Watford New Hope Trust’s mission is to help the homeless and vulnerable people in our community by providing shelter, food and opportunities to rebuild damaged lives. Project managers have a very challenging role in both managing day to day operations as well as dealing with vulnerable people with potential severe mental health issues.
Anne set up and implemented a unique one year modular development programme for the project managers for the Trust to develop the managers to manage, work as a whole team of leaders as well as be able to provide coaching and supervision support to the managers in their caring roles.
It was recognised that the PM’s have very demanding roles both physically and mentally so the programme was positioned to run over a year to allow for learning to be integrated into day to day actions and each PM to develop at their own pace. The programme was also designed to enable the PM Team to work as a ‘Whole Team’, learn more about each other, become more cohesive and so a team of inter-dependent leaders will be formed to enable the Services Manager to position her role more strategically and less operationally. A key challenge was to develop skills to manage the performance of volunteers and staff members who were carers and on limited salaries.
One to one coaching was also an important part of the programme, so individuals could discuss impartially and confidentially their own needs and experience working with an independent accredited counsellor /coach. This meant the project managers experienced coaching in the workplace as well as clinical supervision, so they could develop their own models of excellence with their teams.
“As a result of the programme, the team understood the overall goals of the Trust and worked better as a cohesive team of leaders. They have moved from concentrating on their own projects to seeing the bigger picture. This has lead to them becoming more proactive rather than reactive, being more resourceful and confident in dealing with the issues of managing voluntary staff and their performance.
“This programme was innovative and utilised a whole range of learning activities which inspired the team. Anne’s unique blend of business and psychotherapy skills meant she could address the challenges that our teams faced.”
Mike Smith, Chief Executive, Watford New Hope Trust
