About Us

The Point Taken Team

The Point Taken Team is lead by Helen Drake. Helen is supported and assisted by a talented and growing team. Each member of the team brings their own authenticity and uniqueness that combines to creates a safe, creative, fun and challenging learning space. You’ll find short paragraphs about each of us below.

 

Helen Drake

Helen is an internationally accredited NLP Trainer with INLPTA. A qualified Psychotherapist, she is passionate about understanding what it really means to live a meaningful and purposeful life. She loves sharing all her discoveries with others and facilitating them to do the same.

With over ten year’s experience of working in the field of Human Development, Helen is one of today’s most innovative NLP trainers. She believes anything is possible for the people she trains, and strives to ensure that they soon believe the same about themselves.

 

Helen has an ‘inclusive’ style and connects easily with people and elegantly facilitates people to recognise their own excellence.

 

Jo Sayers

Helen met Jo back in the 1990’s when Jo was a member of a 16 strong coaching team led by Helen on a large NLP Practitioner programme. Jo is a former Project Manager and Consultant within the IT industry. She is a certified NLP Trainer and Coach and regularly trains throughout Ireland and the UK. Known for her clarity, warmth and gentleness, Jo utilises these skills in all that she does and believes that it is important to deliver the practical applications of NLP in her trainings. With a ‘hands on’ style, Jo brings to the training her strong practical business coaching and consultancy experience. She achieves significant and powerful results with her clients and has built a strong reputation of results focussed training and development.

Ali Plowright

Helen and Ali met through the pioneering work of Stephen Gilligan.

Katy Cox

Katy arrived at NLP through career coaching.� She first met Helen at a local college where Helen was teaching an NLP & Life Skills course. After the evening class she decided to do her Practitioner training. Life changing decisions quickly followed. Giving up her day job as a successful Senior Marketing Executive, she decided to travel around the South Pacific. Two years later, Katy now runs her own successful consultancy, facilitation and coaching business in the film industry. With a deep desire to learn more, Katy has assisted on several NLP trainings and is a sought after coach on our trainings.

Phoebe White

Phoebe met Helen through a colleague of hers who had assisted on one of Helen’s programmes. After undertaking a one day Introduction to NLP course with Helen, it wasn’t long before she decided to take her Practitioner training and shortly afterwards her Master Practitioner training. With such a keen interest in personal development Phoebe assisted on several NLP trainings and quickly became a trusted and valued member of the Point Taken team. She ran the Practice Groups and more recently took over Helen’s role at a local college teaching NLP & Life Skills.

Our Philosophy

If I were to ask you about what’s important to you, how would you answer that? What are the kinds of things might you say?

And if you were doing those things, what do you think you might be experiencing? Well, one afternoon, I decided to sit quietly and listen to the sound of the wind and the rain. What emerged was the capturing of a rich duality that has grown into a liberating personal creed.

 

“And the day came - after a fiercely stormy night, when everything began to settle after gusts of high winds, relentless magnums of strong rain, fallen trees and stormy seas; the wind smiled at the sun and an interesting dialogue began to emerge.”

 

“What are you passionate about asked the wind?

 

The sun smiled and gently whispered a few words so quietly and softly that the wind could barely hear. She asked again – only this time the wind softened and quietened, creating a space, an opening, just loud enough for the sun’s truth to be revealed.�

 

"I want to know that its ok to shine, and when I’m weary, not to shine.

I want to know that it’s ok to be happy and that it’s also ok to be grumpy.

I want to be able to give and receive love knowing that sometimes I’ll get hurt.

I want to be able to feel alive and also to retreat into my shell.

I want to have purpose and direction amid shapelessness and formlessness.�

I want to be able to be my best and yet feel safe enough to screw up.

I want to feel connected and I know that I can also be alone.

I want to be able to be beautiful and to know it’s ok to be ugly

I want to be able to dream and know that my critic can dance with my dreamer"

 

“Sounds like you want to be you" said the sun to the wind.

