the system and be able to work effectively, as well as maintain his balance, under future pressures.
Lindsay Wittenberg, CTCaB co-founder and coach
Case study three: Junior doctor ‘Jill’ – The importance of vulnerability
‘Jill’ was a junior doctor who came to CTCaB towards the end of her Foundation year one. Naturally enthusiastic and energetic, she was nevertheless worn down by her experience of Covid, most recently in a paediatric ward which she had found distressing.
From paediatrics she moved to Accident and Emergency for the next stage of her training. She found this both distressing and lonely: no one seemed to recognise or enquire into her experience of a series of complex and challenging patients and situations. The expected structure of her training had been completely disrupted by Covid, and she had missed some key staging posts as the staffing needs imposed by Covid had taken precedence.
Her natural confidence was being worn away by senior staff who, directly or indirectly, disparaged the value of her contribution and even advised her not to be so confident, which she found discouraging and confusing. She was also doubting the worth and appropriateness of her compassionate approach, and wondering whether she should be tougher, as she saw more senior clinical staff being.
Above all, Jill valued her coaching for the space it allowed her to reflect on her experience without being pushed towards outcomes, and to enquire into how she could bring her values to work.
At the end of her 12-session coaching programme Jill reflected:
“The sessions facilitated some quite profound realisations for me throughout the programme. Insightful and pertinent questions led me to better reflect on certain events to help me understand my reactions. I was able to identify my coping mechanisms as well as what I can draw on for resilience if I encounter a difficult situation. My understanding of myself and what sort of doctor I currently am/who I want to be, was established through discussion. Most impactfully, my ability to reflect and analyse has been significantly improved, which as a result has increased my job satisfaction and general quality of life….”
“Discussions around psychological safety and vulnerability have made me more kind to myself with regards to cases/patients that affect me, as well as being open with colleagues for both my own and the team’s benefit. Generally, I feel much more happy and settled with my career and life choices. I feel comfortable with my skills/competence, which has helped me to feel confident without associated ‘imposter syndrome’.”
“I’ve learnt some resilience mechanisms and how to recognise what I do for me that is neither productive, exercise nor making other people happy. I’ve resolved some of the guilt I felt around being confident and recognising that this is not synonymous with arrogance – and I’ve realised the importance of vulnerability for personal healing and also contributing towards team wellbeing/productivity, as it allows for better psychological safety”.
Towards the end of her coaching programme, Jill made a decision about her career focus which built on her articulation of her values, her aspirations, her skills, her experience and her developing purpose, and was soon after successful in her job application to put this into practice.
Lindsay Wittenberg
Case study four: Charmaine – At the end of her tether
Like many healthcare professionals, hospital doctor ‘Charmaine’ joined the NHS to make a difference. Resilient, very bright and highly conscientious, she was used to performing very well at work and to taking things in her stride. She was accustomed, too, to feeling like her work was having a positive impact on patients admitted to the busy city hospital where she worked.
Then Covid-19 struck. By the time Charmaine took up coaching at the end of March 2020 through the free service offered by what was then Coaching through Covid, she was already feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and that she had no control over anything. Working longer hours than ever, unable to take leave, she felt at the end of her tether. Normally a very caring individual, she was particularly struggling with feeling that she had no compassion left to give – to patients, to her colleagues, to her family, and certainly not to herself.
She was experiencing insomnia and had let go of most of the things that normally made her feel better, including exercise. She was spiralling down what Williams and Penman have called the ‘exhaustion funnel’ (Williams & Penman, 2011), where we head towards burnout as we give up more and more things that nourish us to focus on what we deem to be the most important.
As with many other coaching clients on the Coaching through Covid programme, Charmaine wasn’t used to having to reach out for help, nor to struggling like this. And like many healthcare professionals, her focus is on helping others, even at the expense of herself. She wasn’t used to feeling vulnerable, nor to speaking about herself. It was important for me as coach to reassure her and rapidly build trust, acknowledging Charmaine’s courage in taking the step to engage in coaching, and explaining how the coaching process works.
