Facilitative Leadership, Coaching and Mentoring
Postgraduate
ACU-HLSC661 2023Course information for 2023 intake
Engage and empower staff in health care environments. You’ll study techniques in mentoring and coaching and build skills to put them in practice. Foster continuous improvement in healthcare settings. Build capacity, motivate, and support staff to evolve.
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- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- Part of a degree
- Duration
- 13 weeks
- Loan available
- FEE-HELP available
Facilitative Leadership, Coaching and Mentoring
About this subject
On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:
LO1 - Critically evaluate models/principles or theories of coaching, mentoring and facilitation to demonstrate an understanding of how workplace motivators and demotivators can impact on the health care environment (GA1, GA2);
LO2 - Critically analyse the skills required for effective coaching, mentoring and facilitation that underpin a culture of safety in working together for optimal outcomes (GA1, GA2, GA3, GA4, GA5);
LO3 - Develop and apply advanced knowledge of the key skills and attributes required for effective facilitation, coaching and mentoring within a community of practice that leads to quality improvement in a healthcare setting (GA1, GA3, GA4, GA5, GA6).
- Topics will include:
- The theoretic basis for leadership, mentoring and coaching
- - Exploring the theoretical basis for coaching, mentoring and facilitation from a leadership perspective
- - Coaching, mentoring and facilitation – roles/responsibilities
- - Facilitative leadership, coaching, mentoring skills
- Applying systems thinking in facilitative leadership
- - Motivation/demotivation
- - Knowledge transfer
- - Utilising a systems approach to support work-based activities
- - Plans, contracts and agreements
- Capacity building
- - Developing communities of practice
- - Creating a supportive learning environment
- - Diversity and inclusivity
- - Professional development, career and succession planning
- - Leading and supporting the evolving digital health environment
- Evaluation
- - Assessing and evaluating organisational culture and change
- - Staff engagement and empowerment
- - Leadership challenges and opportunities in coaching, mentoring and facilitation
Leaders and managers in health care are expected to have a range of skills necessary to meet the challenges involved in leading their staff through a diverse and dynamic workplace environment. These challenges include: the evolving use of digital technologies in healthcare, ensuring patient safety, managing staff productivity, performance and retention as well as taking lead responsibility for quality improvement and cost efficiencies. Meeting these challenges requires effective skills that guide and shape practice improvement through facilitative processes that promote staff engagement, empowerment and retention, support team cohesion and collaboration and are more likely to result in a safe and high quality healthcare environment. Facilitative leadership, coaching and mentoring is based on mutual respect, trust and value alignment resulting in collective responsibility for patient safety, and fosters innovation in practice by promoting creativity and critical thinking.
This unit aims to prepare students with facilitative leadership, coaching and mentoring skills that are required to build their capacity to apply a systems approach in facilitating, coaching and mentoring staff in working effectively together for the common good in a variety of healthcare settings.
In order to pass this unit, students are expected to submit three graded assessment tasks. In addition, students must achieve a cumulative grade of at least 50% across all assessments. In order to reward students for engagement and performance, a final graded result will be awarded.
The assessment strategy used allows for the progressive development of knowledge and skills necessary for the student to be able to apply coaching, mentoring and facilitation strategies based on theoretical principles that can lead to quality improvement/s in a healthcare setting. These are skills required by all leaders and managers who have responsibility for staff management and development within the health industry. The assessment tasks for this unit are designed for the student to demonstrate their achievement of each learning outcome- Reflective essay Enables students to reflect on the role of the leader as coach, mentor and facilitator and the impact of such leadership skill on quality improvement within a healthcare environment via a written reflection. (25%)
- Case Study Enables online students to engage in online discussion to analyse a selection of case studies and compare and contrast various roles associated with each concept (coach, mentor, facilitator) in a healthcare environment. (30%)
- Report Enables students to develop a facilitation, coaching or mentoring plan or agreement that incorporates an evaluation process. (45%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
Established in 1991 after amalgamating four eastern Australian Catholic tertiary institutes, Australian Catholic University now has seven campuses, from Brisbane to Melbourne and welcomes students of all beliefs. Specialising in arts, business, education, health sciences, law, theology and philosophy, ACU encourages its students to think critically and ethically and bring change to their communities and offer this online through Open Universities Australia.
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- QS Ranking 2025:
- 35
- Times Higher Education Ranking 2025:
- 26
Entry requirements
To enrol in this subject, you must be admitted into a degree.
Additional requirements
No additional requirements
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.