 

“Yes, just accepted for who I am” replied the wind

 

“But how do I do that said the sun to wind”?

 

�“Come and join us to find some of the keys” said the sun

 

We hope you would like to come and join us to find, explore and learn how to utilise some of your keys - so that you too can be your best. Email me or call me to find out more. I look forward to speaking to you soon.

Testimonials

All these comments are from real people and have been reproduced, with permission from the feedback forms of various participants.�

 

�“This is the best course I have ever attended. Helen is kind, patient, considerate and lives everything she teaches. A model of excellence. I look back to day 1 and where I am now. Wow! It’s been a great journey. Thanks for everything”.

Deborah Carey, Director, Ontrac

 

“Fabulous, I can honestly say, from someone who has had a lot of training “done” to me – this was the first time I really knew there is a different and more fantastic way of helping people to learn. Helen Drake is an outstanding trainer whose passion and true belief in her work is a role model to us all. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Linda McKane, Management Consultant, Concentric Consulting

 

“Liberating, inspiring and thought provoking. It gave me the confidence to break boundaries. Some of the material I found overwhelming and Helen’s faith in our ability took me to places I hadn’t thought possible. It’s a journey I’ll be continuing”

Helen Cresswell, HR Manager, Hewlett Packard

 

“Challenging, hard work, mind opening, life changing, fun. Helen ensured that the pace was right for everyone; the training was inclusive and provided a safe environment for participants to take risks and learn. Energy levels were well maintained and the validity of everyone’s learning acknowledged and celebrated.”

Christine Parrish, Consultant & Coach

 

“Fantastic, well paced, plenty of variety. Visible results. Great fun. Has already and will continue to help me achieve my outcomes and set new ones”.

John Beaumont, Project Manager, Heery International

 

“Caring, thorough, clear, completely ecological, process driven and embedded. Helen has the innate ability to relate to her students giving them freedom, space and the confidence to be themselves and all that they can be”

Victoria Snook,HR Manager

 

“For me this has been one of the most meaningful and transforming experiences ever. Helen is so mindful of keeping everyone in a “safe” and good place throughout the training whilst teaching to the highest standards at all times”

Cornelia Rang, Parent

�

 

“The best self development course (and in fact training) I have ever done. The course just went from strength to strength and all those submerged jewels surfaced as diamonds. I enjoyed every minute of the course learning about myself and others. It was a journey of self discovery that led to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Total fulfilment, laughter, tears, ultimate joy”

Debbie Bateson, Physiotherapist

Practice Groups

Our Practice Group meets two monthly in Chiswick. It is a great opportunity to deepen your connection with yourself and the world and it provides many different exciting opportunities.

 

You can come along as a participant and enjoy the theme and patterning being explored during any of our evening sessions. You may like to offer to run an evening on a topic that you are interested in. And for those of you really interested in modelling, what a wonderful opportunity to lead an evening and test out, refine and share your model with a wider, growing and curious community of fellow explorers. Come along and have fun learning and growing.�

 

For more information on our Practice Groups, email phoebe@pointtaken.com and she’ll give you all the details. Cost �10 on the door please. We look forward to seeing you!

Ethical Practice

We support and promote the Code of Ethics of all the organisations that we subscribe to either as organisational or as individual members. As members of the ANLP,��

All ANLP members will:

1.        Respect the dignity and worth of every human being, and their right to self determination.

2.        Strive to act with integrity, independence and impartiality, avoiding conflicts of interests and acting in accordance with the presuppositions of NLP.

3.        Represent themselves and their qualifications and experience honestly and also (to the best of their knowledge) the skills and experience of any third party to whom they refer any of their customers/clients.

4.        Only practise NLP within the limits of their competency and to their highest possible standards; updating their skills and knowledge on a continuous basis.

5.        Represent NLP interventions as an option and at no time as a certain solution for any given problem.

6.        Act as ambassadors for NLP, so that it is presented as a professional and effective approach which can help people and organisations; avoiding bringing NLP into disrepute.

