A host of coaches and coach supervisors from countries including the UK and South Africa joined the Roundtable for Race Equity in Coaching’s event on 6 February online to explore how we can shift race equity in coaching from the margins to the mainstream.
The event, held to mark Race Equality Week in the UK, was hosted by Coaching at Work editor, Liz Hall, who opened the event with a guided mindfulness practice. The dialogue included lively contributions from participants and body representatives: Ashnee Naidoo (COMENSA), Will James (APECS), Tia Moin (BPS Division of Coaching Psychology), Fenella Trevillion (AoCS), Angela Puri (ISCP), and Siobhan Lynam (EMCC UK), who presented findings from her research to kickstart the conversation, while Moin guided participants through a ‘True Self’ exercise (see Tried & Tested).
Topics highlighted by participants’ comments included the fear of tokenism (including among white males), a widespread lack of understanding of the complexity of diversity and of biases, power, the important role of supervision, psychological safety, the importance of curiosity and willingness to ‘mess up’, of being allies and advocates, and of drawing on the spirit of Ubuntu – humanness, caring, sharing, respect and compassion.
The Roundtable was launched by Coaching at Work in 2021. Other initiatives have included a joint statement against racism, and an open letter to education and training bodies to step up efforts around diversity, inclusion and belonging.
This year, it is hosting a series of dialogues on the theme of shifting race equity in coaching from the margins to the mainstream, starting with an ‘emergent dialogue’, convened by Liz Hall, between Trevillion, who is a white coach, and James, who is a BIPOC coach, on the topic of ‘coaching across difference’ (15 April 9.30-11.00 BST online).