This week on the Coaching Café we have an inspirational story to share with you. Particularly around how coaching can work across different environments, cultures and people. A story of where coaching meets hope for the future, through coaching young people at risk.
We often hear ‘I don’t think coaching will work’ in this situation. Or for those people or in our organisation.
Importantly, wherever we hear this, we just think about Melbourne City Mission.
The coaches at Melbourne City Mission are coaching young people at risk. And we truly feel if they can make a difference in this way, then we are sure coaching will work in your particular corporate environment.
Get ready to be inspired!
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Dedicating a life’s work to working with young people in crisis
In this inspirational Coaching Café, Natalie interviews Andrea Hutton. Andrea is a Team Leader with Melbourne City Mission. Andrea brings 37 years of experience working with young people in crisis. Her work primarily focuses on young people aged 12 to 17 who have faced significant child protection issues. In addition, often involving abuse, high-risk behaviors, trauma, mental health challenges, and substance misuse.
Andrea has dedication her life’s work to working with young people. And her dedication to this challenging field is driven by her deep admiration for the resilience and potential she sees in these young individuals.
Weaving in coaching to strengths
In her service to young people Andrea emphasises that coaching is a powerful tool in her work, supporting her strength-based approach. Importantly, she acknowledges that young people are experts in their own lives and that her role is to guide and support them in realising their goals. Furthermore, coaching reinforces her belief that individuals should lead their journey, and it allows them to take ownership of their choices.
Andrea says: ‘It’s easy for people to dismiss the value of coaching when you are faced with significant barriers and challenges; so I hope I can sway people to open their minds to looking at things differently.’
Everyone has dreams, hopes and aspirations
It’s easy for some people to say ‘yeah but coaching won’t work’ is this or that situation.
However, when we put that question to Andrea, she challenges the notion that coaching is only suitable for individuals in stable situations. Importantly, she offers that regardless of their circumstances, everyone has dreams, hopes, and aspirations. And we know that coaching can help individuals identify and address the barriers preventing them from reaching their goals.
Opening up choices
One of Andrea’s core principles is respecting the choices of young people, even if she may not entirely agree with them. The young people are used to adults telling them what they can or can’t do. However, Andrea believes in providing them with a safe space to make decisions, learn from them, and grow. Furthermore, Andrea emphasises that choice and ownership are essential for individuals to achieve their goals, regardless of their circumstances.
Importantly she sees poor choices as learning opportunities and uses coaching to help individuals reflect on what went wrong and how they can make better decisions in the future. Again she uses great coaching questions to help the young people think about what happened and what they might do differently next time.
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