7.        Act as ambassadors for ANLP, to promote its purposes and activities to a wider audience; avoiding bringing ANLP into disrepute.

8.        Respect legitimate needs and requirements for confidentiality.

9.        Respect the variety of different styles of NLP and complementary professions.

10.     Promote fellow Members' interests and avoid soliciting other Members' customers/clients away from them.

11.     Ensure that clients / customers expectations and the basis on which they will be met, are understood by both parties and that contractual arrangements are not changed without appropriate discussion.

12.     Act with the law and not encourage, assist, or collude with others engaged in unlawful conduct.

Other organizations that we are either individual or organisational members of include the Association of Neuro Linguistic Programming (ANLP); International NLP Trainers Association (INLPTA) and United Kingdom of Psychotherapy (UKCP).

Why Point Taken?

We asked students specifically why they chose to train with Point Taken. We haven’t listed these points in any particular order. Instead we have taken the headings offered and added a few words around each one to give you a sense of what matters to us and some of what you may gain from choosing to come and learn with us.��

Emotionally safe learning space

Training takes place in small groups. This allows the trainer to regulate the environment and use their skills to create a relaxed, personalised setting in which bonds of security naturally form.

High Trainer:Learner ratio

Our small group sizes mean that learners always have a dedicated trainer available to them.

Time to Learn and Integrate

Our students tell us that their NLP Practitioner programme has given them lifelong learning. They also tell us that the time between modules can be as important as the modules themselves. It is during this time that you get the opportunity to integrate the material into your everyday life. It’s a bit like enjoying a great meal and taking time to digest it before the next one!�

Ethical Use and Application of NLP

On the training you will learn lots of powerful ways to bring about profound and lasting and ecological change. Central to this is awareness and continuing emphasis on safe, ethical and ecological practice.

Recognised Certification

There is no one certification body in the provision of quality NLP Training.� Instead there are a range of different bodies, all with different criteria. Our trainings meet and exceed the requirements of the Association of NLP and our trainings are certificated through the International NLP Trainers Association (INLPTA), who we believe, have the highest standards in the field.

Time to Practice

You’ll be amazed at the amount of material within the field of NLP. On our trainings, we think that the learning is in the doing and with 130 hours of contact teaching time, you can be sure that you’ll have the time you need to be able to practice what you learn.

Commitment to Quality

At Point Taken standards matter. We don’t deny that you may work a little harder at times on our training though we know that when you look back, you’ll be glad that you did. You can also be assured that we are actively involved in benchmarking our standards in the UK and internationally so that we continually provide high quality training.

Conscious and unconscious integration

Knowing what you do and doing what you know are some of the hallmarks of mastery. On our trainings we like to strike a healthy balance where we engage both the conscious and the unconscious to facilitate generative and sustainable change.

Safe and fun learning space

On a Point Taken training you can expect to benefit from learning how to co-create a safe learning space so that you can enjoy yourself while learning at the same time.

Recommendation

Many of our students come to us because they have witnessed change and growth, learning and enhanced well-being in their friends, colleagues and people that matter most.

Flexible payment plans

Where we can, we co-create opportunities so that easy payment plans can become possible throughout the duration of the training.

Tapping into a growing network

When you join a Point Taken training, you will have the opportunity to become part of a growing community of people who take investing in themselves seriously. Over the years we have seen our students join together to support one another both professionally and personally.

Training Style

Our trainings are limited to a maximum of 15 students. This gives all our students the opportunity to gain variety in working with different people and yet at the same time be small enough to ensure maximum attention and high quality on-going feedback.

Coaching and Feedback

You can expect to receive ongoing regular feedback throughout the training on your progress and given regular opportunities to stretch yourself.

Extensive post-training relationship

We enjoy long and meaningful relationships with our participants after training. Where we can offer free advice, we do. Additionally available are our coaching, therapy and consulting services.