I drew on what we’d learnt from the compassion cultivation training offered to Coaching through Covid coaches, which explained that rather than compassion fatigue, it’s empathic distress that depletes us. We explored how rather than leading to burnout, having high levels of compassion is resourcing, and that this includes being self-compassionate, and knowing when our tank needs re-filling. I guided self-compassion and mindfulness practices with the client.
Part of being self-compassionate was being better able to put in place boundaries, for Charmaine to learn how to say no. Even before the pandemic, she’d found it much easier to say yes, taking on additional work, even though that would leave her resentful and over-stretched at times.
Encouraged by me to try out new behaviours, she practised saying no both at work and outside of work. It became easier for her to stand her ground, and her confidence grew.
The coaching also explored the concept of control – to what extent do we as humans have control, what is in our control and what can we influence, eg, Covey’s (2020) Circle of Influence, which has a circle of Concern (things we care about but can’t control) and a Circle of Influence (things we care about and can impact), and why was it so important to Charmaine to feel in control. Developing a greater understanding of her personal triggers around control, some of which stemmed from early life experiences, and the extent to which humans are held hostage by the illusion of control helped Charmaine become more relaxed when things didn’t go as planned, and at a time when so much was up in the air due to the pandemic.
She started to focus more on the things she potentially had some control over, including building in more self-care, spending more time with colleagues again, letting go of worrying so much about what was definitely out of her control. It was an interesting exploration for me, too, given the timing of the coaching. All of us as coaches on the CtC programme, even if we weren’t working on the frontline, were of course also subject to the twists and turns of the healthcare crisis.
Other issues explored in the coaching included systemic racism and navigating what Charmaine saw as poor leadership in the pandemic.
At the end of the coaching, Charmaine felt less overwhelmed and was prioritising self-care more, better able to manage boundaries at home and work, and felt more confident. She was engaging more with colleagues, even looking out for others who were struggling, and recommending they engage in coaching.
Liz Hall, CTCaB co-founder and coach
Impact on coaches
We also asked coaches in our survey what they valued about being part of the programme and if anything had changed about the way they think about coaching in the NHS or more broadly as a result of having coached through CTCaB.
Impact fell into three main categories:
- Shifting personal experience and understanding (54%)
- Changing coaching style (29%)
- Increase in confidence and resilience (19%)
What coaches got out of participating
When asked what they valued about taking part in the programme, coaches’ responses primarily fell into these areas:
- Being of service in difficult times
- Being part of a community
- Learning
- The way the programme was set up and run
Below we look at the first three. We will explore the last point in the next article.
Being of service in difficult times
Many coaches volunteering on CTCaB were motivated by altruism. For 79% of coaches, it was about ‘being able to help’. They wanted to ‘support others’ (57%), to ‘be helpful/of service’ (37%), to ‘give something back’ (23%), being able to ‘use their skills’ (27%).
