A fantastic poem by Eileen, one of our contributors.
The Suit
Happy birthday she said as I ripped opened the bag…
My heart beating faster and faster as I’m peeling back the layers…
Ooh…I can see something…peeking out in the corner…
With one last pull the paper let’s go of its goodies…WOW…
I say as it lies before me…
What is it mum? I say…
Hold it up and you will see…
My hands touch the beige-coloured fabric…
Ooh… it’s so, so soft to the touch…
As I hold it up a piece falls down…
Mmm…. I say,
hold it up against you then…
Taking it out of my hands mum holds it up against my body…
Oh yes …looks lovely…
Now try the trousers on….
I put one leg in then the other and as my mum pulls me into them, I feel the soft silk lining touching my young skin…
It’s beautiful mum I shout…
Have a look then…have a look…
I head over the mirror with such anticipation for what I’m about to see…
I squeal…
There I stand in all my glory in my new beige camel coloured suit…
Soft to the touch and so, so elegant…
It’s the most loveliest thing I’ve ever seen…
Now look after it, she shouts…
Cost a lot of money…
OK mum, I reply still staring in the mirror…
Well…take it off now…
Go and hang it up, she says…
OK mum…
I slept well that night…
Happy I’d got a lovely suit for my party…
As the weekend comes…
I’m so looking forward to playing in the streets below…
I hear my mum call…
Eileen…
Take this to the pawn shop for me will ya…
All wrapped up in brown paper…
Mum…is this my suit …is it my suit…
Tears well up in my eyes as she nods her head …
Only this once …only this once…
promise…
the pain I felt on that long journey down to the pawn shop can never be explained…
tears running down my face as I hand it over to the man with the glasses on in exchange for the coins, he drops into my open hand…
It went on that journey often my suit…
And every-time the tears would flow…
Didn’t fit me when I finally got it back…
Ahh well, mum said …may as well take it back to the pawn man and get a bob or two ehh….
A tear drops onto my cheek…
You can discover more creative pieces from people we support in our Arts and Crafts Winter Showcase.
Sarah Smith is the founder of lightbulb.coach, a coaching company which supports people to build confidence and reach their goals. We spoke to Sarah to find out more about her work.
How did you get started in coaching?
My background is in finance. I was working for Aberdeen Asset Management for about 17 years in learning and development, and I was a coach in-house. I got the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy at the end of 2017, and started lightbulb.coach at the start of 2019. So I’m just in my fourth year.
What is your main goal?
To make coaching mainstream for young people. When I was working with executives and senior leaders in corporate organisations, I realised that what I was helping them with was the same struggles that many young people have in their early careers. And I thought, well, why are we not offering this to young people much earlier? So I started working with young people and trying to raise the awareness of coaching and the benefits. I’ve got a broad range of clients, though – basically anyone from the age of nine upwards – which is fantastic.
Coaching really is for everyone. Maybe some people have the idea that it’s only reserved for executives or very senior people, but in today’s world it’s becoming more of a solution for people who just want to make a change, and just need a little bit of an extra help. Coaching is available and affordable.
Is the process of doing coaching for children very different from adults?
Fundamentally, the themes are very similar, but the approach is slightly different. You have to be a little bit more directive with children, so you maybe use a lot more play: things like Lego and creating vision boards. But I use that with adults as well, because we all like to release our inner child sometimes.
So the approach is different, but the topics are very much the same. It’s about building confidence, self-esteem and self-awareness, and understanding our own personal triggers and our barriers and what gets in the way.
Are there many differences between coaching and counselling?
Yes. Coaching is forward-facing: where are you now, where do you want to get to and how can I help you get there? Purely by asking the right questions. Whereas counselling is very much looking into the past and unravelling the events that have brought you to where you are today, and helping you to understand that.
I always compare what I do to sports coaching. Everyone knows that if you want to jump higher, swim faster, run faster, your coach will help you do that. They’ll look at your technique, work out what’s holding you back and try to improve on what you’re already doing.
It’s the same with the coaching I do. It could be something that is holding the person back, like a particular fear or maybe not feeling confident in their ability. You often see imposter syndrome, for example. And coaching involves being really specific about what the goal is, and then working out the steps and strategies to get there.
