In this conversation, life coach and arts therapist Sarah Speziali explores how coaching can make a difference when tackling the mental health crisis that we currently face worldwide. Sarah's work has an international scope and is diverse in the fields she operates in. Sarah delivers training for professionals, teachers, parents, and students on mental health awareness and wellbeing, host coaching and creativity retreats in Italy, and has a therapeutic and coaching private practice. A part of her role as Chief Therapist at InsideOut she curates content and manages a team of 40+ coaches and therapists working on different time zones and in different languages to support employees' mental health and wellbeing. InsideOut is a tech startup that allows anyone to access therapy and coaching wherever they are through accessible tools via the InsideOut app. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Sarah hosts free and confidential support circles for employees on furlough, NHS staff, and individuals in order to strengthen the sense of solidarity and emotional resilience while facing this unprecedented time of change and uncertainty. Sarah's main area of interest is the power creativity has on the development of human potential. Finding links between different art forms, cultures, and approaches inspires her practice using creativity and dialogue as a key to unlock potential, invite self-expression, and enhance self-awareness.

I have been involved in several integration projects for the past five years, starting from the arrival of refugees in Germany. Everyone Song is a weekly meeting circle I ran with an opera Singer bringing newcomer refugees together with Berliners. That is when I realized the power of the dialogue. It is possible to enable strangers to communicate, and to exchange if you create the right atmosphere and rules for a healthy dialogue. Since 2015, I have been working in social business programs that enable migrants to start their own business in Germany or back in their homes. I support social organisations in Iraq to come up with peaceful solutions to the conflicts they are facing. Regardless of where we are in the World, we are becoming increasingly diverse and different. There is more a need than ever to be able to have a dialogue that enables us to communicate so that we are able to live in harmony I started with Animas last year. Coaching is the key I was searching for. The road to a peaceful world starts with a dialogue.

Supporting some of the most vulnerable members of society - ex-offenders, youth, those experiencing long term unemployment, homelessness, mental health, and physical health issues - is where I developed the fundamental coaching skills that continue to inform my work. This work now focuses on ‘helping the helpers’ - educators, medical practitioners, and activists. I am currently exploring the gaps within our system and how coaching can meet the varying, often complex, needs of different groups within society to create a more connected, collective, and wholesome community with personal resilience and wellbeing is at its core.

Julie Creffield is founder of a global plus size fitness coaching business which just turned 10 years old, and now works also as a community engagement strategist and business coach. Julie's talk explores the highs and lows of running a high impact socially driven coaching business, and the myths that you can’t do good in the world and also make a profit too. Sharing the story of how her company Too Fat to Run was formed, some of the challenges of monetising, the high points, and also my thoughts on how small business owners can build profitable mission led communities around their work. Julie has been working in community engagement for more than 2 decades, having worked on high profile mega events like the London 2012 Olympics, with a specialism of engaging hard to reach groups. She loves the idea of bringing people together around a shared purpose and my motto across all of my businesses is “nobody left behind”.

We all need to be willing to talk more about money and get rid of those feelings of embarrassment or the anxiety that often arises from doing so. In fact, research suggests that British people would prefer to talk about politics, religion or sex, rather than talk about money. However, life goes on whether or not we are happy to talk about things we find embarrassing. Currently, about 28.7 million working-age adults in the UK are not satisfied with their finances. No wonder – we live lives of ever-increasing financial complexity. We must deal with busy lives and the complexities of major financial decisions, as well as key life events such as bereavement, buying a home or nearing retirement. Everything seems to influence the world of finance: from global political issues such as Coronavirus and Brexit to local issues like housing, schooling, and work prospects. A growing body of evidence shows that anxiety about finances leads to poorer mental, physical, and social wellbeing and that this affects attendance and performance at work. In fact, those suffering from financial worries are 4.1 times more likely to be suffering from anxiety. In my talk, we will be discussing how I use financial wellbeing strategies to support workplaces' physical and mental wellbeing, as well as tips on how to find and get involved in similar associations that promote social impact.

At Blueprint for Better Business, we challenge companies to be a force for good and contribute to a better society. We primarily work with Boards, C-suite, and senior leadership at FTSE 100 companies. Organisations are a product of people's thinking. Ways of thinking, and the subsequent impact on others, can enable or limit what any organisation can achieve for itself and society. We do not offer businesses a ‘how-to’ guide but explore and challenge dominate assumptions that shape how businesses think and act. In this talk, I will explore these assumptions (with light historical context), the importance of creating space for dialogue and debate, the challenges of leadership and a high-level overview of the journey companies undertake. I will also share emerging thoughts on business in light of the current health crisis and the looming climate crisis

In this interview, hear how coaching can be a powerful catalyst for and facilitator of social change. What started as a project to inform Gem's work as a coach soon snowballed into something they could not have envisioned when they qualified with Animas in 2018. Gem talks about their passion for bringing activists and changemakers from different social movements together and how coaching plays an instrumental part in that, particularly when your work is integrated into your way of showing up in the world. Gem Kennedy (they/them or she/her) is a transformational coach, activist and founder of Queers & Co., a podcast, zine and community for queer folks and allies.

As countries started to lockdown around the world from COVID-19, we realised that the emotional and psychological impact of the crisis would be huge. Support Haven started out as an idea to offer free coaching to help people better cope and quickly blossomed into a community of over 100 Animas coaches mobilised to help. Our volunteers offer two hours per week of pro bono coaching to anyone feeling challenged by COVID-19 globally. Through emotional support and practical guidance, we help people feel more calm and grounded. This is an inspiring story of restoring faith in humanity by highlighting the shared values in our coaching community and pulling together to help in moments of great difficulty.

When Nick first came to coaching, its focus was clear: the individual client. Coaching was still in its infancy then and, in many ways, it was setting itself up as a counterpart to traditional people-helping professions. Its focus on goals, actions and accountability made it a refreshing antidote to the more introspective practices. But all practices evolve and coaching is no exception. Over the last 20 years, it has matured into a profession that has drawn influences from far and wide and attracted practitioners from every walk of life. This diversity and richness have brought with it new ways of seeing. The individual client is no longer the sole focus of coaching and, increasingly, the systemic lens has begun to find a welcome place in coaching as coaches gear their work to have the widest possible ripple-effect. Along with this systemic approach has come a different, yet complementary energy - that of coaching as a means to larger-scale change. Alongside traditional practices, coaches are increasingly finding ways to collaborate and bring project-based coaching to hard-to-reach groups and organisations that normally can't access costly coaching programmes. Nick will suggest that we are only just at the start of a groundswell of change within the coaching community as the membership of the coaching profession changes, diversifying from traditional corporate recruitment pool to a more fully inclusive movement of people who share core beliefs of empowerment, compassion, courage and the belief in personal agency and collective action. As the founder of Animas, and the host of this summit, he brings together a vibrant group of coaches today to share their work, explore the challenges they've encountered, and ultimately to encourage an ever greater movement to scale coaching to new communities.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic shone a light on the fragility of our environment and infrastructure. Many people are saying it was a wake-up call to reflect on what kind of future we want to design as citizens of the world. And with the Climate Emergency becoming ever more real, how will people cope with an increasingly unstable world? What is the role of coaching in helping people to cope with everything from Eco-Anxiety to fundamental changes driven by global warming? How do we help people move from feeling powerless to powerful in light of seemingly unstoppable threats to our current way of living?