Here is a very small selection of the many quotes from participating coaches:
- “I know I genuinely helped several people going through a horrendous time and I think that change will have long-lasting impact”
- “It felt good to be able to do something that added value in the face of colossal existential turbulence”
- “I just thought it was really admirable that you set this up, both for those in the NHS, but also for providing a platform for us coaches to be able to be of service, and have easy access to those in need”
- “I felt very humble and privileged to play a small part in supporting the NHS in such a challenging time and be a part of a group of incredible coaching professionals”
- “The opportunity to give back into a system I have personally benefited from, the sense of doing good/being of help during (what I hope will be) the craziest time I have lived through in my lifetime, and the professional experience it gave me, as well as some of the people I met along the way”
- “Feeling that I could add something of value drawing from my area of work and my experience”
- “The honour of offering services in support of a greater good”
- “Rewarding to give something to workers who were (and are) so much under pressure and giving so much to others”
- “Being able to contribute; giving something back”
- “The opportunity to make a difference and feel useful in a time of crisis”
- “The real difference it made to people who were/are sacrificing a lot for us. It really added value for my coachees”
- “The ability to contribute in a way that was valued by skilled and experienced professionals who are dedicated to saving others”
- “I valued the ability to support another person in their most challenging time in their life, and the support CTCaB gave me in that process”
- “Sense of adding value and help at a critical time, glad to be of some small assistance”
Being part of a community
On CTCaB, ‘camaraderie, support’ was what 28% of volunteer coaches valued about taking part in the programme. Comments included:
- “Opportunity to be part of something bigger than just me with potential to do something worthwhile during difficult times”
- “Being there, and the Adult-Adult nature of all the engagements. It was a feeling – a connection, that was always accessible and made one feel valued and part of it. We were ‘in it together’ ”
- I felt part of a community of like-minded, thoughtful practitioners who were being careful and intentional with their engagement with the NHS as a system”
- “The genuine positive intentions of all those involved and a sense of community and support”
- “It felt like a community supporting others in our broader community”
- “It has given me a sense of community, learning and support and provided support for people who perhaps wouldn’t have had the opportunity to receive coaching”
- “Wonderful links with people, real sense of collegiality and collaboration. Feeling in a little way we could support the people who really needed it, so satisfying and really stretching.”
Learning through coaching
Coaches valued the learning and growth that came through coaching on the programme, including through working with different client groups than they had previously, and building their own resilience.
They also valued the learning they gained by accessing the wide range of CPD offered by CTCaB which included reflective practice groups, and CPD webinars including around trauma, compassion, wellbeing, resilience and joy (including poetry, movement and nature).
In the next article, we will explore what coaches found useful on the CPD front. Here we will explore what they learnt from coaching itself.
- Comments on learning gained through coaching clients included:
- “Being able to work with someone in a meaningful way, who I never would have usually crossed paths with in life. Coaching would never usually be offered to someone in his kind of role, but CTCaB made this possible. It was as powerful experience for me as it was (I believe) for him”
- “Exposure to a different audience than I am used to, and increased respect for the different challenges faced by different departments in the NHS”
- “Privileged to meet and coach clients from a different sector and with diverse needs/values and challenges”
- “Working with very different clients in different organisational contexts”
- “I was fortunate to be able to coach a couple of people with very different professional profiles from my usual clients. It was enriching”
- “The opportunities for collegiality, best practice, and information sharing through the uncertain early pandemic days”
- “An insight into an amazing and different world”
- “I got a great deal of satisfaction from working with both clients, learnt a great deal about my own resourcefulness as a coach”
- “I got to know some great people (on the supply side) who has stretched and shaped my thinking about coaching and supervision. I learnt things that I know have enhanced my practice”
- “Testing my own mettle in this way and particularly in the BAME community. Learning and growing through the process”
FURTHER INFORMATION
One coach’s experience of living through the pandemic and volunteering with CTCaB
From the beginning of the pandemic, despite not being a clinical nurse for 30 years I wanted to be working on the front-line, masked up with PPE and ready to help in any way I could. Instead, all my coaching work had instantly evaporated in the organisations I was working in as they responded to the worsening crisis. I completely understood why this was happening on a practical level, but on an emotional level, I felt impotent, cancelled and suddenly invisible.
‘You must stay at home and protect the NHS’. For me this meant waving my husband off to work, as he was an essential worker, ensuring my 15-year-old son was up for online school and then sitting in my office looking out across the road at the Aldi car park with the socially distanced queue, strangely masked and slowly entering the shop and coming out with trolleys piled high with pasta and toilet rolls.
I was just getting used to not being able to visit my darling mum as her care home had gone into lockdown two weeks before, so my carer’s role shrank to standing in the car park and communicating through her window, hoping that today would be a day she recognised me and if I was lucky the carers would open the small window so I could kneel down and try to talk to her.
