Building on the success of The Health Resilient Researcher training course and Prof Mark Reed’s new book, Impact Culture, Fast Track Impact are offering The Resilient Researcher Coaching Programme. This programme offers coaching to support academic and research staff of all disciplines and stages. During the 9-month programme Dr Joyce Reed empowers researchers to achieve their best work, without sacrificing their spare time. Participants will be taken on a journey to identify deeply held values and rekindle their vision. They will learn about truly integrated work-home balance and how to maintain it, leading to greater productivity, curiosity and a higher quality of work produced. They will also learn about their own personal barriers to self-care and learn to apply tools to remove these when challenges appear in the future. They will learn first-hand about the importance self-care in maintaining an intense career, by applying these principles to their own lives, therefore tackling stress and burnout before they arise. By enabling self-compassion in the face of challenges such as imposter syndrome, perfectionism and people-pleasing, participants are empowered to make more values-based decisions to resolve competing demands on their time. Groups cultivate self-compassion as a first step towards acting more compassionately towards others, and form the basis for a more compassionate, and so impactful, culture around them.
The coaching package will be beneficial for those working within university management, academic departments, faculties, or research groups. Working with groups of up to 8 participants per programme, Dr Joyce Reed will support those looking for ways to positively influence change within their universities, leading to increased compassion, motivation, productivity, and work life-balance. By reducing stress and lifestyle related illness, it is possible to support healthier, happier and more motivated staff.
What is group coaching?
Coaching is empowerment of the individual, with the coachee in the driving seat and the coach being the vehicle to support change towards personal goals. In group coaching there is the added benefit of the support of peers who are on a similar journey, and this adds a further dimension of accountability and social support. The coach works with the group to discover their own goals and barriers, and supports them towards a greater sense of self-worth, job satisfaction, work-home balance and health.
The coach has key skills in behaviour change but does not advise or dictate the course of action for the individuals within the group, thus empowering them to achieve their own goals. The coaching goals each participant makes will be unique to them and their own work-home circumstances, and the group coaching format is inclusive and supportive of the needs and circumstances of every individual.
Dr Joyce Reed also offers individual coaching which can be specifically tailored to the lives and pressures of academia. For more information visit her website www.drjoycereedhealthcoach.com and arrange a free exploratory call to discuss options. For more information about the power of coaching take a look at her blog here (add link to the blog post about “Introducing Health Coaching for the academy”).
Evidence for group coaching
The evidence base for coaching of all kinds has been steadily building over the past decade, with several RCTs now emerging, mainly from health and executive coaching. These studies show promising evidence that coaching groups gain a number of benefits over control groups. These include:
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Improved productivity, quality of work, and resilience at work;
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Increased wellbeing and motivation, with higher rates of return to work and job retention; and
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Self-rated benefits around goal commitment and achievement leading to increased positivity, hope and wellbeing with an overall reduction in stress.
For further information on the evidence base, a good synopsis can be found in What works in executive coaching by Erik de Haan. A recent Times Higher Education article by Prof Mark Reed also looks at why coaching rather than mentoring is more relevant for researchers and academic staff when looking at creating compassionate, creative and impactful cultures.
With a view to further adding to this growing body of research, consent will be taken for participants to be contacted in the future or at any point in their coaching journey to provide qualitative data about their subjective experience of the programme. Fast Track Impact may also use anonymised data from self-scoring exercises and symptom scores to complement this if consent is given. All data and responses will be kept completely anonymous unless participants are approached individually for further consent to use part of their narrative, in which case their own words would be used and credited appropriately.
Contents of the programme
The programme starts with The Health Resilient Researcher training which provides a summary of cutting-edge health and wellbeing evidence. This course has a specific focus on how to become a healthier and more resilient researcher. This 4-hour session introduces key concepts for discussion around work-life balance and self-care, allowing lots of time for discussion, breakout rooms and development of personal goals, to get started. As an introductory session the training format provides a safe and familiar opportunity for group members to get to know each other as they learn foundational concepts, and moves participants from contemplating change towards taking action. This is followed by eight monthly group coaching sessions which take participants on a deeper journey into key areas of life in academia, which when tackled intentionally can lead to huge increases in resilience.
