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Empowering New Parents: A Deep Dive with NCT's CEO, Angela McConville · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:01
  Elizabeth Willetts: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you turn navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
• 0:22
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• 0:30
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• 1:07
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• 1:11
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• 1:51
  Elizabeth Willetts: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:58
  Elizabeth Willetts: Today, I have an incredibly special guest joining us.
• 2:02
  Elizabeth Willetts: It's Angela Maconville, the CEO of NCT.
• 2:06
  Elizabeth Willetts: Angela has a rich and diverse professional background.
• 2:10
  Elizabeth Willetts: She's been an inspirational figure in the not-for-profit sector and she has affected meaningful change and innovation throughout her career.
• 2:18
  Elizabeth Willetts: Her impressive journey spans roles such as the CEO of the Old Royal Navy College Westway Trust and now at the helm of NCT, where she's dedicated to supporting new parents during their first thousand days of their child's life.
• 2:34
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm going to be talking about strategic insights into the world of charity and philanthropy to Angela's vision for NCT and beyond.
• 2:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: So sit back, get comfortable and join us in an exciting conversation with the visionary leader herself, angela.
• 2:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: Let's dive right in.
• 2:51
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you so much, angela, for joining me today.
• 2:53
  Elizabeth Willetts: It's such a pleasure to chat with you and obviously learn more about you and your experiences and NCT, who I don't think they need a huge introduction, because most parents will have heard of NCT, but for those of people that haven't heard of NCT, could you just give us a bit of an overview to who you are, what you do and who you help, of course, Well, it's just great to be with you today.
• 3:16
  Angela McConville: Elizabeth, thank you so much for inviting me.
• 3:18
  Angela McConville: And yes, nct is the charity that supports people as they become parents.
• 3:23
  Angela McConville: So, essentially, we are the national charity for pregnancy, birth, infant feeding and early parenthood, and we have a very, I guess, distinct ability to be both a national organisation in terms of our voice and our reach and our advocacy, but we also work in almost 340 branches all over the country, in all four nations and the Channel Islands, so I like to think of us as the national charity in your community.
• 3:51
  Angela McConville: Yeah.
• 3:52
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean, how did it start NCT?
• 3:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: Did it?
• 3:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: Because you know a lot of people have heard of NCT because they'll have gone to a group.
• 3:57
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know, like me, I booked on to my local group when I found out I was pregnant and obviously you get your due date and I'm going to meet people due at a similar time to me.
• 4:06
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know it's a great way to make friends.
• 4:07
  Elizabeth Willetts: But how did it start?
• 4:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: Did it start off with the local groups or did it start off something else?
• 4:13
  Angela McConville: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 4:14
  Angela McConville: And actually NCT has an incredible history and heritage and, if anyone's particularly interested, we've actually laid down an archive in the Welcome Collection in London where I believe a whole community of volunteers, of women who had been involved in the founding years and decades collected a lot of letters and cartoons and newsletters and photography and yeah, there's a really, you know, fantastic national archive that documents the early history of NCT and its impact on sort of social and health policy over the decades.
• 4:49
  Angela McConville: But essentially and you know it's a sad story our founder, pranella Breons, lost a child in birth and I think there was a sense within a community of women that she knew and was professionally and friendship terms, with a sense that there was just a lack of advocacy and empowerment and education for women in terms of their, I guess, the agency and the decision making that they could have in their own birthing journeys and pregnancy journeys.
• 5:18
  Angela McConville: And so I think an advert was placed in a national newspaper citing the intention to set up an association like a childbirth association, and that was in the late fifties and I think there was an incredible response to that and what evolved in the years that followed was essentially a community organizing movement, a feminist movement of women organizing in communities, supporting each other and developing educational resources and an in time training and upskilling some of their, some of the women, to act as what we would now call perinatal practitioners.
• 5:54
  Angela McConville: So you know, women birth educators working in communities to help educate, empower and, I guess, give confidence.
• 6:02
  Angela McConville: And that will be, that's very much at the heart of our vision now, which is about giving confidence and connection and having a vision for the safety of all women through that journey.
• 6:11
  Angela McConville: So it's a really interesting history.
• 6:13
  Elizabeth Willetts: It didn't.
• 6:13
  Elizabeth Willetts: So she'd obviously had a really obviously had such terrible experience and she was, you know.
• 6:18
  Elizabeth Willetts: It sounded like she was passionate, she didn't want anyone else to experience that and she might have felt like down by the medical.
• 6:24
  Angela McConville: Yeah, I think that's right, and there's an expression that we hold in our chair of safe, which is that she said I felt someone should do something about it, so I did, and it's a real sense of like she.
• 6:35
  Angela McConville: You know, there was an activism there and I mean that's always been in our, in the DNA of our organization, which is to organize and to be activist in terms of calling for change.
• 6:46
  Angela McConville: And that's still, you know, as strong today as ever and in fact, our new strategy for the next five years, you know, renews our commitment to being a campaigning and advocacy organization and calling for the best, you know maternity and postnatal support and services that women you know need and deserve all over the country.
• 7:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, and it obviously is patches.
