NHS NW R&D Make the most of your PhD (during and after!) A Peer-2-Peer Coaching Skills Programme

Background Developing a research career whilst continuing to work in clinical practice poses many challenges for part-time PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers. We know from a range of evidence that part-time PhD students often experience isolation from the wider academic community and research peers and are often working as lone researchers within their clinical teams. Alongside these personal challenges NHS based early career researchers may also be perceived to be research leads within their clinical teams providing support and advice to more junior members of their teams who are interested in research. Further details This 12 week programme is funded by NHS Research & Development North West for healthcare professionals working in the NHS who are either undertaking their PhD on a part-time basis or are within two years of completing their PhD and are seeking to integrate their research skills into their clinical work. The programme is designed to challenge you to make the most of your PhD experience, whether you are ‘in the process’ or have recently completed. Overview The Peer-2-Peer coaching skills programme provides a process to support - and be supported by your peers who are also in the early stages of developing their research careers. By learning powerful coaching skills, techniques and imagination you will build your confidence, creativity, motivation, relationships and ability to achieve your goals. The programme is designed to overcome some of the challenges of combining research and clinical work including isolation, lack of confidence, feeling overwhelmed, lethargy and procrastination, whilst also making the most of and bringing alive your excitement, inspiration and potential. Key to the process will be becoming aware of the choices you are making in how you think, what you do and how you feel, in ways that will challenge you and your peers to move forwards with your PhD and research career development in the context of your work and life. What is coaching? “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them learn rather than teaching them.” (Tim Gallwey). “Coaching is chiefly about discovery, awareness, and choice. It is a way of effectively empowering people to find their own answers, encouraging and supporting them on the path as they continue to make important choices ….” (Laura Whitworth and colleagues).

The major difference between traditional approaches to training, consulting, therapy, counseling or mentoring and coaching is quite simple: the coach does not have the answers and does not provide the expertise. A coach operates from the pre-supposition that the coachee has all the resources they need and can create their own solutions. Coaching moves the coachee toward an increased awareness of their choices and encourages them to develop more flexibility, to try the unfamiliar, to venture into new territory at his or her own pace. As coachees expand their repertoire of behaviours they are aware at a deeper level that the effort is their own, that they have made the choices and taken the actions that have led to their growth. What are the goals of the programme? The goal of the Peer-2-Peer Coaching Skills Programme is to give you a range of skills and techniques that you can utilize for self-coaching and peer support to enhance the PhD and research career development experience. This will include:   

Focusing on making progress with your own goals, performance and development in relation to your PhD and post-doc experience. Gaining an introduction to basic coaching skills and techniques, including powerful questioning, creating awareness of choice, working with intuition. Building relationships through peer support with the NW NHS research community.

What is involved? This short programme takes place over 12 weeks and involves an initial two day workshop, a period of peer-2-peer coaching with support from your Facilitators, and then a follow-up one day workshop and evaluation. You will need to commit to the whole programme to be involved. The first two day training workshop will introduce some basic coaching skills and techniques through experiential learning - you get to try out and experience some coaching. You will then form into peer-2-peer triads which means you will give and receive a total of 6 hours peer-2-peer coaching support (as 6 x 30 minute sessions of giving and 6 x 30 minutes of receiving) over a 12 week period. The timing of these sessions will be negotiated between yourselves and may be face to face or via the telephone of skype. During this time Facilitator support will be provided as two group coaching sessions by conference call and individual support by email as required. The final one day workshop will then draw together the lessons learnt, evaluate progress, continue to build your skills, enable you to learn some new techniques then look ahead to what is next. What’s the time commitment? You will need to commit to the full programme:      

Friday 7th and Saturday 8th February 2014 - 2 day workshop – 16 hours Peer -2- peer coaching – 6 hours (1 hour a week) (giving and receiving 6x30 min coaching sessions) Maintaining a weekly log – 3 hours in total (15 mins a week) Group supervision – 2 hours in total 9th May 2014 Final workshop – 8 hours Evaluation – 1 hour

What have previous participants have said about the programme? Previous participants on the programme described it as ‘excellent”, ‘challenging and exciting’, ‘outstanding’ and ‘the best yet’: “If I hadn’t taken this programme I think I would be carrying on trying to squeeze more time and energy out of what there already is – and I suppose possibly then extending my PhD into infinity” “It wasn’t simply meeting other students that really made the coaching stand out, but that in doing this, we were able to reflect upon and improve our own PhD experiences. Like adding colour or depth to a flat monochrome photograph. For me, coaching has been the very definition of enhancing my student experience. “ “The PhD can be one boring, long, draining effort and motivation is ever diminishing, but by focusing on the end results, piece by piece I’m progressing at a rate that I can monitor and be proud of getting the results.” Who is running it? This programme will be facilitated by Jeff Gill and Will Medd. Jeff and Will have worked together for over 20 years. Bringing coaching to the PhD experience began in 1998 during Will’s PhD when Jeff tried some coaching for Will and it worked in changing his experience of the PhD for the better. Over the past five years we have been exploring ways to bring coaching more fully into PhD life, including offering one-to-one coaching, running coaching programmes and workshops, developing coaching material for VITAE and most recently writing the book ‘Your PhD Coach’ (Open University Press) and website www.yourphdcoach.com. Will Medd. Will has a PhD in Sociology, is a Lecturer in Lancaster Environment Centre (currently on an unpaid sabbatical) and a Certified Professional Co-Active coach (CPCC/ ICF ACC). As well as supervising PhD students for nearly 10 years, he has managed several high impact research projects and has over 15 years of experience facilitating workshops for organisations ranging from the NHS to UK Water. He has been coaching for over 5 years and runs a private coaching practice. Find out more about will at www.willmedd.com Jeff Gill – Jeff is an ICF Professional Coach (PCC), NLP Coach and Master practitioner and Investors in People Specialist. Jeff has wide experience working with SMEs, Social Enterprise, Start Ups and Graduate business skills training. Having worked as a sales representative, product manager and international marketing manager in the pharmaceuticals industry 1973-1981, Jeff founded and managed his own Outdoor Adventure Activity centre (1981-1997) before becoming a Professional Coach, Business Trainer and I.I.P. Specialist (since 1997). Jeff has been coaching for over 15 years and has a private coaching practice. Find out more about Jeff at www.jeffgillcoaching.com