Collective Coaching
ConnectGroups is excited to share its new Collective Coaching series, delivered by our CEO Dr Vicky Vass. The series is targeted at Support Group leaders who would like to grow their leadership and management skills to better sustain their groups in the long-term.
Held bi-monthly, the sessions run for 90 minutes at the ConnectGroups office and use experiential and problem-based learning working with ‘live’ issues.
Navigate the links below to learn more about our 2023 topics, or click here to register for upcoming sessions.
March: Work Life Balance
Discover the skills needed to effectively manage your time. Are you time poor or time rich? Are you adapting and changing to this new way of working and living by adding ever more meetings in and feeling that you have to be always ‘present’? As support group facilitators and volunteers, your time is valuable and should be allocated effectively to ensure your group reaps the most out of your contribution. We will begin by undertaking an exploration of values, beliefs and behaviours and examine what changes we might explore to allow us to achieve that elusive (for some) work-life balance.
April: Listening Skills
This session will focus on Listening and why it is perceived as such a vital skill in support group facilitation and management. Highly developed listening skills are a fundamental characteristic required to be a good facilitator. One key to good listening is good questioning, the two go hand in hand.
We will examine listening styles and levels of listening and how we can develop and hone our own listening. There will be some guidance on the benefits of practicing and developing this key skill in the support group setting.
June: Having Difficult Conversations
We have all been in that situation where there is a conversation that we dread, that makes us think about how to approach it. It may be the person or the topic or indeed both combined that fills us with dread and fear of how to tackle it.
In this session we explore how we feel when we know we need to approach a conversation that we perceive will be difficult. This might be within our support group, with stakeholders or other organisations. We then look at practical ways in which we can ‘script’ and ‘destress’ the conversation and mange not only how we feel about it but also how we manage the conversation and make it more impactful.
August: Storytelling as a Tool
Storytelling is a powerful tool for support groups that can assist in promoting their cause and influencing donors, prospective partners, and the wider community. A good storyteller has the ability to capture and hold attention, better communicate messages and meaning, and stay memorable to their audience in the long-term.
As support group leaders, you all have a story to tell, and this session will provide you with the knowledge and skills to tell this story effectively and impactfully.
October: Unconscious Bias
In this session we explore Unconscious biases as our unintentional people preferences, formed by our social experiences. We can subconsciously categorise people when we meet them to avoid having to conduct completely new sets of parameters and decision making for every new person we meet. We assign a ‘value’ to the categories, we take mental shortcuts, and we use them without even realising it. We will look at the way in which stereotypes are developed, often based on images in digital media, or assumptions passed on by parents, peers, and others. We will learn how to put checks and balances in place to recognise and remodel our own behaviours.
December: Project 'ME' and Keeping on Track
As the year comes to a close, this session will focus on resilience and setting yourself up for the new year to ensure you start your 2024 with a vision for the year ahead. We will examine a 6-step Project ‘ME’ process that sees you evaluating your current situation, designing a vision board, creating a roadmap, and tracking your progress throughout the year.