We have been busy working out our stats from last year.  80 young people and staff took part in programmes last year and the outcomes reported are an increase in motivation, confidence, resilience, positive emotion and calmness. 96% of young people feel more positive and calm about going into the world of work and have got jobs/apprenticeships as a result.  88% feel more motivated and confident after participating in our resilience programme.  Great results and we are optimistic that 2016’s statistics will be just as good if not better!

The past month has seen Find Your Spark travelling across London, Suffolk, Essex and even to France in order to deliver conferences, trainings and presentations on the effectiveness of coaching and positive psychology for at risk young people.

We have picked up a lot of tips and learning along the way, for example when speaking at the European Positive Psychology Conference we learnt that: (more…)

I write this in the scorching heat as Summer has well and truly arrived (well for the next couple of days at least!) The past month has been a bit of a whirlwind for me/Find Your Spark which I am now musing reflectively. 

I have spent the last nine months starting up Find Your Spark in North Essex which has meant attending a lot of meetings, drinking lots of cups of tea/coffee and sending lots and lots of emails!  I am delighted to say that all the seeds that I have been planting over the last six months are beginning to sprout and finally everything has begun to fall into place. (more…)

We here at Find Your Spark HQ always like to receive feedback on how we are doing and what impact we are making (especially if its positive! 😉  

This month, we were delighted to receive this wonderful endorsement from Fight for Peace, following a workshop we delivered in January. Thanks Fight for Peace for having us and we look forward to working with you again soon!

Fight for Peace commissioned Find Your Spark to run a Resilience Programme at the Academy this year. Both the young people/staff found the Resilience programme very informative and engaging. So much so, that staff have come back and requested additional training by Find your Spark as a result.

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Check out the positive psychology coaching research by founder Michelle Pritchard & Christian van Nieuwerburgh

Objectives: The research sought to analyse the perceptual life changes and perceived quality of life (PQoL) subsequent to participating in an integrated coaching and PPI programme.

Design: A qualitative approach was employed and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was utilised to analyse the data. (more…)

This month’s blog post/musing on this grey and rainy day is on the topic of persistence.  Something that I have learnt to have as a business owner of a Social Enterprise with a mission of doing good in a world where money talks.  You have to be persistent, tenacious and NOT GIVE UP as it is a tough world out there and in order to make it you need to keep going, keep trying, keep evolving until one day, when you least expect it, you will.

I say this as a reminder to myself more than anything and hopefully to inspire you to continue even when the going gets tough.  You will get little glimmers of what life will be like should you keep going, as I did when I was humbled to receive the accolade of one of the top 10 female UK Entrepreneurs to watch out for: http://www.abouttimemagazine.co.uk/life/top-10-young-female-entrepreneurs-to-watch-uk/

Prior to this and even now, there were times i wanted to give up and life was and can be a struggle.  But I didn’t because I believe in the cause and you never know what is around the corner.

Always have in mind, should you ever wish to give up, that tomorrow could just be the day when it turns around for you and when it does, you will grateful that you did not give up.  Good luck readers and feel free to comment below with any thoughts you may have! 🙂

Find Your Spark delivers positive psychology coaching programmes to young people across London, Essex and Kent.