{"id":5740,"date":"2012-02-07T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2012-02-02T19:00:39","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T00:00:39","slug":"would-you-be-interested-in-peer-coaching-in-development-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/5740","title":{"rendered":"Would You Be Interested in Peer Coaching in Development Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a post<\/a>\u00a0over at WhyDev.org:<\/p>\n

If you have worked in international development, you have probably experienced isolation. It seems to be a fact of life in this industry.\u00a0Field-based expat staff\u00a0may be the only person at their level in their local office, or the only expat on the team (or one of very few), separated from their local\u00a0staff counterparts by cultural, language, and organisational barriers.\u00a0Even\u00a0people working in the home office\u00a0may feel isolated. Perhaps they don\u2019t feel comfortable sharing their struggles with their boss.\u00a0 Or maybe the boss him\/herself is the\u00a0problem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many people working in aid and development tend to spend a lot of time talking about work with their\u00a0spouses, partners, or close friends.\u00a0 This can be a great source of support.\u00a0 However, it can also put\u00a0undue pressure\u00a0on the person who is getting an earful.\u00a0 Over time, they may tire of hearing the same complaints.\u00a0 Someone who doesn\u2019t work with you — or work in development — may not “get” your work context.\u00a0 And a spouse will likely\u00a0have a hard time remaining neutral and impartial\u00a0because they have a stake in their partner\u2019s career success.<\/p>\n

In situations of isolation,\u00a0it\u2019s great to work one-on-one with a professional coach or mentor.\u00a0However, this is not always possible, practical, or financially feasible.\u00a0 An alternative that works well is\u00a0peer coaching.<\/p>\n

You can continue reading — and take a survey assessing whether there is a demand for peer coaching services —\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0if you think you might be interested in peer coaching related to international development.<\/p>\n

I know I could have used a similar service when I spent eight months living in Antananarivo in 2004 when I collected the data for my dissertation. My wife — we had just gotten engaged back then — did get an earful, and she was very supportive. But when she left the US for Togo and it cost us $6 a minute to talk on the phone all of a sudden, we both lost our sources of support, and peer coaching would have been helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a post\u00a0over at WhyDev.org: If you have worked in international development, you have probably experienced isolation. It seems to be a fact of life…<\/p>\n

Continue readingWould You Be Interested in Peer Coaching in Development Work?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,28,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-development","category-jobs","category-miscellaneous","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gPg8-1uA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5747,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}