The second cohort of the Dragon’s Heart Institute’s leadership programme, Climb, recently began with a three-day residential at the Dark Swan training facility in Wiltshire.
A new cohort of thirty leaders selected from scores of applications from all walks of health and social care across Wales came together to begin their Climb journey under the guidance of Dan Cooke and Al Hulmes of Dark Swan and their crack team of international search and rescue experts alongside Jonathon Gray and a team from Climb.
Climb is a 10-month programme which combines world-leading teaching with the opportunity to build leadership practice. With a focus on innovation in health and care, the cohort will learn new skills, forge networks and build relationships that will support you as their careers progress.
Dark Swan is a training organisation affiliated with the international rescue charity, Serve On. They run workshops, live challenges and radical immersion events to teach people how to adapt, be resilient and perform better as a team.
The cohort spent the residential getting to know each other but also more about themselves and how they are likely to react in crisis situations. This work set a strong foundation for the months ahead before the cohort return to Dark Swan to undertake a radical immersive exercise which will test their teamworking and leadership skills to their limits.
Before this, the cohort will have a year of training and teaching from some of the most well-known leaders from Wales and internationally. One such teacher is Mark Prain, founding director of the Hillary Institute for International Leadership based in New Zealand. Mark was also present at this Climb event and lead the team through a session on identifying their whakapapa (identity/genealogy), their purpose, and to clarify their sense of belonging together as a cohort.
Jonathon Gray, lead for the Dragon’s Heart Institute and the Climb leadership programme, said, “It’s incredibly exciting seeing these amazing individuals from across the entire health and care system in Wales working with brilliant experts from other industries. This is the first step in building a brilliant team of leaders to call upon to solve the big problems of the future.”
Dan Cooke, Operations Manager and co-founder for Dark Swan, said, “We’re trying to build and amazing team, and an amazing community. Climb is about putting people through different experiences which will allow them to get to know themselves, each other and take the first steps on this journey.”
