You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. I'm your host, Claire Pedrick, and today I'm in conversation with Katie Akhurst. And before we meet Katie, just a reminder, if you want to get every episode as it comes out, do subscribe or follow. And if you like this episode, we would love you to share it with one other person.
Katie Ackhurst, welcome to The Coaching In. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. So somebody contacted me and said, you must talk to the people from Kids Matter, which is the organisation you work for. So I sent you a message and said, we must talk on the coaching end. And you said, yes. So welcome. Just tell us a bit about your journey, Katie, and how coaching is connected with what you do. And then tell us a bit about Kids Matter. That would be great. Yeah, great.
So I first came kind of in contact with coaching, I guess, about 10 years ago, actually through a different charity called Rosurgo, who are a charity that primarily run a pre-employment program for young people. And coaching is the way that they do that. So I applied to be a spear coach, because it's called the Spear Program that they run.
And I completely fell in love with the coaching approach, mainly because of the way that it like really empowers people and it equips people to find their own way through their own challenges. And it also is an amazing tool to help build confidence in people and allow them to find a way to thrive. Because I think for me, like I never liked the way that school approaches and that kind of telling slightly top down.
And actually the kind of collaborative way that coaching allows you to be with people and not kind of do to is what initially really sparked my interest. And from there on really, I've kind of grown and developed as a coach. So did you start Kids Matter? I did not know, Ellie Gardner is one of the co-founders of Kids Matter. She's actually a clinical psychologist and had a real heart for what our vision is, which is to see every child in need raised in a strong family.
And she kind of combined her clinical experience and then also a real desire to meet families when they're in a community. And, know, the acknowledgement that so many statutory services have been cut and access to gaining kind of support for your family is very difficult, specifically for the families that we're here to support, which is low income, low support families, where perhaps having the confidence or the ability to access some of these resources isn't available for them.
So that's kind of the heart of why we exist. We primarily do that work through the church where we would partner with a local church because they are within a community and we would train someone from that church who then runs our parenting program, which is the piece that we do. yeah, but coaching is very much part of our DNA from how we operate internally and then also how we run our programs. How interesting.
And the connection with you was made because somebody said, look, this organization wants ICF credential coaches and does supervision and all sorts of fancy things. So I'd love to hear more about how coaching is working with the families and the people that you work with, but also, let's start with that and then we'll go for the ICF thing afterwards. Yeah. So for us, we have this phrase, like the wisdom is in the room.
And that's because we believe that all of the parents who are attending the program are the ones that really have the knowledge, the skills to be able to support one another. Like parenting is hard. And if you do that in isolation, it's even harder. So primarily we're here to offer a community space. Within that, the material that the facilitator goes through is evidence informed. So it's very much found they got the foundations within kind of psychology.
But the delivery of that is discussion based. And it's about pulling out the wisdom from the parents in the room. So we equip our facilitators with the coaching skills to be able to kind of ask that initial question. And then the idea is, that the ball is being bounced around the room. you know, and then occasionally as a facilitator, might catch the ball, maybe like summarize what you've heard, link you back to the material and then throw it back out.
it's really about like, we are here to help parents increase in their confidence and their competence so that they are able to really support their children. But we're not here for the parents to become reliant on us or, you know, us to be a crutch almost to them. It's about how to empower the parents so that ultimately they are the ones that know that they've got the inner resource. And that I would say is the real gift that coaching gives because you don't come with the answers.
You believe the other person has them and it's your job as a coach to create the space for that person to kind of self discover. Yeah, enabling people to have their own agency. Yeah, exactly.
And so the way we kind of train our facilitators to do that is actually a thing I first learned at Rosergo, which is called live coaching, which I don't know if you've ever come across that kind of phrase, but it's a really great training tool because it is about giving feedback in the moment while someone's doing something. So as they're delivering, you would say positive comments over the top of them. You might also give a pointer, like, open that question up, leave a little space here.
And the whole idea is to give live feedback so that actually you don't do the thing, which is always so annoying, right? When you deliver something and then at the end, someone's like, if you'd only spoken a little louder. or if you hadn't moved around so much and you're thinking, great. Well, and I can't do anything about that now. so we use this tool called live coaching on our training. So we role play how to deliver the material.
