Jaimi Piller (Cover Supervisor/TA3), Richmond Hill School
Coaching System Helps Cover Supervisor Manage Anxiety And Support Colleagues & Daughter Better
Jaimi shares how the Coachinginschools system helped her to manage her own anxiety, and enabled her to support colleagues and her daughter effectively.
When Jaimi, a Cover Supervisor (TA3) in a Special School, was asked by SLT to do our coaching course, she thought, “Why? Why do I need to do it? Wouldn’t it just be better for me to be coached rather than for me to actually do the course because I’m support staff?”
As she completed the course, she realised that it could help her hugely with mental health issues, and stop things feeling so massive and overwhelming!
It’s made her feel more positive about how to go forward with ANY situation that she comes across. Now Jaimi no longer takes on other people’s problems, meaning she no longer feels like she’ll burst with anxiety.
Instead, she uses what we’ve taught her to help them work it out for themselves, whilst empowering them in the process.
Jaimi also uses our coaching system – and the questioning and listening skills we taught her – in her home life by helping her daughter reduce GCSE stress. This meant she could support her in a much more positive way than she could have done before . . . because previously she’d have been panicking with her!!!
We’re delighted that Jaimi will now be using her coaching skills to help look after staff who are ‘new starters’, and manage the whole ‘induction’ process.
If, like Jaimi, you ever feel like you’re suffering from anxiety, or things are taking a toll on your mental health, then please watch this and be inspired.
…Jaimi found the way out of this, and you can too!
Transcript
When I was asked – well it was suggested that I do this coaching course, it was suggested to me by SLT.
And I sort of thought, “Why?
Why do I need to do it?
Wouldn’t it just be better for me to be coached rather than for me to actually
do the course because I’m support staff and stuff.”
I didn’t think that it was: (A) necessary; and (B) Why me?!
…But then as time went on, and as I’ve been doing it, I’ve realised why I needed it.
And I needed it because, SLT recognised that I, as a person, in my personal life, I’ve had so much go on that I have suffered sort of mental health issues and stuff. And they kind of recognise that, by doing this it means that I can… I… I have found within myself that things are not as massive as what I sometimes make them
out to be.
And they CAN be broken down.
And that is the biggest thing that I have learned from this whole coaching process.
So I am really grateful that I’ve been put onto it.
And I’m grateful for you [Coachinginschools], and all the support that you guys have
given me. And with that [inaudible] I don’t feel like I’m inferior to any of you because I’m here and I’m not a teacher, but I you’ve actually made me feel quite comfortable and quite happy to be part of this. So thank you very much for that.
It’s made me feel a bit more positive about how to go forward with ANY situation that I come across. And now, I have been asked to look after our ‘new starters’, and look after the whole ‘induction’ process, and just be that listening ear.
And, in fact, that’s the biggest thing I’ve probably learned from this whole process – that by listening, and not finishing off people’s sentences, um, it’s, it’s, uh…
…it’s something that I probably was doing so much before I irritated myself!
I was “Why did I just do that?!”
That tool from the whole coaching process – to just listen!
Actually, the sentence that I was going to finish off was not that!
I didn’t have the answer!
They had the answer!
And that whole…you can be working through the 12 Steps, and giving somebody else the tools to – as you say – like as you’ve said so many times, and you guys have said as well, about the whole ‘monkey’.
That not taking on their ‘monkey’, and just letting them solve their own problem…
…It’s huge!
Because I’ve done it with not only when Sarah and I were coaching, and being coached, but my daughter had her practical GCSE Food Tech this morning.
And where she was really, really stressed out, I was finding that I was naturally
kind of giving her like those open questions and getting her to be a bit
more organised. Breaking things down.
And she sent me a picture – literally just before I got here – with her presentation. And she’s done it! She’s done her practical. It’s over and done. And it looks fantastic!
And I feel that we did that together in a MUCH more positive way than we would have done before, because I’d have been panicking with her!
And I’d have been like, “Oh, we haven’t got this!” and “Oh we forgot that!”.
And in fact, this morning I did phone her to say, “You left the flowers
behind!”
But she hadn’t.
She’d taken what she needed with her.
So that it is so, so easy to take on somebody else’s problem and like, I did used to do that.
…And then I used to feel like I’ve got their problem, my problem, that problem there! And like I’ve got loads and loads of things, and I can’t carry it all.
And then I used to burst with like anxiety, and stuff, and I don’t need to
do that anymore.
It is just, “You’ve got a problem. You know what? You can work it out!”