• 7:09
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean, there's been so much recently, hasn't there in the news about different hospital trusts that have let down their patients, and that obviously must be a concern.
• 7:20
  Angela McConville: You know it's been a really challenging and sad and distressing year for, I guess, for the maternity community.
• 7:28
  Angela McConville: So, yes, I mean some of your listeners may or may not be aware, but there've been a number of very high profile inquiries and investigations into the performance of hospital trust where there have been some very shocking findings, you know, in terms of workforce and capability, but also culture and leadership.
• 7:49
  Angela McConville: And you know the CQC, the Care Quality Commission, are now undertaking an inspection regime that will look at all hospital trust maternity units and the findings thus far are not great.
• 8:01
  Angela McConville: In fact they're pretty grim reading.
• 8:02
  Angela McConville: You know, like I think something like almost half are deemed substandard at the moment.
• 8:08
  Angela McConville: So you know it's a.
• 8:10
  Angela McConville: I think what you describe as like as a postcode, I mean I think what you were saying was like a postcode lottery.
• 8:15
  Angela McConville: But you know there's definitely I want to be measured and careful about what I say, because the UK is still one of the safest places in the world to have a baby.
• 8:24
  Angela McConville: So you know I don't want to be in the in the sort of field of scaremongering and I think this is a place where NCT has a very important role to play, which is to help women and people who are pregnant and their partners to understand what their rights are and to understand what they can ask for and to really feel confident and empowered to advocate for themselves or their partner in their journeys to ask questions to, to know that they have, you know, the right to see their medical notes to, you know, to ask if there are alternative options, to have inquiry to.
• 8:58
  Angela McConville: You know all of that is about.
• 9:00
  Angela McConville: So if you have a system that's under stress, which we know that our maternity and postnatal systems are, then it's ever more important that women and their birthing partners, you know, really have the confidence to feel like they can exert control and be questioning and curious about the treatment that they're receiving.
• 9:20
  Angela McConville: Absolutely.
• 9:21
  Elizabeth Willetts: And I do remember when I did my course is you do get a lot of knowledge and actually that knowledge is you know, it's powerful, isn't it?
• 9:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: They do say knowledge is power and then you know.
• 9:30
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know you can advocate things, you can ask the things, and obviously that's hugely important, especially if you're giving birth for the first time.
• 9:37
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know, and it's scary, you're not sure what's happening and actually to go in armed with that you know, for knowledge it is, it does really help, actually, I think, building your confidence going in into that situation.
• 9:49
  Angela McConville: I think that's right and I think that that's what we would hold.
• 9:52
  Angela McConville: True is that you know, information and a sense of agency and empowerment are really important contributors to feeling confident and safe, and I don't just mean medically safe, but psychologically safe and emotionally safe.
• 10:08
  Angela McConville: And, as you say, something that's entirely you know for some women.
• 10:12
  Angela McConville: You know that you'll feel like you're most vulnerable, like, yes, can be a deeply transformative experience, but it can also be a very frightening or isolating or, and depending on what your history has been, you know, if you've experienced a long pregnancy journey or, you know, say, an IVF journey, or you've experienced baby loss, actually there can be a lot of vulnerability at the point at which you're preparing to have your baby.
• 10:34
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, we talked about that, didn't we?
• 10:36
  Elizabeth Willetts: I think before we jumped on the call about how I don't know if you've checked you've done something recently to start considering the journey people have been on before they get pregnant.
• 10:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you want to expand a little bit on that?
• 11:41
  Angela McConville: Yeah, of course.
• 11:41
  Angela McConville: Yeah, I mean, well, we've just launched our new strategy at NCT, which sets out our vision for the next five years and what it is that we want to do in the world and the impact that we want to make.
• 11:53
  Angela McConville: And you know, we were really sort of what's the word like?
• 11:56
  Angela McConville: Restless, to make sure that we really understood, like, who it is that's having babies today and tomorrow, and to make sure that NCT can show up in ways that are really relevant and inclusive and trusted.
• 12:08
  Angela McConville: And so, yeah, you can imagine that it's.
• 12:11
  Angela McConville: You know it's becoming an ever more complex picture.
• 12:14
  Angela McConville: You know the nature of the family structure is changing and, yes, our research showed us that.
• 12:20
  Angela McConville: You know, there are more babies born to women who themselves were not born in the UK, babies born to same sex couples, babies, you know, born as a result of, you know, fertility or IVF.
• 12:33
  Angela McConville: And so we've been thinking deeply about how NCT makes sure that we're an organization that can support all parents, no exceptions.
• 12:44
  Angela McConville: You know we want to be there to support every you know circumstance, every contact, and I think that that's been a very, very intentional part of the strategy to really hold ourselves true to our principles of inclusion and accessibility.
• 12:58
  Angela McConville: That, of course, invites us to do things differently into the future and to think about who we work with and how we source our information and our content and our partnerships.
• 13:08
  Angela McConville: So, but it's really exciting and we've had such a really positive response to that from like, such a diverse community of partner organizations and also parents who, I think, see themselves in that picture of what, you know, family life and parenting is today.
