Career Champions

Over 2012 – 2013 the Career Champions Project trained and resourced a network of “Career Champions” to deliver a range of career management workshops to doctors throughout the North Western Deanery, thus providing Trusts with a cost-effective and sustainable option for supporting the careers of their staff.

Our volunteer champions have been trained in a variety of career management topics including:

-          Assertiveness

-      CESR applications*

-          Change Management

-          Interview skills

-          Negotiation skills

-          Networking

-          Motivation & Goal Setting

-          Resilience

For information on how to arrange a workshop, read on.

Who are the Career Champions?

Our Career Champions come from a wide range of NHS backgrounds but all have a special interest in Careers and in supporting their colleagues’ and juniors’ careers. Many are senior consultants but we also have medical education staff and trainees in the project. All are currently employed within North Western Deanery trusts.

How were they trained?

All have attended a Workshop Delivery Training day and a day of training on each of their chosen career management topics. They will also have strong experience of delivering workshops and often have been supporting the careers of trainees for many years.

What do the workshops include?

As this is a new project we are yet to have sufficient data, however we can predict that the Champions will do their best to tailor workshops to your needs. If you are looking for a workshop which combines several of the topics above, we would expect you to work closely with your volunteer champions to design a session.

Who are the workshops for?

We are primarily targeting medical trainees and non-consultant career grade doctors. We expect that most often sessions will be organised for a group of particular specialty or foundation trainees. However there is no prescription for this and if Career Champions are willing to do so, sessions may be opened to non-medical staff. Thus a session might be organised for a multi-disciplinary team, or opened up to doctors from other trusts – providing these are within our Deanery.

How do I arrange a Careers Workshop?

We expect most sessions will be either organised by the Champions themselves or by request from Medical Education Centres.

You may already have Careers Champions in mind to train and co-train your workshops.  If so, you can liaise with them directly before registering your workshop with the Deanery via Laure Meaney

If you have noone specific in mind to deliver your session, a call out for volunteers will need to be made. Please give us a minimum of 10 weeks notice before your desired session.

We will need to know;

-          Suggested dates - please offer several alternatives where possible

-          Number of sessions required - no more than 15 attendees per session

-          Topic

-          Venue

-          Audience grade

Note that a ½ day session is usually from 2 till 4.30 unless otherwise agreed, full day from 10am to 4.30

Due to the nature of the exercises, a large room with plenty of table space per attendee is required.

Your Champions will arrange the materials they require and may ask you to print some handouts.  Your Champions will liaise with you regarding any other requirements.  You will be expected to introduce the Champions to the audience at the start of the workshop.

We will ask that you use the standardised feedback form designed by the Careers team and return these to Careers for collation.

Who funds the sessions?

We would expect the receiving trust to fund all trainers’ travel expenses and provide lunch / refreshments where appropriate.

Most of our Champions will be happy to deliver sessions in their own time or SPA time. However where Champions are more junior or administrative staff it is only fair to offer them restitution for their time. In this case we would expect the Trust to offer a small speaker's fee for the session.

All attendee expenses claims will be to their employing Trust. We recommend that where possible a cancellation fee is applied so as to discourage no-shows, but all workshops should be free to attend.

How do I contact the Career Champions?

Easiest access will be via the Deanery Careers Team.

If you have any enquiries, please contact nwd.careers@nw.hee.nhs.uk or 0161 625 7635

*CESR Champions; these were trained in a separate project; more information on a dedicated page, here.