Building on a career of supporting communication development, I have expanded my professional practice into coaching. This step reflected my growing interest in supporting personal development more broadly, helping people build confidence, navigate challenges, and unlock their own capacity for change.
In 2025 I completed my Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching at the University of Warwick, passing with distinction. I am currently an Associate member of the Association for Coaching, working towards full membership accreditation.
What is coaching?
There is no universally agreed definition, but here are some perspectives:
One of the most compelling benefits of being a coach is the deep, meaningful connection you build with others.
Coaching isn’t just about problem-solving — it’s about transformation. Clients often come to coaching seeking clarity, focus, and direction. As a coach, you become the guide who helps them navigate obstacles and unlock their full potential. Through powerful questioning, active listening, and supportive feedback, you empower clients to find solutions they may not have realized were within them.
(International Coaching Federation (ICF) website, October 2025)
An effective coaching conversation influences someone’s understanding, behaviour and progress.
Coaching is more defined by the impact of your conversation than the duration of it.
(Julie Starr, The Coaching Manual, 2021)
What does coaching mean to me?
Coaching offers the space and time to stop and think.
At its heart coaching is a conversation between the coachee and the coach which leads to meaningful change.
As we trust the coaching process together, we can create space to explore, discover and learn.
Trust
We will need to trust each other in our coaching
Do you agree with Brene Brown’s 7 factors for cultivating trust?
- Boundaries: You are willing to say no. You respect my boundaries.
- Reliability: You do what you say you’ll do.
- Accountability: You own your mistakes, apologise and make amends.
- Vault: You don’t share what’s not yours to share. Confidentiality.
- Integrity: You choose courage over comfort, what’s right over what’s easy.
- Non-judgment: We can each ask for what we need.
- Generosity: You assume the best of others’ intentions, words, actions
Is there anything else you would add?
Braving
Do you think it’s brave to trust someone? What helps you trust someone?
Looking at the model below, as we build trust together within our coaching our topics in conversations may extend from our “Open/free” quadrant. We may discover new insights that will support your own personal growth -currently unknown to us both within the “unknown” area of this framework.
Global Code of Ethics for Coaches, Mentors, and Supervisors
What will happen when you contact me?
If you would like to work with me as your coach, here’s what to expect.
Our initial conversation
This is important to check we are a “good fit”.
I will share with you how I work and ask you about what has brought you to coaching.
We will talk through our roles and responsibilities as coachee and coach.
I will share with you my Terms of Engagement (written document) and together we will begin to design a working alliance.
What is a working alliance?
This is the contract between us. We’ll be creating it together and reviewing it regularly. This in turn builds the coaching relationship which has been described in different ways to demonstrate its importance:
A covenant or sacred promise
John Blakey and Ian Day
A safe vessel for a voyage of discovery
Karen Foy
We are working to develop a coaching relationship that serves you to be able to explore new ways of thinking and being.
Our explorations will be held in trust, and we are accepted as a perfectly flawed human being by another perfectly flawed human being.
Karen Foy
After our initial conversation, we will then decide if we would like to work together and agree to a series of coaching sessions.
Our coaching conversations
Each session I will be checking in with you about our contract and asking, “What is the work we need to do together and how will we do it?”
I will be checking that your needs and expectations are being met
We are partners in these coaching sessions; I am not going to tell you what to do or offer my own solutions.
Usually, the brain that contains the problem, contains the solution
Nancy Kline
Carl Rogers’ influence has spread widely, and coaching has adopted many ideas from therapy and particularly person-centred therapy. Unconditional Positive Regard is one of Rogers’ core conditions which means I will unconditionally accept your experience.
In addition, as your coach, I will bring skills of:
- Active Listening
- This includes reflecting, summarising and paraphrasing
- Powerful Questions
- Not to seek answers, but to support deep thinking and reveal new ways forward
- Direct Communication
- Including affirmation, reframing and supportive challenge with your agreement
A question works because, unlike a statement, which requires you to obey, a question requires you to think
Nancy Kline
Questions can be like a lever you use to pry open the stuck lid on a paint can
Fran Peavey
We live in a very busy fast-paced world and as a coach I can offer you time to be listened to. High quality listening is a powerful tool and comes from my ongoing self-awareness work so I can be fully present for you. This includes my regular 1:1 supervision and continuous professional development.
When you are heard, there is an emotional impact. This shift can then allow you to think more effectively.
People can’t think about something until they can talk about it first
Nancy Kline
To truly listen means to transcend your autobiography, to get out of your own frame of reference, out of your own value system, out of your own history and judging tendencies, and to get deeply into the frame of reference or viewpoint of another person. This is called empathic listening. It is a very, very rare skill. But it is more than a skill. Much more.
Stephen Covey
Silence
I will, with your agreement, also offer silence as a tool, believing that
Periods of quiet can be like a “solitary walk, where the ideas are, forming, insights are melding”
Nancy Kline
Within our coaching conversations, you will be talking the most and I will try to be a “trampoline Listener!”
I love this metaphor used by Harvard Business School as it captures the joyful impact that I can bring to our coaching as you are metaphorically lifted to see your life from a new vantage point.
The end of the period of coaching sessions
When we have completed our agreed work, we will end our sessions
If either of us need to stop our sessions earlier, we will do this as set out in the Terms of Engagement document.
Sometimes, as set out in the above document, I may need to suggest you seek another coach or another type of support, for example counselling.
At a future point, we can begin meet again if this is what we both think will be useful for you.