Case Studies
Youth-Led Strategy
The Heritage Lottery Fund North West HLF put a youth engagement project out to tender; aware of their own image as being more about buildings that people, and more staid than energetic. They wanted to run some development work which would bring more young people through their doors.
It was difficult to tell HLF what exactly this project would look like, as it was necessary to keep it open for the young people themselves to create the project. Luckily they were open to taking a chance and ensuring the voices of young people would genuinely be leading the work.
I worked with a group of twenty young people, and mentored them to deepen their understanding of heritage and all that this could mean, and led them to create an interactive open day to increase the reach beyond the twenty people most heavily involved.
I used the project and the input of the young people to create a Youth Engagement Toolkit for HLF.
“I worked with Monika over a period of six-months to develop my career, and found her coaching sessions insightful, well-planned and constructive. Monika took the time from the start to understand my goals and was an active and engaging listener, offering constructive dialogue throughout the process. It was a challenging time for me both personally and professionally, and having a monthly one-on-one meeting supported by follow-up emails with notes and exercises provided me with a helpful framework and made the difficulties of looking for a new job much easier to navigate. It helped me to build my confidence in the skills and qualities I could offer prospective employers – and what they could offer me.”
Loretta
Start-up Impact
REIGN is a collective of adult survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation from the UK, who campaign around issues relating to CSA/E and offer training workshops, presentations and consultancy to professionals and organisations involved in preventing abuse or supporting victims and survivors.
I wrote the white paper for the trustees of Reclaim, the organisation out of which Reign originally emerged, to show why Reign was needed and why it matched Reclaim’s charitable aims to support them.
When Reign was established with a number of women ready to work, I ran an Organisational Impact training day with them to help them define what they wanted to achieve as a collective and start mapping out how they would get there with the time and the resources they had.
“Having coaching with Monika has given me greater clarity about my goals and what I need to do to achieve them; I now feel much more confident and in control of my career path.”
Carolyn
Communications
I worked with Redeye Photography Networkto help the organisation strengthen their day to day running. With a number of staff all working part-time and on different days, the internal communication was naturally fragmented.
I ran a training session, which helped them to clearly articulate the upcoming journey for the organisation and to understand how every member of staff would fit into that, as well as how they could communicate and work as a team more effectively.
“I booked in for a one-off session with Monika to help me with my CV. I wasn’t confident that I was communicating my skills well or making myself stand out against other candidates. Monika helped me to assess my skills critically, and focus on what my key achievements are so that my CV was a stronger showcase of my strengths and abilities to employers. Her feedback was very thorough and this reflection gave me more confidence when applying for roles.”
Emily
Effective Evaluation
The Museum of London was looking for training on Organisational Impact in order to help the learning department. As a museum funded by the Arts Council, they are encouraged to use the Arts Council England quality principles. These principles are a useful starting point, however they are necessarily vague and they are not outcomes. The learning department wanted to understand how to incorporate these principles into their definitions of outcomes and therefore how to incorporate them meaningfully into their evaluation.
I worked with the museum’s learning department and the schools team to understand how they could use their objectives to effectively plan and increase their impact.
Evaluation for funders tended towards numbers and statistics, we worked on how to bring in qualitative assessment and deeper narrative stories to bring the impact of the museum to life.
"Monika is an excellent coach who supported me to identify my goals and skills after a period of unemployment. She inspired confidence in the abilities I didn't know how to articulate. I wouldn't hesitate to use her expertise again in the future when I'm ready to explore my options for personal and professional development further."
Becka
Governance
There are two difficulties to overcome as a group of school governors. The first is fully understanding the difference between strategic direction and operational running. Governors must not get involved in the operational running of the school, which is tricky because the day-to-day running of the school is the physical implementation of the strategic direction set by governors.
The second difficulty is understanding that a decision to solve one problem within a school may impact on another area and create unintended consequences. It is therefore imperative that governors understand that sometimes an intervention that has a positive impact for the school may have a negative impact on the children.
Kingsway Community Trust invited me to run Organisational Impact training focusing on governance for their governing body (a number of whom were new to the post) to improve their strategic overview and to ensure effective challenge and support for the school leadership team.
“Through Monika’s coaching she encouraged me to challenge myself and my perceptions using a combination of open questions, exploration of techniques and reflection exercises through which I uncovered my values and experiences. She also offered valuable industry insights when it came to the practicalities of applying for roles. I understand more now how to make the most of what I have to offer as an individual and get more out of my professional relationships. Monika always made each session enjoyable and thought-provoking, and is full of warmth and humour. I have no doubt I’ll continue to refer to the techniques and ways of thinking that I’ve discovered during our time together. I can’t recommend her enough!”
Loretta
Shedding Light on Impact
The University of Sussex hosts an Impact Day for which I ran a workshop with participants: How to develop your own Theory of Change for your research project.
“This was a great introduction to the models in a Theory of Change.”