We are excited to be launching both our Peer Coaching for Career Development programme (PeCo) and new GROW programme cohort this week! Based on feedback from GROW programme participants, we know that the coaching and network aspects are both particularly valued elements to GROW. However, due to the limited number of places on the GROW programme, we aren’t able to offer this to as many researchers as we’d like to – which is where PeCo comes in! This year, we’re piloting PeCo to enable another cohort of researchers to benefit from the peer support, coaching and networking that GROW offers.
If PeCo is successful we hope to continue to offer it alongside the GROW programme in subsequent years. As we receive so many GROW applications, we hope this will help us to offer more support to applicants who would benefit from it. However, we know many great researchers may have missed out on both – if this is the case, we’d really encourage you to apply the next year as after the pilot we hope to be able to expand the programme! Read below to hear more about the PeCo programme itself.
The PeCo programme
PeCo will provide participants with regular opportunities to work through live issues and challenges in small group settings. They will learn skills and models from coaching and action learning to support each other to tackle challenges and progress goals.
Here are the key elements of the programme:
- Working through and make progress on live challenges/goals within a supportive peer environment.
- Growing networks by becoming part of a newly formed group of fellow mental health and addiction researchers.
- Learning coaching and action learning skills, approaches, and models.
- Gaining the ability to apply these skills and models to problem-solving and supervision of students and staff.
Participants will have allocated focused time to reflect on challenges with structured support, exploration, and tips. We hope this will provide valuable insights and help to design a clear path ahead in complex settings; which will be particularly useful in helping to navigate periods of transition or uncertainty.
We will be introducing our first PeCo cohort on X over the next few weeks, so make sure to follow us @MHRIncubator to hear more about them!