CAWT wins the “Excellence in Coaching Award” at prestigious National Training Award 2014
The Co-operation and Working Together (CAWT) cross border health and social care partnership won the ‘Excellence in Coaching Award’, from the Association for Coaching, at the Irish Institute of Training and Development’s National Training Awards 2014. The CAWT partner organisations: the HSE and Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Trusts jointly received this prestigious Award for the collaborative ‘Connect’ Coaching network project. This project is an innovative, sustainable coaching resource for staff in CAWT partner organisations which supports a person to work through real day-to-day work issues in order to identify their own solutions. This network of coaches is facilitating and supporting the considerable organisational change underway in the health services in both jurisdictions. Funding for the ‘Connect’ Coaching network project was secured by CAWT with the support of the DHSSPS and the Department of Health from the EU’s INTERREG IVA programme. Read more 
AFFINITY has secured access to this excellent coaching resource for those stakeholders tasked with implementing the AFFINITY project, both health and social care practitioners and function/specialist leads. AFFINITY is a national quality and patient safety initiative and also a change management project that some will find challenging to their technical, functional and leadership capabilities and capacity at a time of significant healthcare, social and fiscal reform.
The preliminary findings from a Training Needs Self-Assessment (TNA) completed before Christmas 2013 by some of the persons implementing AFFINITY testifies to the need for supports such as coaching, to enhance people’s leadership and change management capabilities. Some “16-42 percent (mean 29 per cent where n=28) stated that they neither agree nor disagree to being able to lead on clinical practice and service quality”, suggesting a degree of uncertainty/under confidence with respect to respondees’ leadership and change management capabilities in implementing and sustaining AFFINITY aims and objectives.
The underpinning philosophy of the HSE AFFINITY Connect Coaching Service is the belief in individual potential. The aim is to increase the individual’s capability to use his/her resources to solve the problems and challenges blocking progress and development, and to create desired outcomes. 
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To apply for coaching online please follow the steps outlined here .
If unable to access online please download and complete a PDF of the survey here . To ensure confidentiality please contact Eilish McKeown, AFFINITY Coaching Co-ordinator and Change Manager at 042 9381150.
As National Joint Co-ordinators for AFFINITY, Rachel and I encourage you to use this excellent education and learning resource currently available. Please be assured that this resource will be evaluated within the context of the AFFINITY project as a whole.
