Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal 4 | Page 42

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2019, Vol. 4
APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2019, Vol. 4
Q&A with
Hannah Bussey
WHICH
PARTNERS
WERE INVITED
TO BE PART OF
THIS GROUP
AND WHAT IS
THE SKILL SET
REQUIRED TO
BE PART OF THE
GROUP?
Archery GB and Chair of the
Insight Peer Networking Group
UK Coaching
HANNAH, AS
THE CURRENT
CHAIR OF THE
GROUP COULD
YOU TELL ME
A BIT ABOUT
YOURSELF?
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In 2018 UK Coaching held an event
bringing partners (largely national
governing bodies of sport (NGBs),
Active Partnerships and Sport England-
funded national organisations) together
to discuss how they can measure the
impact of coaching and coach learning.
Of course, there wasn’t a simple answer
or any immediate solutions. Instead
the event raised questions about what
insight partners needed and what was
the best way to approach this. Above all,
it was clear that all partners wanted to
be able to better articulate the impact
In terms of skill set, typically the group
is made up of people that specialise in
insight or are responsible for managing
coaching programmes and want to better
understand how to use insight as part
of this. However, I would say a keen
interest in progressing this area is the
most valuable asset a partner can bring.
YOUR FOCUS IS ON When we use the term coaching, we mean coaching in the broadest sense. This
COACHING INSIGHT incorporates coach developers, instructors, activators, and anyone who supports
– WHAT DOES THIS others to live the healthier, more active lifestyle they want.
INCLUDE?
Conducted by Clare Freer
SO HOW DID
THE PEER
NETWORKING
GROUP BEGIN?
The group was open to any partner
organisation that has an interest in
measuring the impact of coaching.
Initially, this mainly involved NGBs and
Active Partnerships, but we’re pleased to
see it has since widened to community
groups and Higher Education.
of coaching for their organisation. This
presented an opportunity to learn and
work together. As a result, partners got
together to form a group to look further
into this area collectively.
From the outset, the group decided that
it would be a group for partners, run by
partners. Although Sport England and
UK Coaching are part of the group, they
sit on it as peers. A group Chair was
nominated soon after and since then it
has rotated as people have left and new
people joined.
I lead on coach development and
coaching system design for Archery GB,
and outside this have interests in sports
science, strength and conditioning, and
different roles in sport. particularly if we are to meet the
increasing challenge presented by
government policies, which are becoming
more focussed on health, and illness
prevention.
I joined the group because while we’re
making a lot of progress in understanding
the factors and mechanisms involved
in creating a successful coaching
system at an organisational level, fully
understanding and reporting our impact
remains a challenge. This seems to be
common among many organisations.
Yet being able to clearly and accurately
report what’s going on in the coaching
landscape is important to both individual
organisations and also collectively, Given that coaching provision is
dynamic and involves many people,
there are many variables for the
system or programmes that sit behind
it to consider. Credible insight is
crucial to ensure we’re designing these
programmes and systems as effectively
as possible. By coming together to
understand this, we’re taking deliberate
steps towards improvement, and
becoming better at providing open and
honest evaluation and reporting.
HOW DID YOU
BEGIN TO
TACKLE THIS
VAST AREA
AND WHAT
DOES A TYPICAL
MEETING LOOK
LIKE?
We started off by providing a forum for
partners to share what coaching insight
they’re currently involved with and what
insight they felt they were lacking. We
wanted to find out what insight would
help them to understand the difference
their coaching programmes were having.
We’ve since started to look at existing
research, case studies, and research
methods related to what people want to
focus on.
A usual meeting will consist of several
partners sharing details of specific
projects they are involved with. Where
possible, we also invite specialists from
other organisations and academia,
to share their knowledge and to help
shape the conversation. Each meeting is
informal and presents the opportunity
for discussion. A key feature of the group
is that everyone contributes and actively
takes part, to share and learn together.
It’s not often you get the opportunity
to share work in an informal setting
with such varied organisations and get
to develop ideas or share things that
have gone well or not so well. On many
occasions, this has led to partners going
back to their own organisation and
taking new ideas with them.
We also wanted the group to be practical
in terms of working together to tackle
specific problems. For this we began an
exercise whereby all partners submitted
topic areas and/or a hypothesis they
were testing or would like to test across
their own organisation. These were
collated and grouped into four themed
areas:
Theme 1
Positive impact
of a diverse
workforce
Theme 3
The coach
education offer
Theme 2
Good coaching
increases
participant
retention
Theme 4
Coach/participant
relationship
The group has since started to delve
further into each of these themes,
starting with a look at diversity in
coaching. Attendance is determined by
topic, with group members attending
meetings when the topic is relevant to
them. In addition, members might bring
along colleagues to meetings dependent
on the topic. For example, some insight
or workforce leads brought members of
their diversity and inclusion team for
this topic.
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