Central and North West London NHS Trust
Resilience Coaching and Team Support during 1st and 2nd Wave COVID
Requirement
The Chief Operating Officer of one of London’s largest National Health Trusts in London contacted us at the outbreak of COID to request immediate and targeted, specific support for 5 teams that she felt would be under extra ordinary pressure as they led responses to Covid-19 events. She believed it was important that support to her staff should be delivered externally, given her staff would be stretched to capacity both clinically and in terms of looking after the rapid changes required to be delivered.
Beyond the initial crisis support, we were then requested to support additional teams to build collective resilience as they continued their work; the return to ‘new normal’ working situations and learning from the initial COVID response to resilient team working during the second wave.
SOLUTION
Our response was to allocate each team a dedicated coach with 30 coaching hours to be used in the best manner required by each team; we started our delivery response 4 days after commissioning. Our coaches used their allocation of hours to:
- provide each team member a personal psychologically safe space to help manage stress and maintain perspective through the crisis
- support the team leaders to lead compassionately and effectively through the crisis
- support the team leader with practical virtual facilitation of their team to help build collective resilience and ensure effective team dynamics.
During the COVID 2nd wave, we further delivered tailored supportive virtual workshops over a 5-month period for over 60 staff in 4 different cohorts and followed this up with personal 1:1 coaching where required.
Feedback
‘The coaching support was really beneficial. Working in the PPE hub was at times frantic, stressful and exhausting. Having to deal with staff who were scared, angry and stressed, and trying to support them at a time when you are holding your own anxiety is very challenging. The coaching style was friendly, supportive and skilled and helped me reflect on my experience at this time and lead my team more effectively through this crisis. I appreciated the opportunity and Jacqui’s coaching made a positive difference to me.’
‘Having an external facilitator encouraged staff to unload and express their anxieties and frustrations experienced during this challenging time for the team. Our team members expressed loss of autonomy, lack of credibility, frustration with ongoing changing of PHE guidance and the interpretation for staff was often at times frustrating.’