Five years earlier, when mum developed the early signs of dementia, we’d talked about her dying and what she wanted to happen, planning her funeral, with readings and songs to celebrate her life. Of course, what we could never have planned for was this worldwide pandemic. I’m so thankful that we’d spent time together thinking about her dying as that is what she wanted and would remember before her memory was wiped out from her advancing dementia.
It was inevitable that mum would succumb to the virus, she died at 3am on 2nd May with her carer looking in on her. I was supposed to be there holding her hand and saying goodbye like she’d wanted. Instead, I spent seven weeks walking the 740 steps to visit her through her window. I said goodbye the night before she died and sang ‘Lord of the dance’ through her window making sure that the carers had Radio 3 on with classical music. I know from my days as a palliative care nurse that as we lapse into unconsciousness, we can still feel touch and hear. At her funeral we were only allowed six people and no singing.
By becoming part of CTCaB, I was able to reconnect with my profession and contribute coaching to frontline healthcare staff. Coaching through Covid also connected me to other coaches and provided CPD.
Following the end of lockdown one, my work at St Oswald’s Hospice started again and I was also contacted by a local NHS Trust to provide some interim staff support work. Part of my work involved providing compassionate listening to the critical care staff individually and the leadership team; a combination of in person work and virtually on Teams.
The guided reflective practice sessions and creative CPD sessions offered by CTCaB were instrumental in helping me to process the complexities of my work and write about my experiences. At a creative writing workshop, I was able reflect on my experience with a clinical team I had been working with.
The poem ‘We’re Busy – too Busy’ captures the frustrations that a leadership team were living and working through. They were unsure and some a bit sceptical at how team coaching could help them. This poem summarises the transition that took place over one two-hour coaching session…
We’re busy – too busy to stop right now
Our patients need us – so just what and how
Can we stop to think beyond our clinical space
We breathe in through our masks, sweating, too hot on our face
We watch our patients fighting to live
We have no option but to give and give
On iPads our patients are forced to say goodbye
No loving hand holding, it feels like a lie
Every ounce of our care has been spent at a cost
Days off and holidays, promises to loved ones lost
So how can you ask us to stop?
We’re busy – too busy but when we did
You captured our thoughts and lifted the lid
We looked into the screen at each other on Teams
Separated by this relentless virus, our inward scream
The space of being together stopped us in our tracks
Some space, some healing – we won’t look back
- Being a part of CTCaB from September 2020 was a turning point for my mental health – Fiona Setch, coach, coach supervisor, CTCaB coach and core team member
TOP TIPS FOR COACHES
Below are some tips for coaches operating in similar environments, drawing on what we have learnt through our reflections, observations and evaluations
- Get clear on why you want to do the work Get grounded around personal values, meaning and purpose. What are you hoping to get out of doing this work and to offer? When times are tough, we often feel motivated to respond but we can get snagged as coaches, for example, by an overly zealous ‘helper part’ or a ‘fixer part’, which may not be appropriate, may be exhausting and will likely get
in the way of us being of service to the client. We also need to avoid being ‘trauma tourists’. - Don’t make assumptions As one coach who responded to the CTCaB coach survey, said: “Avoid any preconceptions about what the client needs. My impression is NHS staff are a lot tougher and better at dealing with crises than most coaches are”.
- Consider bringing in some psycho-education, such as supportive and safe techniques for your client to help them stabilise.
- Nip things in the bud You may even find at times you may need to be a little directive in the moment if the client is struggling, pointing them to a particular resource, intervening in the moment with some soothing breathing or mindfulness.
- Hold space However, the most important thing is to ‘simply’ hold space and listen deeply – in challenging times, this can be our greatest gift as coaches.
- Boost your emotional intelligence, including increasing emotional capacity through mindfulness, for example, so you’re better able to meet the client where they are – we can only coach people as far as we can ourselves go. In challenging contexts, we’re more likely to encounter a wide range of potentially ‘difficult’ emotions (including our own). We need to be very self-aware and able to self-regulate so we can offer a safe container for the client.
