Compassionate Leadership Training course – Thursday afternoons

Join our six-week Compassionate Leadership Training designed for all health and social care leaders. Compassionate leadership is linked with improved learning and innovation, and reduced staff stress, injuries and absenteeism, and even reduced patient mortality.

The course is made up of six weekly two-hour sessions and further consolidation sessions after the course is complete. This course runs on Thursdays from 3-5pm, from 30 January 2025 until 13 March 2025. There is no session on 20 February. Following this, there are several two-hour online consolidation sessions to review practice and learning. All graduates are invited to attend these sessions. See the dates for 2025 below.

Watch a short (1.5 minute) video to find out more.

Overview

At the heart of compassion is the notion that everyone experiences difficulty and that we can all play a role in alleviating our own difficulties and those of others. Whether this is compassion for ourselves or the people we lead, people who lead us, colleagues or service users. We won’t always feel like helping and will sometimes be tired or overwhelmed or unable to connect.

Although it helps to have positive feelings, we do not have to feel compassion to be compassionate. We can recognise our physical and mental state, resource ourselves as best we can, and respond from our firm compassionate intention, rather than from impulse or intense emotion.

How does this translate into compassion in health, social care, and other organisations? How might we think about compassionate leadership, working with colleagues, service users and their friends and families? Prof. Michael West has spent his career answering this question, pointing to research that shows how compassionate leadership is linked with improved learning and innovation, and reduced staff stress, injuries and absenteeism, and even reduced patient mortality. In short, compassion is essential to high-quality healthcare.

Dr Robert Marx and Professor Clara Strauss have designed this innovative training programme of six weekly sessions, each lasting two hours, with an additional follow-on consolidation sessions following the completion of the course. See details below of the dates for optional review and practice sessions.

Who is the course for?

The course is for anyone in a leadership role in a health and social care organisation, recognising that leadership occurs throughout health and social care roles, and at different levels of seniority.

What is the format of the course?

The course combines in-session mindfulness and compassion practice with reflection and discussion, as well as an invitation for home mindfulness and compassion practice to help cultivate compassion for ourselves and the people we lead and work with.

Facilitators

Robert Marx

Robert Marx is co-lead for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre and leads the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) in Talking Therapies in NHS services training centres collaboration. He is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist and has been teaching mindfulness to patients and staff in the NHS for 18 years. He teaches MBCT and Mindful Self-Compassion. He has been practising Buddhist meditation for over 30 years, initially in the Theravadan tradition and then in the Tibetan tradition. He is passionate about building compassionate cultures in organisations and about integrating relational and mindful approaches to work.

Ruth Sequeira

Ruth Sequeira is a senior trainer, supervisor, and mindfulness teacher for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre. She is also a psychological therapist and the mindfulness and compassion training and retreat lead at the Mindfulness Network. Ruth has a history of working in mental health services and until recently worked as a Clinical Lead in the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in Sussex. Ruth has a longstanding interest in mindfulness, meditation and movement, and is passionate about increasing access to mindfulness courses in different populations.

Review and practice dates

We are offering several dates for consolidation of learning, to allow flexibility. Participants may attend as many or as few of these consolidation sessions as they wish.

Monday 7 April 4.00 – 5.00pm
Thursday 8 May 4.00 – 5.00pm
Wednesday 4 June 1.00 – 2.00pm
Friday 4 July 2.00 – 3.00pm
Thursday 18 September 4.00 – 5.00pm
Wednesday 15 October 4.00 – 5.00pm
Tuesday 18 November 1.00 – 2.00pm
Monday 8 December 4.00 – 5.00pm

Apply and book your place

You can book your place below.

Please note, we ask all those who book a place on this training programme to fill in an application form that will be sent to the facilitators. If you haven’t already, please head here to fill in the form.