How can coaching support young people from underrepresented backgrounds to access opportunity and thrive?

Written by Alex Whitton, Bridging Project Lead Coach

Too often we hear and read of the barriers many students face to accessing opportunity. At the beginning of every Bridging Project programme I hear how participants are worried that they have gained their place at university by some mistake. Students can spend weeks of their summer preparing backup plans for when they don’t get the grades they were predicted. And when they do get the grades they didn’t believe they could, they then face the fear that “everyone else will be better than me”.

These experiences reflect the collective and individual barriers, such as less knowledge, belief or skills, than their peers due to being from backgrounds underrepresented and unfamiliar with university (such as low socio-economic backgrounds or being a first generation university student). These barriers are often the product of persistent societal inequalities, that mean many young people face significant challenges to not only accessing opportunities like university, but to thrive when that opportunity has been attained. While this is true, it is demoralising and disempowering for students. 

And while that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge these very real systemic inequalities, if we are to overcome them and support young people to overcome them, then we need a new narrative. 

By the end of the year-long coaching programme students talk of having found their people, experiencing opportunities, such as talks, societies or sports, they never thought possible, and developing skills that were a distant dream at the start of the programme. All that while getting through the academic study they worried about juggling alongside having a social life and fitting in. In short, they feel they belong. 

So what happens in between? Coaching.

Coaching offers an invaluable way of rewriting that disempowering narrative, reconnecting underrepresented students with the ownership to take action based on their unique strengths and to navigate the barriers they face when transitioning to university. 

So how does coaching support students to overcome the limiting beliefs and barriers that underrepresentation and societal inequalities create? 

Coaching provides a consistent, non-judgemental space for students to work out what they want and how to get there. At the heart of this space is the belief that the student has the answers and through the coaching space can recognise their strengths and resources to find and fulfil those answers, no matter the size or scale of the challenge presented. 

Supporting students to take ownership for their lives

In essence almost every coaching session starts with the question: ‘what do you want?’ 

‘What do you want from this session?’

‘What do you want to work towards?’

‘What do you want it to be like?’

Rarely are these questions that students are asked regularly, if at all, by the age of 19 nor given the space to find their answer. Underneath that question is an implicit belief: that the student knows what they want and this space is here to help them work out what it is and how to get there. Even in the face of injustice and systemic barriers, by asking ‘what you want’, to give space to find an answer, plants the seed that says ‘it doesn’t have to be this way’.

While we can think all day about what we want, that doesn’t make the barriers go away or the challenges any less daunting. However, in starting with the desired-outcome students can face the problems and barriers with the motivation of how they’d like it to be and find meaning and focus behind what they are doing. 

Reframing self-limiting beliefs

The safe and non-judgemental coaching space helps identify what does and doesn’t support students. Underpinning a lot of the challenges students face at university are self-limiting beliefs that are instilled from the barriers and inequalities they have grown up facing. 

These limiting beliefs have in some way been of service, for example maintaining safety from a fear of failure. Still, through non-judgemental questioning coaching explores those beliefs and helps create ones that better serve and support students to get to where they  want to be rather than what the beliefs dictate to them.

Translating the abstract into the practical

While reframed beliefs and a clear direction are valuable, the value is realised when coaching helps translate this clarity into action. 

Coaching helps join the dots from where students are now to where they want to be and the actions needed to get there.

Providing the space to acknowledge setbacks and navigate challenges 

Life isn’t as straightforward as vision, action, result, especially when confronted by systemic barriers. 

It is easier to break a challenge down when students not only know where they want to get to but the realities of the challenge. What will get in the way?

Coaching enables students to honestly recognise that something is particularly difficult or challenging. In doing so students can ‘right-size’ their actions accordingly. For example breaking things down into smaller steps to achieve something that feels more straightforward, or creating contingency plans and learning how to be flexible and adapt based on what is likely to get in the way. Plus, in acknowledging the challenges students can also learn how to give themselves the care and kindness often needed when difficulties arise and when  things may not go right the first time around. 

In coaching, the winners are the learners

In the coaching space, students not only safely learn to navigate challenges but to celebrate what they learn and the progress that learning reflects. This learning also provides the space for students to learn more about themselves: what they like, what they really care about, how they work best. This self-knowledge is invaluable in the uncertainty that is life at university and beyond. Students can take this learning beyond the coaching, refining their approaches to better navigate future challenges, such as their careers, beyond the support of the coach.

The impact beyond the individual

Systems change is often seen as the secret sauce to creating lasting, meaningful positive societal change. What drives systems change most are ‘mental models’, all the beliefs and assumptions that keep things where they are.

Coaching supports underrepresented students to navigate and overcome barriers they face to thrive. In doing so it drives systems change as not only do these young people overcome these barriers they become role models for similar young people breaking the belief that “people like me can’t do x”.

So while deep-seated societal issues won’t be solved overnight in empowering individuals to achieve their potential regardless of the barriers they face, coaching creates the ripple that means, student by student, barriers to realising potential can be overcome. Long-term that means we will see more young people benefit from social mobility and a society that is fairer, where anyone can realise their potential regardless of their background.