- Get system-savvy Step up your capacity to be systems-aware so you don’t set up your client to fail. When times are tough, the cracks show in the system. Make sure your contribution is a seed for positive transformation, while managing your and the client’s expectations.
- Ramp up the self-care, including, for example, mindfulness practice, self-compassion development – therapy, even. We can all too easily risk tipping into empathic distress and suffer from debilitating emotional contagion.
- Get psychologically informed, including trauma-informed, so you can at the very least have a clearer sense of your boundaries and refer on if needs be. On CTCaB, we organised a range of CPD for participating coaches, including ‘trauma pods’, which were attended by 35% of coaches. Some 76% of coaches agreed these were useful (28% strongly agreed and 48% agreed).
- Access reflective spaces, such as supervision to help you make sense of your work and your meaning-making in potentially triggering and confusing contexts.
- Be flexible Be prepared to be more flexible than you perhaps usually would be, including around timings and cancellations – if your clients are operating in highly challenging conditions, they may be less able to stick to pre-agreed logistics. However, they need us to provide a solid container in which to do the work, they need to feel, perhaps more than in other times, that they can trust and rely on us as coaches to hold boundaries, so it’s about striking a balance between flexibility and safety/firmness.
- Manage frustration You may have to be more prepared than usual to manage frustration when potential coaching clients don’t/can’t engage or want something other than coaching.
- Seek, build, access community This is one of the perfect antidotes to empathic distress, and when we’re coaching in difficult territory, community can be nourishing, resourcing, normalising and educational.
Could you offer coaching and coach supervision in the NHS?
The NHS Leadership Academy Coaching and Mentoring hub was launched in September 2022. This platform brought together seven regional coaching and mentoring registers plus NHS England’s internal coaching and mentoring programmes. The majority of coaches on the system are colleagues employed in the healthcare sector who undertake coaching alongside their day job. The regional registers also welcome independent coaches who agree to provide a certain amount of pro-bono coaching in return for belonging to a regional coach community, access to supervision and CPD. The NHS England programme is slightly different in that coaches are all current or former NHS England staff.
If you feel you have capacity to work with additional clients in health & social care, here’s how to find out more. First, please identify which region to apply to. This could be where you have or had a work base or residence. There’s a list on the register landing page. Send a short email with evidence of coaching qualifications.
Supervision is an important part of our commitment to registered coaches. We know there’s a lack of supervision capacity, especially for coaches who find the group model doesn’t meet their needs. If you are a qualified coach supervisor who could offer regular or occasional sessions, please write to Helen Ashman at the NHS England inbox with an outline of your experience and potential availability. We will then discuss matching you with a supervisee
Helen Ashman is coaching and mentoring programme coordinator
Acknowledgements
With thanks, in addition to those already mentioned earlier, to all our coaches and coach supervisors including: Simon Cavicchia, Eve Turner, Fiona Adamson, Claire Palmer,
Benita Treanor, Lise Lewis, Graham Lee, Mike Munro-Turner and Emma Donaldson-Feilder.
Our CPD facilitators, including Simon Cavicchia, Helen-Jane Ridgeway, Carole Pemberton, ‘internal champions’ within organisations and coaches in key liaison roles, and partners including Coaching at Work, the Academy of Executive Coaching, LHH, Hult Ashridge, Henley Business School, Association for Coaching UK, the Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision, the International Coach Federation UK, and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.
To those who provided one-off pro-bono support, including Ray Belletty. To other members of the core team, including David Skinner, Sarah Haler, David Elliott, Carrie Rooney, Kay Parker, Nicky Bradley, Pauline Muldoon, Sasi Panchal, Gina Lodge, Fiona Byrne, Dvija Mehta, Ella Clark, Sarah Barlow, Dr Raviro Mangwiro, Dr Charlotte Kingsley, Dr Ciara Donohue, Dr Kate Sherratt, Maria Foxwell and Sue Reynolds.
- Next issue: Learnings and recommendations for those setting up and running similar programmes