And then as coaches, we give them feedback in the moment and everyone that does our training normally says, I was so nervous about doing the live coaching, but it was the best thing. that the training gave us. Because it's a safe zone for all the facilitators to get that confidence that they need so that they can then deliver the program in a really effective way. Because what we do in the roleplay is people will have dynamics.
So we ask someone to be, you know, that non-stop talking parent or the parent that doesn't say anything, or maybe someone that disagrees. And then you have to sort of flex your facilitation skills. as a coach to know how do I deal with that? How do I make sure I'm still creating a very open space, but equally, I do need to buy back this conversation somehow. yeah, life coaching has been a real key to us doing that well.
That sounds so powerful because often we say to people in our coach training programs, when you're in a small group, get the person who's with you observing to stop you if they think you're doing the thing that you're trying to not do. Because otherwise the feedback just goes, yeah, you did that again. Yeah, exactly. And also we do it so you can also then say the positives over because sometimes it's hard to know, was that an open question?
And so it's really nice to be able to say like, such a great question. And to have that instant confirmation means that then that skill is being really embedded for the person, you know. rather than saying, the first question you said was really good. You know, that's not as good. What question was that? Exactly. Yeah. We might say like, when someone's tried something new, we just sort of acknowledge like, what did you notice about how the group responded? Quick analysis. Great.
Let's go back to it. And then you keep going. So there's that. Nice, you're almost persuading me that role plays a good way of training people. It is a bit of a Marmite, but I would say you can persuade everyone that it is, yeah, get on board of it. It's good. Yeah, that's amazing. So those people then go out into into the communities and do their good work. Yeah, exactly.
And so as you kind of referred to already, one of our key parts of our model as an organization is that we then support that person. Because we all know like you turn up to some training, you have all the best will in the world to then act on that training, but life gets in the way or it's a bit harder than you thought, or it's quite lonely doing it. So actually we have support coaches on team who every facilitator that completes our training is assigned a support coach.
And that person journeys with that facilitator for as long as they run our programs. And I'd say that is really one of our secret ingredients of being able to have such effective community based provision. Because actually, you know, that's someone that you can celebrate the wins with, talk through that session and say, I don't know how that actually went. Can I just talk through this dynamic?
And then also when we always face some kind of roadblock, have that person that is there to coach you again, you know, you know, the title being a support coach is intentional because they're not there as some kind of, you know, big bad boss that's managing you. It's very much we're here in this with you and we're here to help you with that. Wow. And so the way you came to us was that somebody said, they're looking for ICF coaches. So why are you looking, what, what is it?
that made you decide that that was the standard and quality that you wanted in your organization? Yeah, I think so that that was the route that going back to the Reserga where I originally found out about coaching, they were they kind of a couple of years ago for actually we'd love to make sure that the coaching we're doing isn't because I think a lot of people throw around the word coaching now it's become a bit of a kind of you know phrase that people use but the
there is quite a variety in quality and I've definitely experienced what people would call coaching and then I'm like, this is not coaching. You're definitely telling me what to do. And so they were like, this is a great kind of kite mark almost of like, you know, quality of coaching. so as an organization, we thought actually this could be a really good process to take our coaches through.
And I think also any kind of kind of accreditation you do, you also want it to be kind of useful and upskill you in a way that you're actually going to use. And I would say, having done the ICF, so I became a PCC coach a couple of years ago, which has then enabled me to be a key mentor for the ad to do an internal ICF journey. So we have now had four people successfully go through the ACC coaching, which we've done internally. And it has been amazing.
I mean, I learned something every time I'm doing the mentoring, you know, but I think it is, mean, the ICF approach, there is quite, there's a formula to it, you know, to get a recording that passes, you know, you do have to tick a lot of boxes and it can feel a bit rigid. But the essence and I guess the tools you learn from having done that process, I mean, they have hugely benefited our approach to coaching. And I think we've just realized actually that it is a really helpful measure.
