Improvement capability training begins in Sheffield

The Flow Coaching Academy (FCA) welcomed coaches from Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, to its 2021 training programme this week.

Over the past few weeks, the central team have been getting coaches set up on the FCA’s Online Improvement Community that hosts all FCA e-Learning modules. Today, participants joined for their first virtual training session hosted by experienced coaches in Sheffield.

Relationship building is a vital part of the FCA programme and there were some thought provoking discussions about participant’s backgrounds and initial hopes for the course. The remainder of the session covered improvement science basics and discussed key topics covered in the coaches’ initial e-Learning modules.

Overall, the session received some good feedback, and brought together several professionals from different backgrounds including child and mental health services (CAMHS), skull base surgery and end of life care.

Kevin Firth, a member of the FCA Sheffield Faculty said: “With training put on hold due to the restraints of the pandemic, it’s great to now be at a point where we can look forward to how we can recover and enable staff to improve patient services.

“We hope everyone enjoyed their first training session, and we are looking forward to working with our cohort to explore how we can make long lasting improvements in their local contexts.”

Kevin Firth, FCA Sheffield Faculty

Nicola Platts, Programme Manager for the FCA in Yorkshire, and member of the Sheffield Faculty added: “It’s been great to welcome the new coaches and begin delivering our new virtual course which combines e-learning modules, virtual face to face sessions and ongoing work on the FCA’s online improvement community.

“As a team we have spent the last 18 months adapting our course to make sure this responds to our new ways of working. So far, we’ve seen some great engagement, and we are looking forward to receiving feedback on our new materials which have been developed by an award-winning e-learning specialist.”

The FCA is a one-year action training programme in improvement science and team coaching skills where participants are taught how to train their colleagues to make improvements to care. Read more about our course.

Anna Mandeville, Divisional Lead for Psychology & Psychological Therapies at Barnet, Enfield & Haringey, who is training on the cohort said: “Thanks so much to the FCA for a great start to the programme. We have a diverse and fascinating group to go on the FCA journey with.

“I have been really impressed with the high-quality learning materials, the fantastic digital platform and skilled facilitation. It’s a psychologically and digitally very well-designed approach that I think will promote agile working. Learning in an action learning style we know facilitates innovation and change. These are all the ingredients we need here to really help us make a big impact.”