• 13:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, I mean I guess it's completely different to the late fifties when got an end the lady that set up NCT and and probably you know the parents she was envisaging she would be supporting.
• 13:37
  Elizabeth Willetts: But I think it's good how it's changing and how you know how it's been your parents and children at the heart of that and you know today's parents, whatever day we're at, whether you know, whatever year.
• 13:48
  Elizabeth Willetts: So your background has been most recently in public sector and not for profit.
• 13:53
  Elizabeth Willetts: Is that an area you always wanted to work in?
• 13:56
  Elizabeth Willetts: Because I saw you started in another big four.
• 13:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: What were your career aspirations when you were growing up?
• 14:02
  Angela McConville: Oh, that's a good question.
• 14:03
  Angela McConville: I'm not sure that I was very clear about my aspirations and it's been a bit of a checkered journey to get to this place.
• 14:11
  Angela McConville: But actually I had a.
• 14:12
  Angela McConville: You know I was an arts graduate.
• 14:15
  Angela McConville: You know, I did my degree in English literature and I had great aspirations of, you know, probably writing the definitive Irish novel and or maybe writing a play or something like that.
• 14:25
  Angela McConville: But I found myself, yeah, in London as a graduate consultant working for Price Waterhouse Cuppers, but it wasn't quite the right environment for me and I think I recognized that, you know, within a couple of years that I just felt like I just couldn't make a connection with, I guess, with the purpose and the work.
• 14:42
  Angela McConville: And so the story I was telling myself was that I was just going to take six months working on a social inclusion project in London, in West London, and you know, do some really, you know, purposeful and socially motivated projects.
• 14:54
  Angela McConville: And I was just so grateful that socially motivating work and kind of work out what I wanted to do with my.
• 14:57
  Angela McConville: You know, I was so young then but I guess then at the time I thought I was thinking deeply about my future and, to be honest, I just never really looked back Like.
• 15:05
  Angela McConville: That project led me into working for a regeneration company that, or you know, like a housing and regeneration company that was delivering services across lots of social housing estates in London and the whole portfolio of work that was had at its heart like social and economic regeneration.
• 15:24
  Angela McConville: That started my career.
• 15:26
  Angela McConville: Then, as I started out, I actually helped that company establish a charity that would take forward the legacy of regeneration work and they asked me to be the, if you like, the, founding chief executive, which sounds very grand.
• 15:39
  Angela McConville: But at the time there was like eight of us and we were a bit sort of maverick, creative people who were sort of given some freedom to experiment and to undertake really interesting creative work in terms of social regeneration and I guess that it ignited a spark for me.
• 15:58
  Angela McConville: But it's been very interesting that it's taken me to get to NCT and then to discover in conversation with my own mother, who herself was, you know, a community, I guess, activist and actor and I've got this beautiful photograph which I've shared with my colleagues at NCT, where my mum founded a play school in that we're talking about.
• 16:20
  Angela McConville: This was in Northern Ireland in the 70s, in the heart of the Troubles, in a very Catholic rural community where there was no sort of parental infrastructure and, you know, women were at home and quite isolated.
• 16:31
  Angela McConville: Men went out to work or to farm or against you know a pretty traumatic backdrop, you would describe it now and my mum, with a whole group of women you know like not dissimilar to like NCT's organizing women, founded a play school and then my mum went on to lead and then be the sort of like chair of this play group for like 12 years and I've got this beautiful photograph taken, I think around 1979, mum thinks it was and you know, here she is with all of these women and all of these children.
• 17:02
  Angela McConville: And I sort of realized that it took me a while when I'd come full circle and that there here I was, you know, leading NCT, and I felt that I had a good chat with my mum about how, like do you think it was always by destiny to do this work, because you know she had been such a formidable influence on me and I'd seen her go out and do like she wasn't paid, she was a volunteer but she did it committedly for over a decade and that play group still thrives today and is still part of the community sort of support and services in our local village.
• 17:33
  Angela McConville: So so, yeah, so I don't know if it was always kind of written in the stars, but there is certainly a kind of like like circle of life aspect to it which I guess is very authentic for me.
• 17:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, do you think you could ever work for like a private company, or do you think you'll always stay working in the not for profit data?
• 17:52
  Angela McConville: Well, I mean, what I think is that and this is a conversation that we have, you know, regularly at NCT is that, in a world where businesses are becoming much more interested in concepts of purpose and sort of social impact, actually there's starting to be a blurring.
• 18:09
  Angela McConville: I mean not, I don't want to suggest, you know, like it's, you know, a system change, but you know a lot more companies are talking about purpose.
• 18:18
  Angela McConville: I recently gave a talk at Henley Business School to their MBA programme and you know, from all sectors whether it was technology or pharmaceuticals, or you know research, leisure you know people were really interested about purpose and connecting to purpose and so and so I guess the answer to your question is like never say never.
• 18:38
  Angela McConville: I think there are people inside the private sector and inside, you know, the public sector doing hugely creative work, whether that's, you know, on the environment, on climate, on social justice issues.