I mean, we're not stuck to it. So I think if someone did come to work for us that had an equivalent, we would totally appreciate that, you know. But ICF has just been a route that has worked for us and does enable us to feel really confident that the level of support that is being offered by our coaches is all the same level because everyone's gone through a similar process of development there. So yeah, it's been a great learning.
We've been really only on the pathway with it for the last kind of two years, but it's definitely created a really strong foundation in everyone's skill set. It's so refreshing to hear you tell that story and explain that so clearly, because often we get approached by organizations who are saying we want to have a coaching culture. And we say, well, actually, what you want to do is you want to make yourselves rely on us for the shortest amount of time possible.
And you want to get yourself a PCC coach internally. because they can do exactly what we can do and then you don't need us anymore. So what a beautiful example. that is. Yeah, I think well, exactly. That's our approach to so much really, I guess, at Kids Matter is we're like, you know, we really want to ensure that we are internally best equipped as we can be to be able to support our team.
And then from that actually support those who were out, you know, actually here, existing to to kind of support. So yeah, it's been good. mean, it's like really sharpens your ability to listen and equips you with some amazing questions. You know, I feel very privileged to be able to like gone through it and get to use those skills on a daily basis. So it's great. Yeah. So it's all the way through your DNA. It is, yeah, it's how we run our meetings. It's how we manage our teams.
It's how we train any kind of training we run is completely coaching based. It's how our program is designed. And what's exciting actually, I feel like it's definitely the first organization where it's like from the ops team all the way down to the support coaches, which is in the name, but coaching is a thing. Everyone is given training. because we want it to, we do want it to be part of the DNA. It is one of our, what we call our culture tools.
And it's sort of like, I guess, if I was going to describe it in a snapshot, we say coaching is about being curious. It's about raising awareness and activating responsibility. Nice. So. It's so that when you're having a discussion, you're approaching it not like, I have the solution for your problem. But actually, let me just ask a question here. Find out some more.
And ideally, really the other person is likely to come to the solution so that they're not relying on their manager or their teammate to be there. You know, just like you were saying, you don't want people to be relying on. on 3D coaching, we don't want people to be reliant. You I don't want the people I manage to be like, only Katie has the answers, you know, need you to fly without me and I believe that's possible. So let's ensure you have what's needed for that to happen.
Wow. So you've worked in other organizations and I'm without naming any. I think my question to you is, What's the difference in how it feels to work in an organization that is embedding a coaching culture so deeply? Yeah, I think there's a real common language and common expectation. So another thing we have quite strongly here is quite strong feedback culture. So we stumbled upon the book Radical Calendar. Yes. don't know if I can scroll it. Yeah, a couple of years ago.
And that's, again, is another real kind of focus for us so that our whole idea of caring personally and challenging directly and not creating what can happen quite a bit in some organization, this ruinous empathy approach where you just don't really say what's wrong and pretend it's all fine. But as we all know, you know, it's like a volcano about to explode. It will come out somewhere, you know, and I think we try really hard, you know, we're not perfect.
by any means, there are definitely, you know, I'm sure days and moments where we could be, you know, do the radical candor better. But I think when you add coaching to that radical candor approach, it's such an amazing mix and really allows there to be a place where people feel safe to be able to, you know, really name what's going on for them or the problem that they're facing, or maybe the thing that they disagree with.
And the hope is that they then would feel like that is held in a curious way, you know, that the other person won't come back at them completely disagreeing and saying, I'm curious how, how that made you feel that way. okay, well, could you explain a little bit more about, you know, what's challenging about how we communicated that message or that. So the hope is that from the very lowest level to the top. there's that ability to give feedback, ability to have those conversations.
And I think that is, you know, it's hard to manage that. And, know, we have definitely got it wrong in the past and we keep learning. But I think, you know, that's also a key part of it, like being in a growth mindset, being able to hold up your hands and say, yeah, do you know what, we really messed up there. And We'd love to hear from you guys and work out why, and hopefully we'll be stronger and better for having got through that turbulent time.
