Gillian Squirrell

Dr Squirrell has worked as a researcher, lecturer and manager within universities, as a consultant and evaluator in social justice and social welfare sectors and to NFPs. She has founded a couple of small non-profits in the UK and US. She is a practicing and accredited coach, and proponent of action learning and developing communities of interest. She is a writer, trainer and curriculum developer.

Coaches Training Institute trained and accredited as a coach (2013-2014) and trained in the CTI philosophy and model of relational and multi-dimensional leadership (2015). She has trained and been accredited in a range of modalities and models such as Tiny Habits (2020), Play Your Bigger Game (2015) and in equine supported coaching and leadership 2017-2020). For the past 12 years she has been in the US and involved in much work in the fields of human-animal interactions and anthrozoology working with the Humane Society and Open University of the Netherlands, as well as founding a non-profit reaching people living homeless through their animal companions.

Current projects and preoccupations are in the arena of developing self-leadership and the value of self-coaching and developing awareness and skills to self-lead and to self-coach. This is the subject material of a current book. She is, as are so many of us, concerned with the power of learning and growth post-trauma and intensely curious how we sense make and will grow through our current collective and seemingly endless VUCA.

Recently relocated back to the UK she is establishing herself in Devon and setting up The First Draft and a green center for coaching and leadership activities. She is always open to learning and reflection, which are in her view at the heart of any good coaching and leadership.