• 18:50
  Angela McConville: But I think it would have to be that you know the right role in the right kind of organisation, because I think once you've been in the charity sector and I was just at a dinner with other charity leaders last night where what we were discussing together is that one of the great joys of working in the charity sector is there's an immense freedom to be creative and to be entrepreneurial because you respond to the needs of people and communities as you meet them and you're often in a resource constrained environment.
• 19:19
  Angela McConville: So you know, I mean, nct is quite lucky or distinct in that we trade more than fundraise.
• 19:26
  Angela McConville: But the availability of resources is always a challenge for charities and so that calls on you to be quite creative with what you do with the resources you have and charities are quite experimental places to work.
• 19:38
  Angela McConville: So I have loved and, you know, have learned a lot working in the charity sector and I think I don't know if it's your sense, elizabeth, but charities get they don't have a great brand sometimes around this sense of like you know, creativity and innovation and entrepreneurialism.
• 19:54
  Angela McConville: But actually people I know and respect deeply in the sector, I would say are some of the most creative collaborative people I've that I've ever worked with.
• 20:03
  Elizabeth Willetts: You've got such an impressive career.
• 20:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean, you know obviously you're CEO now of a national charity.
• 20:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: Talk us through what it looked like earlier in your career getting those promotions, how you put yourself forward and you know those roles and where you've got, how you got to where you are today.
• 20:20
  Angela McConville: Well, I'd love to be able to paint you a picture of some masterclass in super womanhood, but actually there was a lot of bridging from one sort of I had young children when I took my first serious chief executive role.
• 20:36
  Angela McConville: I don't want to say just the first one wasn't, but it was young and fledgling and we were.
• 20:40
  Angela McConville: It was very entrepreneurial, it was very startup and I didn't have children.
• 20:43
  Angela McConville: But when I was on maternity leave with my daughter she was my second child I was approached to take on a chief executive ship of a much larger charity with significant staffing and community impact and asset.
• 20:57
  Angela McConville: I remember at the time getting some advice from a mentor I was working with about just being really, really open to help and accepting that to do both not brilliantly, but to do a good job for my family and to do a good job at work.
• 21:12
  Angela McConville: I would have to say yes to a lot of help and that that was okay.
• 21:15
  Angela McConville: I just needed to be okay with that.
• 21:17
  Angela McConville: So I did.
• 21:20
  Angela McConville: I had all sorts of Whether it was family help or an au pair for a couple of years to help give me some elasticity in my day.
• 21:28
  Angela McConville: I think just having the humility to say I can't do it all single-handedly.
• 21:34
  Angela McConville: It worked for me.
• 21:36
  Angela McConville: I don't know that it would work for everyone.
• 21:39
  Angela McConville: It's a very personal choice.
• 21:40
  Angela McConville: I mean, my children have enjoyed being raised by the village, if you like, but it was a struggle at times.
• 21:49
  Angela McConville: I don't want to suggest I think probably for your listeners it can be unrelenting, like the demands of, and sort of emotionally or psychologically unrelenting, the sort of challenge of showing up really well for your family and showing up really well at work and then also making sure that you're exercising good self-care.
• 22:10
  Angela McConville: I think that I've spoken publicly before about the fact that there were times when I probably wasn't paying enough attention to that, when I was at that point in my career where I was trying to build a career and raise the kids, and when I had periods in my career where I was still breastfeeding my child and going in and running a big executive team and then dashing home in the evening to make sure I could do bedtime and things do get.
• 22:35
  Angela McConville: There can be compromises in that and I think the learning for me was to make sure that I was looking after myself and looking after my well-being.
• 22:43
  Angela McConville: And I think we're in a.
• 22:45
  Angela McConville: It's funny how just within a decade we're in a different kind of era about talking, which we're openly at work about our well-being and our mental health, and I think that that's all for the good.
• 22:56
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 22:57
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean looking back now.
• 22:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: You're obviously where you are now, but do you think, yeah, that was all worth it.
• 23:02
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm so pleased I did it.
• 23:04
  Elizabeth Willetts: What?
• 23:07
  Angela McConville: I think that, with the vantage point that I have now, I would say like, yes, I think I needed the blend of having the joy and the love that I have in my family life, but also the creativity and the intellectual stimulus of my professional life, and I think each feeds the other, and I don't think I could be as good a parent if I wasn't able to also know that I was doing something that I found, I guess, and intellectually fulfilling.
• 23:39
  Angela McConville: And actually I am starting to see that my children have almost biosmosis, you know, and maybe as a result of the pandemic where I'm working at home, like significantly more.
• 23:49
  Angela McConville: But there's all sorts of like role modeling and just conversations that they are exposed to, which I think have also been in my, you know, just in my family, have been, have been positive, I think so, but no, it's not been like.
• 24:04
  Angela McConville: You know, I don't want to suggest it's a kind of yellow brick road or like there have been some real challenges professionally and there's a constant kind of Just when you think you've got the template set and this looks good and like, oh, I might be winning, then suddenly you know something happens, there's a, there's a shift, you know, a gear change at work, or the children need something else, or family life demands something.
• 24:28
  Angela McConville: So it's a.
• 24:29
  Angela McConville: So you can't be complacent about everything.
• 24:31
  Angela McConville: You know.