Where I feel like I've been in workplaces, you know, where they say they want to hear your view, but quite clearly they don't because it put in a cupboard or ignored or... you know, yeah, or you're in a very fixed mindset place, you know, you're like, we all know this isn't working, but no one's willing to change it. So we're gonna stick with this awkward process, you know, where, you know, I'd say we are sometimes to our detriment, very flexible and adaptable. So that that's exciting for me.
That's kind of the environment I fry it in and I'd say those that work for us do as well because they are so willing to share the things, know, share new ideas and take a risk with that. So you're not expecting your end users, your families to do anything that you're not expecting your staff to do? 100 % exactly. you know, that whole phrase like the wisdom's in the room.
Well, if we truly believe that at the foundational level of us delivering our programs, then I can't run a meeting and just... project my ideas and don't take, leave space for anyone else's, you know, we want to create a collaborative workplace that really enables, you know, that phrase to be true at every level. and yeah, I mean, you're spot on.
feel like, you know, the approach of how we do our, you know, team meeting is the same approach we'd want to facilitate it to run the program and the same approach we'd want to parents to have in their families. You know, we. know, lot of some of the material is all about how to strengthen that parent-child relationship and equip parents with that ability to ask that curious question so that they can find out more from their child.
We have this thing called conversation starters and parents feel like it's a real gift, you know, because you so many times, right, you talk to a kid and it's, you know, how was your day? Fine. What did you do today? Nothing. You know, and so it's like...
However, you know, you don't always have the creative space in your mind to come up with a more different question, you know, so we just apply the coaching approach to some child related conversation starters and see what happens, you know, like, so yeah, for sure. It's, it's, it's, in everything we do this whole coaching kind of approach to stuff. I love that it connects back to a podcast from last week or the week before with Timothy Clark, who wrote the four stages of psychological safety.
And he talks about the coach having the first mover obligation to be vulnerable. And you've just described that at every level. At every level, people in your organization have the first mover obligation to be vulnerable. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And actually, how we train our facilitators is so primarily our facilitators are parents themselves so that they can share vulnerably so that you break those walls down. So there isn't like, I'm the expert here and you're all here to listen to me.
It's more like this morning, I had an absolute nightmare with my kids. know, everything went wrong, you know. And so from that place, everyone else feel you can almost feel the relief in the body language, you know, and then it's like, okay, this isn't somewhere where I have to put a pretense on or I can actually let that mask down or I can actually say what's what's, you know, I'm struggling with.
And yeah, like that is the foundation of how we have our parenting programs run and that is exactly how we want our team meetings to be run and how we want as managers to support our team members. If I'm not willing to say the struggles that I have, how can I expect someone else to tell me theirs? That doesn't feel like a very fair relationship approach. So what difference is this making in your communities and the communities where your people are? Yeah, a huge difference.
what's so exciting about our work actually is that, you know, it's a community-based provision. So our facilitators are just, you know, average parents in that community running this program. But because it is evidence informed and Because of our psychology kind of foundations, we do these formalized evaluations. So a parent fills in a pre, a post and a three month later evaluation form and they are standardized evaluations. So they would be using in like clinical settings.
And so what that data is showing us is two main things that we track. The kind of parents confidence and the parents wellbeing.
Because if you can change those two things, they're like the beginning dominoes, you know, then that, you know, if a parent is feeling very confident and competent in their parenting skills, and that their tank is full, they're going to be able to handle any challenges that a child might be facing, or might get thrown at them as a family, because majority of our families, you know, are dealing with the impact of poverty, which is extremely challenging. And so what else?
Data is showing us is that our parents have an improvement. the level of their confidence from session one improves in session six. And then what's so exciting is that it stays improved three months later. Wow. Which is an amazing thing and same with our wellbeing. So on average, our parents come in below national average for wellbeing. After the six sessions, they are above national average. And then again, what is exciting is that three months later, they stay above national average.
And what's exciting about that is that obviously when you're meeting weekly, you expect people to feel a sense of their wellbeing going up. you're doing things right, we have tea and cake and food and in the environment. But for that to maintain three months later, when they perhaps haven't been, you they haven't been meeting weekly and they're not in that group setting all the time shows that significant change has made in that parent's wellbeing.