What are some of the main reasons why people come to you?
For children, it’s through parents. Covid has changed things a lot. It feels like our young people are really struggling to get back into socialising: having the motivation to go back to school clubs or sports.
With adults it might be similar. Or maybe the person wants to change their career, because they’re just really unhappy in what they’re doing, but they don’t know what it is that they do want to do. So they will come to me looking just to explore what their options are, and to come up with more ideas and strategies of how they can make real transformational change in their lives.
People often think that coaches are like cheerleaders, and that’s really not what we’re there to do. We are very much partnering with the person, but we also provide the challenge if there’s a lack of motivation.
What would be a typical amount of time that you would spend with someone?
That’s another difference compared to counselling. I would describe coaching as a short-term solution for long-term gain. You might work with someone for an hour or 90 minutes per month for, say, six to eight months. A lot of the work is done between the sessions. That, I think, is very similar to counselling. But whereas with counselling you might have someone support you for a long period of time, a coach will tend to work with you for a shorter period.
How did you start working with Future Pathways?
Someone got in touch with me to ask about coaching and coach mentoring. They said that they were working with Future Pathways and that I would be a good partner. I’d heard of Future Pathways before, through my work with a number of charities, so I was familiar with what they do.
And it was great to hear that coaching was being embraced. Because within charities, for example, there’s often a counselling service offered, but once you get to the end of that counselling, how do you move forward? You’ve done all of that work to get to where you are now: what is the next chapter? And I think that’s where coaching can really help.
You can find out more about Sarah’s work at lightbulb.coach
For a full list of who we work with, visit our Delivery Partners page.
We are pleased to share a piece of work created with Matter of Focus. Matter of Focus is a company that helps organisations to look at how they support people to reach their goals.
In 2018, we commissioned Matter of Focus to evaluate our service. This would support our learning and the ongoing development of Future Pathways.
Since then, Matter of Focus have helped us to track, measure and report on our work. They help us to see the difference we make and where we can improve.
Understanding our relationships
The way someone experiences a service (and the feeling they have about this) plays a significant role in how the person benefits from the service. It is important, therefore, to make sure we build effective relationships that foster trust. It is not just about delivering a service, it is about the interaction between us and the people we support.
Understanding the relationships between Future Pathways and the people we support is essential to how we learn. Matter of Focus created a simple framework which helps us to map a person’s journey of support. Through the framework, we consider:
- What we do
- Who with
- How they feel
- What they learn and gain
- What they do differently
- The difference it makes
The framework helps us to think about our service, show where we are making a difference and highlight areas we can improve. It also prompts us to consider the relationships we build. For example, how we build trust and how people respond to us. It also helps us to think about how we can support people in their goals, by considering emotional or practical outcomes.
The framework helps us identify additional context, like the person’s individual sphere (for example, values, habits and skills), their social sphere (such as networks, roles and relationships) and their material sphere (things like infrastructure, time or resources). Considering this additional context helps us to understand the diverse ways people experience Future Pathways. This, in turn, helps us to build and sustain relationships.
What we learned
The research showed how important it is for us to consider, talk about and understand the relationships we have. The evaluation approach from Matter of Focus has helped us clarify how Future Pathways make a difference. Their research also shows that establishing and maintaining trusting relationships with those we support is crucial to creating an environment where a path towards recovery becomes possible. In addition, by being able to use a framework that demonstrates evidence of outcomes, we have been able to make a stronger case for continued funding and ensure continuity for survivors.
In short, this work has shown that it is not just what we do, but how we do it that gets results. This learning is essential for other services too – we encourage partners and organisations to place people’s experiences at the heart of improvement work.
Collaborative research
This piece of work by Matter of Focus looked at the issue of trust and how important this is to the people we work with and to our own staff. Focusing on this specific theme helped to show how the evaluation approach can shine a light on the relationship between Future Pathways and the people we support. It also helped to show how we adapted in response to the findings.
Our collaborative piece has recently been published in Evaluation and Programme Planning, an international journal hosted by Science Direct.