• 24:32
  Angela McConville: The template set because it requires quite a lot of responsiveness and probably a good dose of humour, yeah absolutely.
• 24:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned about a mentor, because I had another lady on the podcast a while ago now that had, like you, was offered a big role when she was on maternity leave and her company which I think was fantastic paid for her to have a coach and that coach really helped her structure her life.
• 24:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know, she was able to take that big role and thrive in that position and is now, you know, still there 25 years later and is now their COO Amazing, yeah, really amazing.
• 25:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: And so you mentioned about a mentor as well.
• 25:11
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean, how important do you think it is that we have mentors and do they need to be like a formal thing, and how did you find yours?
• 25:19
  Angela McConville: I am a huge advocate for mentoring and actually only in the last couple of years have I, in addition to having mentors, had a coach and that what's the difference?
• 25:29
  Elizabeth Willetts: Because I'm not 100% sure what's the difference.
• 25:32
  Angela McConville: Yeah, I'm not.
• 25:32
  Angela McConville: I don't know if I'm going to be very textbook, so you know sort of answers on and open to feedback.
• 25:38
  Angela McConville: But I find in my mentoring relationships I tend to be looking for someone who's got like lived experience of the thing that I'm doing.
• 25:46
  Angela McConville: And I have been quite proactive in finding people who are more senior or more experienced or are doing something that I want to tackle, but maybe on a bigger scale or with greater complexity, so that I can learn from them and I would talk to my mentors about like, have you had this issue or this challenge or how have you gone about this?
• 26:05
  Angela McConville: You're just a person.
• 26:06
  Elizabeth Willetts: I don't know, how do you, do you just miss New York Tunnel?
• 26:10
  Angela McConville: Well, I'm very lucky.
• 26:11
  Angela McConville: I'm a member of an organization called Akivo, which is the get ready.
• 26:16
  Angela McConville: It's the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, so it's essentially where charity chief executives meet and network and they have a mentoring, mentor matching scheme.
• 26:27
  Angela McConville: So I am mentored and I mentor through this game.
• 26:31
  Angela McConville: But in the dialogue with the matching, you know, with the guy who matched, who did the matching, I was really quite.
• 26:38
  Angela McConville: I was like this is what I'm looking for, like I need, you know, I need who's faced some of these challenges, but maybe on an even bigger scale, so that I could learn in the right direction.
• 26:47
  Angela McConville: I have also picked up like mentors in my life, sometimes through like alumni.
• 26:51
  Angela McConville: So, like the PWC, alumni is very generous and very, you know, significant.
• 26:56
  Angela McConville: So I was able to, you know, through my net, through my PWC network, find people who were very, very keen to mentor both formally and informally.
• 27:04
  Angela McConville: So I'm a great advocate for that and I give a talk at Bay's Business School for like new chief executives in the charity sector and I always say to them like, if you can, you know, take the mentors who come your way because they, you know they will they often journey with you and they will give you good counsel and sometimes, if you have good and high levels of trust, they'll also tell you things that you need to hear, but maybe not many people would have the courage to tell you.
• 27:30
  Angela McConville: So I have a mentor who I've journeyed with for a long time and sometimes he tells me the things that I probably need to hear, but you know, maybe in my, in my life, like people wouldn't necessarily give me that feedback.
• 27:43
  Angela McConville: It's funny, elizabeth.
• 27:44
  Angela McConville: He says okay, angela, get ready, there's a wet fish coming.
• 27:49
  Angela McConville: He's going to whack you with, like some feedback.
• 27:53
  Angela McConville: But yeah, if you're home truth and truth, it's probably just like a bit of holding up the mirror or doing some reflection with me, but I've found it immensely helpful.
• 28:01
  Angela McConville: Then in the pandemic, and again, this was really something very, very I was very lucky.
• 28:07
  Angela McConville: My boss, who's the chair of NCT, said that I was to be given some like a package of coaching as a gift, essentially to help support me through the work that I was.
• 28:19
  Angela McConville: You know that I was doing, and it was a significant work.
• 28:23
  Angela McConville: Through the pandemic.
• 28:24
  Angela McConville: I'd never worked with a coach before in such which was a more kind of so in this relationship.
• 28:30
  Angela McConville: She was less, you know, she wasn't a charity leader, she's a professional coach, so she didn't I wasn't able to say how did you tackle this?
• 28:37
  Angela McConville: So what's your learning from that?
• 28:38
  Angela McConville: It was much more about her giving me this space and tools and different approaches to to maybe think, I guess to have the space and some tools to think about leadership and leading through change, and I found it astonishingly interesting like I did things like visualizations and like physical exercises around breathing and moving and and also using.
• 29:01
  Angela McConville: I guess it was another kind of visualization, but sometimes it would be like visualization through your mind visualization I don't know if that's the right term, but other times she'd show me like images or paintings or photography and get me to respond to those and so just starting to like activate lots of senses which in the typical workplace are probably a bit dormant.
• 29:19
  Angela McConville: It was extraordinary Like I really learned a lot and and she got, and in that relationship what was interesting and possibly like your, your previous guest, really getting you to think about the different spaces in your life and are you tending to each of them and are you tending to the creative part of yourself enough, because that fuels so much of the other things that are.
