Sessions will run from 12pm - 1:30pm
Coaching-style conversations to help you engage with, reflect on, and boost your workplace wellbeing, and improve your productivity.
Working as a freelance translator can be hugely satisfying, but it can also be very frustrating and stressful. Automation, for instance, is currently acting as a massive disrupter in the industry. For some of us, this is starting to affect our workplace wellbeing.
In this series of hands-on workshops, we invite you to take the time to engage with, reflect on and boost your workplace wellbeing and, therefore, your productivity. You will learn to master the key ingredients of coaching-style conversations (deep listening, incisive questions, use of silence, but also empathetic listening). You will also be given the chance to practise these with your peers.
The idea is to create a safe thinking environment where we can become more aware of our own unique strengths and resourcefulness. To that effect, the workshops will introduce you to the psychological construct of “mental toughness”. Sometimes seen as a misnomer, mental toughness here is best understood as the way(s) in which we deal with challenges, stressors, and pressure irrespective of circumstances. More specifically, during these workshops you will find out more about – and learn to hold specific coaching style conversations around – each of the four main characteristics of mental toughness, namely commitment, challenge, control and confidence.
Workshop 1 | Thursday 12th June 2025
Introduction to coaching, coaching-style conversations and mental toughness
Session runs 12pm - 1:30pm
Workshop 2 | Friday 11 July 2025
Commitment
Session runs 12pm - 1:30pm
Workshop 3 | Thursday 18 September 2025
Challenge
Session runs 12pm - 1:30pm
Workshop 4 | Thursday 9 October 2025
Control
Session runs 12pm - 1:30pm
Workshop 5 | Thursday 6 November 2025
Confidence
Session runs 12pm - 1:30pm
The course will consist of five online workshops led by a certified Personal and Executive Coach who doubles up as a translation studies scholar (Dr JC Penet, Newcastle University) and a researcher with recognised expertise in the field of mental toughness (Dr Helen St Clair-Thompson, Newcastle University). Each workshop will last 1.5 hours. During the first part of each, you will be briefly introduced to a new aspect of mental toughness and coaching-style conversation. You will then be given the opportunity to practise coaching-style conversations around that aspect of mental toughness with your peers.
Please note:
This training is part of an action-research project led by Newcastle University and supported by ITI. The income generated from ticket sales will be donated to the ITI Bursary Fund. In exchange for participation in these workshops, participants agree to fill in the entry and exit forms, to attend all scheduled online workshops (insofar as possible) and to attend the online debriefing sessions in December 2025/January 2026. Participants will have the right to withdraw from this project at any time.
Read about the speakers
Dr Helen St Clair Thompson
