Third Sector Coaching Scholarship winner announced

A Senior Auditory Verbal Therapist at a children’s charity has today been announced as the winner of Henley Business School’s inaugural coaching scholarship competition for the charity and not for profit sector, run in partnership with Third Sector Magazine.

Frances Clark, Clinical Lead at Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK), a charity which delivers Auditory Verbal Therapy to deaf babies and children, has been awarded a full scholarship for the Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching course (PCEC) starting in September 2019.

The scholarship is funded by the Marshall Goldsmith Bursary run by Henley, which is specifically for those working in the not for profit or charity sectors.

To win the scholarship, applicants entered an essay competition in which they were asked to write a 500-word essay on how they planned to use coaching in their organisation to deliver transformation which would benefit their customers. Shortlisted essays were judged by a panel comprised of Henley Business School and Third Sector representatives plus two additional independent judges.

Scholarship winner Frances Clark said:

“AVUK’s mission is to enable deaf children in the UK to talk and learn alongside their hearing peers and coaching is a fundamental cog in the machinery of the charity. The fundraising, communications, operations and clinical teams require synchronous working to ensure that the charity has the funds, recognition, strategy, organisation and skills to deliver excellent therapy and transform the provision of UK services. To be optimal, team members need to be working as the best version of themselves. They need a working and evolving understanding of what their ‘best self’ means, where their strengths and challenges lie and how these differ from others. I am looking forward to starting this course and hope it will provide me with tools to coach others more effectively and develop a coaching culture across our team.”

Dr Jonathan Passmore, Director of the Henley Centre for Coaching, said:

“The judges were looking for applicants to show a commitment to sharing their learning across the organisation and have clear plans about how coaching will be used to impact on the work the charity undertakes. We were impressed with Frances’ ideas on how coaching could be integrated across all levels of AVUK and how it forms the foundations of their programme for both employees and parents. Coaching provides the tools for reflecting, learning and change and we hope this course will enable Frances to cascade the skills she learns to other colleagues in the workplace.”

Henley’s Centre for Coaching is one of the world’s leading coaching centres and among an elite number of institutions whose programmes hold triple accreditation from the three largest international coaching associations including the ICF.

The PCEC course is a part-time course which takes nine months to complete and is aimed at those with some knowledge or experience of coaching and who wish to extend and develop the importance and impact of coaching within their organisation.