• 29:44
  Angela McConville: You know where you need to show up.
• 29:45
  Angela McConville: So, so, yes, I'm a big fan and and you know, and many people who start out as mentors often end up as like friends and you know, sort of just counsel that you can pick up the phone and be like hey, can I ask your, can I have a sounding board conversation with you about X or Y and kind of come over for dinner as well?
• 30:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: So you know I'm you're inspiring me.
• 30:07
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm going to go message the people now.
• 30:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm just going to message some randoms.
• 30:13
  Angela McConville: No one ever says no.
• 30:14
  Angela McConville: Most people are so flattered to be asked.
• 30:17
  Angela McConville: I wrote to this man who gave a lecture at Henley Business School when I was a student there and I was a bit gushing, you know like.
• 30:23
  Angela McConville: I thought you were incredible and you're so entrepreneurial and would you ever and could I even?
• 30:28
  Angela McConville: Oh my goodness, he was delighted to you know we had like mentoring conversations for a significant period.
• 30:35
  Angela McConville: So I think people are very generous and probably under asked.
• 30:38
  Angela McConville: So when anybody asks me and I mentor a number of people a, it's lovely to be asked.
• 30:43
  Angela McConville: A.
• 30:43
  Angela McConville: B, you learn so much as a mentor.
• 30:46
  Angela McConville: I've mentored a couple of really interesting, dynamic women with fantastic careers and prospects and family life and you know histories, so you learn as much as you get.
• 30:58
  Elizabeth Willetts: I think.
• 30:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: So there we are.
• 30:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: This is a takeaway from this episode.
• 31:01
  Elizabeth Willetts: Everyone should come and message them.
• 31:02
  Elizabeth Willetts: I guess you don't need to be a CEO.
• 31:04
  Elizabeth Willetts: Anybody no.
• 31:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: Message someday that they admire and if they will be their mentor.
• 31:10
  Angela McConville: Absolutely.
• 31:10
  Angela McConville: I would be surprised if it's not met with, you know, with great like flattery and yeah, that's been my experience.
• 31:17
  Elizabeth Willetts: So, moving back to the NCT, so obviously you are all about the first thousand days of a child's life and supporting a parent during that process.
• 31:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: Why what happens during your first thousand days of life and why is it such a critical period?
• 31:31
  Angela McConville: Well, it's very interesting that the whole concept of, like, the first thousand days is something that we've talked a lot about through our strategy process and, just to help some of your listeners, we consider that from the moment of conception right through to let a child is two years.
• 31:47
  Angela McConville: So from pregnancy to two years, because even the concept of a thousand days can be bit like, oh, what exactly is the time period that we're talking about.
• 31:55
  Angela McConville: But you know, there's a lot of research that shows that, in terms of outcomes be that, you know, social, educational, health that the more we invest in both anti-natally, so like it pregnancy period, in the well-being of women, mothers, mums and baby, and in those early months, there are profound life effects, and so we really feel like that is such a unique place in which, to you know, care for and support and nurture families.
• 32:31
  Angela McConville: So, yeah, I mean it's just that the research is, and the research is particularly acute at a time of a cost of living crisis where, again, that we know that you know where families experience, you know poverty or social exclusion again, the more that we can invest, the earlier you know, in pregnancy and in those early months, the you know, the better we will be able to safeguard, like positive life chances, you know, for children into their adulthood.
• 33:02
  Angela McConville: So it really is a very you know, I'm sure there are all sorts of studies, you know, longitudinal studies, that show that investment in that part of your life journey will have, you know, such repercussions through, you know, through your teenage, through your childhoods, your teenage years and into your adult life.
• 33:19
  Angela McConville: And it's a really precious place in which to work, you know, because, as you said earlier, it's a moment of real transformation for most people, and I don't say that I don't mean that that has to be like it can be extraordinarily challenging and, for some women, traumatic, as well as beautiful and transformational, like it's a whole spectrum of experiences.
• 33:40
  Angela McConville: So it's a very precious place, you know, in which to work.
• 33:45
  Elizabeth Willetts: So you mentioned investment.
• 33:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: What do you mean by investment?
• 33:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: What sort of investments are you?
• 33:49
  Angela McConville: Oh yeah, sorry I say investments, but what I mean is really like you know what we're investing in people.
• 33:54
  Angela McConville: So, like in pregnancy, the kinds of things that we care about or that we're working on in NCT is, you know well, you'll know us for like anti-natal education.
• 34:02
  Angela McConville: So we know that when a woman and partners undertake anti-natal education, they generally have a more positive experience and, even if their birth experience isn't what they'd hoped for, the fact that they had taken time to prepare and to reflect and to means that they're able to, I guess, process and manage through the journey that they've experienced.
• 34:27
  Angela McConville: So we, you know, in the anti-natal space, anti-natal education, preparing parents for what the early days will be like and that's one of the things we hear most strongly from new parents is like anti-natal space.
• 34:42
  Angela McConville: So in the period of time before they have their baby, there is a big and growing desire to understand better what the early post-natal experience will be, you know, feeding, sleeping, recovery, mental health relationships, emotional well-being.