Format: The eight follow-up sessions are 2 hours long taking a more in depth look at each area covered. These involve a learning session interspersed with group discussion, individual exercises, an active break and a breath work session (that is, taking a movement snack and learning a breathing technique together). This is followed by a discussion to reach the session goals, which participants take away to work on between sessions. All group sessions will be conducted via Zoom, and all dates and times will be arranged up front in order that busy academics have ample notice of the timings of sessions.
Each participant will receive a contract and code of conduct which will be signed and adhered to during the sessions, in order that the group remains a safe and constructive environment for all participants. Read the group coaching contract here. People experiencing group coaching together can form close bonds and find great strength in each other, which further adds to future resilience at work and beyond.
Follow-up between monthly sessions: Initially weekly email or WhatsApp group contact will be made with the group to act as a reminder to keep up with goals, for motivation and general encouragement. This will gradually be reduced as groups develop their own strategies for self and group support, thus setting up sustainable patterns for the future and bringing resilience firmly into the cultural narrative of the workplace for each group.
The group coaching sessions cover the following topics:
1. Values, Motivators and Vision
In this session we use the identities and priorities task from the initial training session, building on insights drawn from this task. We will look at research evidence around why our values matter for achieving our health and wellbeing goals.
2. Perfectionism, people pleasing and imposter syndrome
This session explores some of the psychological barriers that can stand in our way, blocking us from achieving our work, health, and general life related goals and why these happen so much in the modern post-industrial world of work.
3. Underpinnings of good nutrition for resilience
In this session we take a deeper look at what a whole food diet consists of, giving participants a deeper understand of what processed foods are, so they can start seeing them as non-food. The session also looks at food labels and how to make difficult choices when food shopping.
4. Accessing our sleep superpower
A whole night’s restorative sleep doesn’t come naturally to all of us, so in this session we will dig deeper into how we can start to retrain our brains to access our essential sleep superpower.
5. Rest and restore
In this session we consider how resting well is different from getting a good night’s sleep. Resting restores our body, mind and soul allowing us to align daily with our most authentic selves. This creates time in our day where we are brought out of the “stressed” sympathetic state of the nervous system and into the “rest and digest” parasympathetic state. In modern life this increasingly needs to be an intentional choice. In this session we will learn how to do this more effectively and identify barriers that come up for us in taking the vital rest we need.
6. Whole body movement
Increasing research evidence is showing that movement is medicine not only for the body but also for the mind and emotions. Digging deeper into some key pieces of evidence, in this session we will identify ways of moving that we enjoy, which will increase our motivation, health and vitality.
7. Cultivating healthy open relationships at work
Starting with the importance of self-compassion and empathy, we look at authenticity, vulnerability, and honesty in saying “no to mean no” and “yes to mean yes”.
8. Concluding Session
Discussion and concluding actions, including a discussion on how to create a health and wellness culture in the group.
Cost
£4400 plus VAT
Price includes a copy of The Resilient Researcher manual, and The Productive Researcher and Impact Culture books for each participant.
Read our Terms and Conditions.
Bespoke Group Coaching
Dr Joyce Reed is also offering add on coaching follow-up sessions for Prof Mark Reeds training courses The Productive Researcher and Impact Culture. Adding a coaching package to your training will boost the results of the training within your department making more impactful and sustainable change, and thus creating more resilience within the department.
She can also work with you to design a bespoke programme of coaching for your group (click here to find out more about group coaching), usually with a focus on productivity, wellbeing, or resilience in academia, or with a mixture of sessions from the Resilient Researcher Coaching Programme.
Follow-on sessions: Sessions would be run via zoom and be for up to 8 participants, choosing from fortnightly or monthly 1 hour sessions for 6, 9 or 12 months. Press the Book Now button to discuss setting up a call with Joyce to discuss your coaching needs.
Each participant will receive a contract and code of conduct which will be signed and adhered to during the sessions, in order that the group remains a safe and constructive environment for all participants. Read the group coaching contract here. People experiencing group coaching together can form close bonds and find great strength in each other, which further adds to future resilience at work and beyond.
Follow-up between monthly sessions: Initially weekly email or WhatsApp group contact will be made with the group to act as a reminder to keep up with goals, for motivation and general encouragement. This will gradually be reduced as groups develop their own strategies for self and group support.
Cost
After discussion with Dr Joyce Reed a no obligation quote will be made up and sent for you to consider, but here are some examples of potential costs:
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The Productive Researcher training with coaching follow-on for 6 months - £2820 plus VAT
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2 Hour Bespoke introductory session plus 9 months of coaching - £2730 plus VAT
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