Return to Work Coaching After Maternity Leave | Second Chapter

Return to work after maternity leave or a career break with clarity and confidence

Returning to work after maternity leave, parental leave, redundancy, illness, or a career break can be a significant transition.

You may be asking yourself:

— How much has changed while I’ve been away?

— What do I want my work to look like now?

— How do I explain my time away with confidence?

— Will I be able to balance everything?

— Is this a return to the same role - or an opportunity to do something different?

You don’t need to have all the answers before you step back in.

Return to work coaching gives you the space to think clearly, rebuild confidence, and re-enter work life with clarity and positive intention.

A structured approach to returning to work

This is not about simply getting back to work. It’s about returning in a way that feels aligned with who you are now. Through coaching, we focus on helping you:

Rebuild confidence after time away

Reconnect with your skills, strengths,
and experience

Clarify whether you want to return to your previous role or explore something new

Design a return that feels sustainable in
your current life stage

Create a clear and confident narrative
around your career break

Prepare for interviews, conversations,
or internal transitions

Whatever break you’re returning from, the goal is the same, to help you move forward with clarity, confidence, and direction.

This is a structured, supportive coaching process that blends reflection with practical action. Together, we focus on creating clarity and momentum across three key areas:

How return to work coaching supports you

Confidence

Rebuilding trust in your skills, experience, and decision-making after time away.

Clarity

Understanding what you want from this next chapter of work and life.

Direction

Turning insight into a realistic, confident plan for your return.

What we work on together

— Rebuilding confidence after maternity leave or a career break

— Clarifying your career direction and options going forward

— Exploring whether to return to your previous role or pivot

— Shaping a clear, confident narrative for your time away

— Preparing for interviews and re-entry conversations

— Understanding how to create a more sustainable way of working

— Supporting decision-making when everything feels unclear

Every journey is different, but coaching may include:

You don’t need to arrive with clarity. That’s what we create together.

Returning to work from maternity leave

Many of my clients come to me during maternity leave or shortly after returning to work.

This transition can bring a unique mix of emotions:

— wanting to reconnect with your professional identity

— while also adjusting to new personal priorities

— feeling both capable and uncertain at the same time

I understand this deeply, from living this transition myself, working with many clients in this position and from supporting people through major career transitions more broadly.

Together, we work through both the practical and emotional sides of returning to work - so you feel grounded, confident, and clear about your next steps.

Frequently asked questions
about return to work coaching

Many women experience a dip in confidence after time away. Becoming a parent, particularly for the first time, is a major life transition and it’s totally expected that it will impact how you feel about other aspects of your life. Coaching helps reconnect you with your strengths, skills and achievements and focus on the learnings from your time away that can benefit your return. The process focuses on building a unique vision for the transition and then creating committed steps towards it, which leads to increased confidence.
A career break can be a significant period of growth and development. We work on shaping a clear and confident narrative that reflects what you’ve learned and achieved during this time.
Returning to work doesn’t always mean returning to the same path. Sometimes a career break reveals that a wider career change is needed. Based on my own experience of changing careers, plus the career change programme that I’ve run with more than a hundred clients, I am brilliantly placed to support you in exploring what might come next.
There is flexibility in the approach to ensure it meets your unique situation and needs. The minimum requirement is six sessions at roughly a fortnightly cadence but we can design this as we go.

Here’s what clients who have experienced return to work coaching
have said:

“I made the right choice!”

‘Kate helped me clarify my priorities and rebuild confidence during my maternity leave transition. I moved from confusion to clarity and felt able to define what I wanted and how to get there.’

—Vlada Leussink, Head of Data Science, Uber

“From overwhelmed to flourishing.”

‘Through working with you I’ve gone from feeling completely overwhelmed after returning to work to rediscovering confidence and enjoyment in both my personal and professional life.’

—Georgina, Market Lead, Pharmaceuticals, Maidenhead

“From anxious about returning to confident and in control.”

‘Before coaching with Kate, I was anxious about returning and unsure of my abilities. I returned feeling confident, in control, and equipped with tools I still use today.’

—Kate Taylor-Tett, Marketing Director, House of Fraser, London

“I went from feeling lost to moving forward with confidence.”

‘Working with Kate has helped me reconnect with myself and align vulnerability with strength, something that’s been invaluable moving forward. I now have clarity, direction, and a much more confident perspective on my career.”

—Jesse Bliss, Transformation Manager