• 34:57
  Angela McConville: So our programs that we develop, we have a really nice blend of, you know, support for pregnancy and for the birth experience, but also really helping prepare parents for the, for what will happen in those early days and weeks.
• 35:09
  Angela McConville: We've got a fantastic team of practitioners in the field and within that we have wonderful community of breastfeeding counsellors who essentially can provide support to women and families in whatever your feeding choices.
• 35:24
  Angela McConville: You know, and most families go on some kind of like again journey around their feeding from you know, breastfeeding, expressing, mixed formula and all those sort of complications and myriad of like feeding experiences that families have.
• 35:39
  Angela McConville: But we also have a whole suite of things, like you know.
• 35:41
  Angela McConville: We've got, as I told you earlier, we've got 330 branches around the country and they are powered by 5000 volunteer parents and they respond to the needs of the communities where they live.
• 35:53
  Angela McConville: So you know, I love going out to visit the different branches and what NCT Aberdeen does will look and feel really different to what NCT I don't think what local ones is like you know, growth or not, or they will respond to the needs of the community where they're working.
• 36:08
  Angela McConville: But we have things like, you know, baby first aid, nearly new sales, which is essentially where families, you know, recycle and reuse, like goods and clothes, and I mean they're fantastic and they've come back with a resurgence after the pandemic because of course it's a really genuine response to the cost of living crisis.
• 36:26
  Angela McConville: We have bumps and baby groups, baby cafes, which is like breastfeeding support in the community, walk and talks, where you just get out and walk with your baby or your infant.
• 36:37
  Angela McConville: But we also in some communities where there would be very specific considerations around.
• 36:42
  Angela McConville: You know the complexity of the families that we're working with.
• 36:46
  Angela McConville: We will also have, like language support, translation services, counselling services, link workers, helping families, linked to other key services like whether it's, you know, support for their status, for their housing, for the welfare of their family, etc.
• 37:03
  Angela McConville: So in some parts of the country the work can be particularly deep and complex.
• 37:08
  Angela McConville: We've got a wonderful project that we run in a partnership with some local organisations in Newham and I think I was just reading this morning that our team working there speak 29 languages and we're sorting families who speak 49 different languages.
• 37:24
  Angela McConville: I mean it's a really diverse diverse.
• 37:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you receive any government funding?
• 37:29
  Elizabeth Willetts: We do yeah, because I was going to say you're providing a service that well the government should be supporting because they've taken away all the short start services, haven't they?
• 37:38
  Elizabeth Willetts: Because you definitely are plugging gaps where.
• 37:41
  Angela McConville: We're plugging gaps and we're responding to needs that are surfacing.
• 37:45
  Angela McConville: So I mean, as I said earlier, we're very lucky as an organization that we have the ability to we sell some services directly to parents.
• 37:54
  Angela McConville: The funds that we receive for those we reinvest into services that are free at the point of access for other families.
• 38:01
  Angela McConville: So we've got a national helpline for feeding support.
• 38:04
  Angela McConville: That's all powered by the funds that parents who pay for a course provide to us.
• 38:10
  Angela McConville: But we also have income from either from the public sector.
• 38:14
  Angela McConville: So we will have funding from the Department of Health or from local authorities or hospital trusts who you know.
• 38:21
  Angela McConville: So I know that today we've got a bid going in for a contract in a specific part of the country where they want to provide very localized support to help women with breastfeeding and to extend the breastfeeding, their breastfeeding participation, but also to support with perinatal mental health issues in a specific community.
• 38:40
  Angela McConville: So we will respond to opportunities and work collaboratively with local authorities around those areas of work.
• 38:47
  Angela McConville: And then we also have services and content and services that we design and innovate in response to what parents tell us they need.
• 38:54
  Angela McConville: So we're doing both, but our income from the public sector is probably only about 20% of our total, our total organizational resources.
• 39:03
  Elizabeth Willetts: So you talked about some of the investment obviously NCT is making.
• 39:07
  Elizabeth Willetts: What about employers?
• 39:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: Because you know it's hugely important, isn't it?
• 39:10
  Elizabeth Willetts: What happens we talked about in that first house and days different from section to a child's, to many women, you know work, there'll be an employment during that period.
• 39:20
  Elizabeth Willetts: How can employers support that and invest, I guess, in the next generation and invest in parents today?
• 39:29
  Angela McConville: I think that's a great question and certainly we're seeing NCT is that the appetite from employers to really think more, I guess strategically as well as compassionately, about the women in their workforce is strengthening.
• 39:46
  Angela McConville: So we have more employers contacting us saying how can we better support women in our workforce to have healthy pregnancies, to leave our organization, you know, to have their baby and to maximize the potential of them returning to us and then supporting them as they return to work.
• 40:06
  Angela McConville: So you know we are working, you know, with some very large employers around this agenda and that can mean putting some of our standard services, say, onto the HR benefits menu so that you could choose, like an antenatal course or a postnatal course or perhaps a one-to-one support from a breastfeeding counselor, like that.
• 40:27
  Angela McConville: These are things that you're making available to your employees to say this is part of the range of benefits that you can access.