Clearly the tools, the confidence that they have got has really embedded because they are still showing a real improvement. And that's really exciting to think that a provision run, you know, in the community by non clinicians is having this incredible impact. And then what the research then shows you, know, if that is happening, then the chances for that child to thrive in life and then later in life and then when they become parents, you know, you're we're looking for generational change.
That's, you know, real hope for things. And yeah, everything is showing that that is going to happen for any parent that kind of comes to our program. So. I love the three month thing. Yeah, the other thing is just lovely, isn't it? You know, you really want people at the end of six sessions to go, was lovely. It was great. the impact is extraordinary. Yeah, it really is.
And you just, you know, and in a way, you you look at the things and you just, you know, and facilitators, you know, it's quite powerful for them, because they just think, well, I was just bringing myself and hosting a group and going through some material, you know, Almost in the moment, it doesn't feel like as profound as then you're like, but this is what the data is showing, you know, like it's incredible.
And it's not even like with one parent, you know, we have the data for hundreds of parents showing this improvement, you know. So yeah, it's, really amazing. And it really motivates us to kind of, you know, get more places in the UK. know, our, our vision would be for, you know, every community in the UK to be able to run. Kids Matter or we also have a Babies Matter program. So Kids Matter is for parents of two to 10 year olds and then Babies Matter is the zero to one kind of zone.
how many families have you impacted so far? Yeah, so we have impacted over 2000 parents, which equates to over 4600 children in this kind of seven and a half years that we've been running. That's amazing. And are you doing longitudinal research? is that a step too far? That is well, it is on the horizon for us. Yeah. So we are in the process of, yeah, what we would love is to start off with some year data and then go go from there really.
And yeah, We'd also love to, so we have a lot of parent based impact data, because that's obviously who we are initially supporting, but the child is actually obviously the end kind of user of this. So we're also working on how to gather that as well. Some hard data around the child. It's very challenging because we are a community based program. But you know, I think that would be amazing. If we're able to do that.
we're looking at different avenues to do that, possibly partner with a university, to be able to help us with that.
but yeah, I mean, that's the dream really find out where parents are a year later, two years later, you know, three years later, particularly now that we've been running for, you know, over seven years we've and some of our, we've had partners that have been with us for seven years so we can, you know, That's the beauty of partnering with something like, you know, an organization like a church is that the church is going nowhere. So we are still connected.
We still have some facilitators that been there for that long. so actually, and, actually what's even more amazing is some of those parents who did the early programs have come back through and are now facilitators. wow.
And that really, you know, that, because again, we're wanting this to be a space where again, there's self-sufficiency in that, you know, and actually the best people to run these are the very people who came for the help, you know, because there's you know, ability to really get to give back to community, be able to, yeah, build so much more strength in the relationships there.
if people want to talk to you about what you do or find out more about how they can support you, How do they do that and what are you not looking for? Yes, so you can email us at info at kidsmatter.co.uk, go to our website kidsmatter.co.uk, have a look at us, find out some more. I guess, I mean, What do want? I mean, we have opportunities for people to be able to volunteer. if they do get in contact, we have a whole list of ways that could be from, know, we're a charity, so we need money.
if this is part to kind of passion for people, for our vision, you know, any kind of donations or wanting to be a part of the wider family, because we call them family champions, the ability to host events with that, then do get in contact. In terms of any kind of, if anyone, this sparked anyone to want to join us, we will have a few roles coming out. Like all things, we're sort of, we're growing and also, team will always move on at points.
So do check out our website for the latest vacancies with that. But if this has really sparked a passion for us, then. Feel free to connect and we'll try our best to kind of get in contact and continue a conversation. So thank you, Katie, for coming to The Coaching Inn. It's been an absolute delight to have you here and to find out so many wonderful things about the work of Kids Matters. And thank you everyone for listening.
Do subscribe or follow and share this episode if you think there's someone else who should be listening to it. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, everyone. Bye bye. Bye. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, we'd love you to share the podcast with a friend or leave a comment on social media. And if you'd like to become a regular at The Coaching In, you can subscribe on Podbean and all major podcast channels. We look forward to welcoming you next time.
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