Finding Our Way Within Coaching & Mentoring in Health & Social Care

Stepping into the world of coaching and mentoring in health and social care is a deeply personal and transformative journey, one that every individual working in this field experiences. It is a path marked by compassion, growth, and profound self-discovery. 

I was honoured to contribute a chapter to the book Mentoring in Health and Social Care and Beyond and was reflecting on how that experience was one of the blocks to my own journey as a coach and starting AXIS Culture Group. To bring depth and relevance to the discussion, I chose to ground the chapter in the lived experiences of nurses and healthcare professionals, weaving in the challenges, questions, and reflections we so often face in practice. In doing so, I hoped to complement the theoretical richness of the book with grounded, real-world insight. 

As I reflect on my own career, I realise I have had many great mentors, but only one great coach. That single coaching relationship had a lasting impact. It made me consider how transformative it could be if coaching were introduced at the start of every healthcare professional’s career. Imagine how it could shape not only individual futures, but also the future of care itself. 

A Field Built on Trust, Humanity & Growth 

Mentoring in nursing goes beyond structured programmes or theoretical frameworks. It’s about human connection, relationships shaped by trust, vulnerability, and mutual respect. It’s about health and social care workers navigating identity, well-being, burnout, and ethical complexity in real-time. 

My leadership journey, spanning ICU nursing, trauma care, academia, research, and strategic leadership, has taught me that mentoring in this field must be dynamic and deeply responsive. It is never passive. It requires presence, emotional intelligence, and genuine investment. 

Equally, coaching should no longer be viewed as a luxury. It must be a core element of how we nurture, retain, and empower those working in care. Coaches offer a space to think, feel, and grow in ways that formal systems often can’t. 

Working alongside the editors and contributors of this book gave me a valuable perspective. I witnessed the diverse ways coaching and mentoring are used across professions and the shared need for approaches that balance rigour with empathy. Writing this chapter required me to ask myself: 

How can I present models like mosaic mentoring, stakeholder influence, or reflective practice, while still honouring the intensely personal and sometimes painful stories at the heart of this work? 

Finding the right voice, one that informed without presumption and respected the experience and autonomy of the reader, was a challenge I welcomed. 

The Responsibility of the Role 

After nearly 40 years in nursing, I continue to find energy in bringing together nursing science, leadership research, adult learning, and coaching psychology. It’s both exhilarating and complex, like weaving together pieces of a puzzle to form a compassionate whole. 

Mentoring is no longer a one-way process. We’re seeing exciting shifts, such as peer mentoring, reverse mentoring, and interprofessional dialogue, breaking down traditional hierarchies and creating space for authentic exchange and co-learning. 

At its heart, coaching is about presence. There is real power in supporting someone who feels unseen or unsure where to begin. In health and social care, this work always carries a moral weight: patient safety, staff wellbeing, inclusion, and systemic change. Writing about it required a deep sense of reverence and responsibility. 

This chapter became a mirror, reflecting back the hope, challenges, and potential of our field. It is both a celebration and a call to action. 

To each professional, nurse, carer, coach, mentor and leader: Your presence matters, your guidance matters. Your humanity matters. 

But we must go further. We must nurture coaching cultures that support our caregivers, empower innovation, and foster a community of care that uplifts everyone involved.