• 40:34
  Angela McConville: And what I would say to anyone who's listening is, like you know, I think you know, speak out on that agenda.
• 40:41
  Angela McConville: If that's something that would be important to you or the women in your teams, because I think some employers just need to hear that that would be really valued.
• 40:49
  Angela McConville: I would have loved that.
• 40:50
  Angela McConville: I think that's a great benefit and where we've done it like, it has been really well received.
• 40:56
  Angela McConville: And of course then it leads to all sorts of longer-term relationships with those organizations, because then they're like oh you know, gar, people really value the work that your charity is doing and can we support you in other ways?
• 41:06
  Angela McConville: And so it becomes like you know, a real, a really rich relationship.
• 41:09
  Angela McConville: And then we do other work with very distinct types of employers, you know, where we tailor certain types of training services for their people.
• 41:17
  Angela McConville: One of the most interesting things that we've done over the last couple of years is working with John Lewis with their nursery department.
• 41:24
  Angela McConville: So we are working to have an NCT trained nursery partner in every department store in the country.
• 41:30
  Angela McConville: And again, this is a real like mission-aligned piece of work for us because quote John Lewis were telling us was that you know, pregnant women and their partners were coming in to store with all sorts of like questions and anxieties and their partners, their colleagues when I say partners I mean John Lewis partners you know just being able to hold the conversations like appropriately and you know, in a boundaryed way and do good signposting and hold people if they were experiencing anxiety and give them good counsel.
• 41:58
  Angela McConville: And so in dialogue with John Lewis recognized that actually if we could upskill their colleagues to really hold those conversations and those relationships, that that would be great for the families, you know, great for the parent, and then it would also be great for John Lewis in terms of, like, the trust and credibility and ability to support in a, you know, in a personalized way.
• 42:19
  Angela McConville: So that's been great.
• 42:19
  Angela McConville: So, yeah, we hope to have like a hundred trained nursery partners all over the country very soon.
• 42:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: So you're just UK, or you just, or do you?
• 42:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: Are you worldwide now?
• 42:29
  Angela McConville: No, we're just in the yeah, uk, northern Ireland, scotland, channel Islands, wales.
• 42:33
  Angela McConville: We do have some affiliate relationships, like in the United States and, and certainly in the pandemic we had people joining our because our whole offer went online.
• 42:41
  Angela McConville: You know we had people joining from all over the world but which sort of gave us a flavor of you know like a world embrace at some point.
• 42:48
  Angela McConville: But I guess what I would say, like around that whole employer piece, is like if anyone's listening and things like, actually that could be really valuable to our people or us.
• 42:58
  Angela McConville: We as a business could really benefit from doing some more thinking about how do we interact with customers who are also pregnant or are new parents, then we'd love to talk to you.
• 43:08
  Angela McConville: We've got a team at NCT who, like, are having brilliant conversations around this agenda all the time.
• 43:14
  Elizabeth Willetts: Well, that was.
• 43:15
  Elizabeth Willetts: It was so fantastic to chat with you, angela, and learn more about NCT, and you know I think it's a brilliant organization.
• 43:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: I, you know, you've been part of my life and I've had my children, so thank you so much for that.
• 43:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: So how can people then connect to you and learn more about NCT and some of the services you offer?
• 43:34
  Angela McConville: We're super easy to connect with.
• 43:36
  Angela McConville: You can imagine.
• 43:37
  Angela McConville: We're on.
• 43:38
  Angela McConville: We're on every, you know.
• 43:39
  Angela McConville: We're on all the channels.
• 43:40
  Angela McConville: We, you know.
• 43:40
  Angela McConville: You can find us online.
• 43:42
  Angela McConville: We're on social.
• 43:43
  Angela McConville: We're on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.
• 43:45
  Angela McConville: You're on threads yeah, I do.
• 43:47
  Angela McConville: You know what, just this week I was like, oh, I must talk to the team and see, like, whether we're going to venture into the threads world or or just take a take, a sort of viewing position for now.
• 43:55
  Angela McConville: And then me personally, you know, I'm delighted to connect with anyone on LinkedIn.
• 44:00
  Angela McConville: You can follow me on Twitter.
• 44:01
  Angela McConville: If you're interested in all things like pregnancy and maternity campaigning, then that's what we're, that's what we're making noise about.
• 44:08
  Angela McConville: It would be great.
• 44:09
  Angela McConville: And actually, listening to some of your podcast, your back catalog, I've reached out and connected to some of the women that you interviewed and it's it's, you know.
• 44:17
  Angela McConville: Thank you for like sort of enabling that rich tapestry of women to connect with each other.
• 44:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: It's brilliant, oh thank you, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you.
• 44:26
  Angela McConville: I've really enjoyed it.
• 44:27
  Angela McConville: Thanks, elizabeth, thank you.
• 44:30
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
• 44:33
  Elizabeth Willetts: It like a mom podcast.
• 44:34
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 44:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 44:48
  Elizabeth Willetts: You can also follow my recruitment site investing in women on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
• 44:53
  Elizabeth Willetts: Until next time, keep on chasing your big stream.