PDF Community Enterprise - Case Studies

Case Study 1

Promoting the development of coaching and mentoring in the Republic of South Africa

At the beginning of the millennium a need was identified in South Africa for support to develop coaching expertise. The need covered both community projects and the quality of coaching in public and private sectors. Working with partners PDF brought together a group of coaches to create the first masters degree in coaching in the Republic of South Africa to support the development of the field. To meet community needs this project included pro-bono coaching within communities to share skills widely. We cooperated with businesses in South Africa to create sponsored bursaries for community participants. PDF also sponsored the programme to reduce the costs to those involved.

As part of the process members of this initial group were encouraged to create a South African organisation to promote coaching and mentoring and PDF facilitated links with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, which provided details of its codes and processes. Out of that initiative a group of coaches created an organisation Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA). Subsequently several of the graduates of this programme have created postgraduate schemes with a number of Universities in the country as well as leading developments through COMENSA.

Case Study 2

Supporting self help for parents

PDF were approached by a social worker involved with a group of parents who were trying to set up a self-help group to support each other to deal with issues arising from the realisation that their children had been abused. While they were involved with a variety of agencies they felt the need to take control of their own response to the situation and share experiences with others facing similar difficulties.

In order to do this they wanted to run regular group sessions but this required some support for crèche facilities, a meeting room, and access to back up expertise that they could choose to use (or not) as needed. They wanted this to be their initiative under their control. They had tried to seek funds from the charitable sector but as a loose grouping of individuals with no track record or legal status they had found this difficult.

The social worker encouraged them to contact PDF. We agreed to provide some financial support but also to create access to some specialist help on a pro-bono basis. We established a fund upon which they could draw to pay for expenses.

Case Study 3

Bullying in Schools and Workplaces

It seems difficult now to recognize that back in the 1980’s the issue of bullying in schools and workplaces was largely unrecognized. Schools for the most did not have anti-bullying policies and, with rare exceptions, workplaces similarly failed to include processes to deal with this issue in their HR Policies

Working with Delwyn Tattum and a group of committed practitioners PDF created the first book on the subject in the UK (published by Trentham Books) and subsequently commissioned Erling Roland and Elaine Munthe to bring together those contributing to a Council of Europe event to share experience across the continent. (Published by Fulton) We also supported the Neti-Neti Theatre Company to bring their innovative work on bullying to publication (through Trentham).

We supported and ran numerous workshops and programmes across schools in the UK and shared information with multiple organisations in the UK and worldwide to encourage activity in this area. This included support for larger scale initiatives but also action to help small groups working in innovative ways.

One such was a small project by a parent in a London Borough who was working to support parents who were trying to get schools to tackle bullying. This it must be remembered was at a time when schools did not have, by and large, anti-bullying policies.

PDF provided pro-bono support, advice and supervision for more than a decade to the project. It also enabled a group of parents to come together in a workshop to create a model policy for schools and the local authority. This group of parents met with the Divisional Education Officer to encourage interest in this model framework.

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