The Work Beneath the Work:
Most of what I do in workshops, writing salons, and facilitated sessions is informed by thirty years of therapeutic and coaching training that I rarely include in my bio. So. here it is:
I’m not currently taking coaching or therapy clients. But this work is active in how I hold groups, how I work one-to-one with collaborators, and through my formal mentoring commitment with the Ascend-2-Space Mission.
Clean Language and the David Grove Connection:
The foundation of my practice was learned from an old friend, psychotherapist David Grove. Clean Space & Clean Language is a precise, non-directive questioning approach, developed by David. It works by helping people access their own knowledge and insight, without the practitioner’s assumptions, metaphors or framing getting in the way.
I trained directly with David Grove in Clean Coaching and Emergent Knowledge, in Hull, one-to-one in Reading, and at his home in Staines upon Thames, between 2004 and 2006.
David died in 2008. Direct training with him was a rare gift, and it’s the most formative influence on how I work with people.
I also trained with James Lawley, Penny Tompkins, Caitlin Walker and Linda Norton in Symbolic Modelling, Clean Language and Clean Space at VOLCOM between 2001 and 2004.
In 2007, I applied Clean Language in two significant institutional contexts: as Clean Coach Facilitator on Hull City Council’s It Takes A City education and regeneration project, and as script consultant for BBCi, using Clean Language principles in public information scripting, in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau. These weren’t theoretical applications.
Broader Training
From the late 1990s onward, I built an extensive and deliberately varied training base:
Person-centred counselling — Counselling Skills Certificates L1, L2, L3 and Diploma in Counselling, Hull University and The Open College.
SMART Career Coaching — Intraining Ltd.
Community & Youth Work — Full JNC qualification, University of Humberside, including six months counselling placement at YICU (Youth Information & Counselling Unit).
NLP Practitioner — 120+ hours, accredited by the Professional Guild of NLP (NLP North East); later qualified as Neuro Linguistic Hypnotherapy Master Practitioner, accredited by BIH and IACTM.
Clinical Hypnotherapy — Diploma in Hypnotherapy, ECCH.
PTLLS Teaching Certificate — City & Guilds, East Riding College, formal qualification in teaching and training adults.
Peer Training Adviser Certificate — Hull City Council Training & Development Unit.
Managing Self & Others NVQ Level 4 — Hull City Council.
Preparing to Observe Teaching & Learning / Evaluating Skills for Assessment — Humberside Learning Consortium.
Conflict Management — Pure Training Ltd.
Safeguarding Children, Child Protection, Disability Awareness & Safeguarding — VOLCOM Training & The Safeguarding e.Academy.
Prevent Training Certificate — HM Government.
Zen meditation and Buddhist philosophy — 20+ years practice, informs mental training and presence in facilitation.
Enhanced DBS.
How This Shows Up in Practice :
The depth of this training only makes sense through the delivery it informed.
At VOLCOM, I wrote and managed a 24-week Personal Effectiveness Programme for unemployed 16–19 year olds, combining NLP, Emergent Knowledge and Clean Language to support young people into employment. I built and managed the team that delivered it, and developed the family learning centre and Duke of Edinburgh Award group that sat alongside it on the Bransholme estate in Hull.
As Regional Creative Industries Adviser for Armstrong Learning and Job Centre Plus, I coached creative entrepreneurs across Yorkshire, (York, Selby, Hull, Bridlington, Leeds, Grimsby, Goole and Scarborough), to start and sustain businesses. That was direct, practical coaching with lived outcomes.
At Creator College Hull, I taught a Sustainable Event Management course and delivered Clean Space workshops as part of the curriculum. I’ve also delivered skills training for the WEA (Workers’ Education Association), and held facilitation roles across community, youth and arts contexts for three decades.
Recognition:
I received an Arts Council Award for Workshop Facilitation and a Community Pioneer Award from Hull City Council.
What People Have Said:
“For the last few months, I have had the pleasure of working alongside Alan Raw, and enjoyed the opportunity to observe him whilst with a variety of clients. His calm and open approach, careful and patient interactions, and well-placed sense of humour – underpinned by his careful use of neurolinguistic counselling techniques and other approaches – demonstrate his broad and flexible approach to clients’ issues and needs. Despite having worked for over twenty years in an educational, pastoral and mediatory role, I have learned a great deal from Alan’s exemplary approach in a brief period of time.” — Dr Jan Johnson-Smith, National Work Programme Regional Adviser.
“Alan is a true professional, motivated to effect change in people’s lives, increasing their own motivation, building self-esteem and belief in themselves and confidence that fosters their development as effective people.” — Amanda Eastwood, Manager of Positive Futures, Hull City Council.
Living with Neurodiversity:
I have ADHD and dyslexia — experienced across a 40-year career as both gift and challenge. I have managed this with support from the NHS, medicated and unmedicated. I bring that lived experience to working with neurodiverse professionals.
Current Expression:
My primary formal mentoring commitment is with the Ascend-2-Space Mission — a UK Civil Aviation Authority funded programme, supporting emerging professionals in the UK space sector. The skills above are what I bring to that work.
I’m not currently available for private coaching or therapy. But if you’re working with me in a facilitation, workshop, or creative context, this is the training underneath it.
If something here feels relevant to a conversation, I’m open to that.
Alan Raw 