Growth-based Career Planning for Healthcare Professionals

“Applying a holistic lens, Stephanie explores ways to keep the human heartbeat central for everyone in the healthcare system.

She opens up the discussion on growth-based career planning where it has generally been narrowed and thinks about growth across the strands of practice in the wider healthcare ecosystem. She encourages honest conversations, values-based decisions and personal career control.

This book is accessible to a wide audience. Stephanie includes the Kawa model approach as a helpful solution-focused tool for practitioners. The metaphor of a river provides a common language for understanding across the sector and facilitates nurturing, movement, empowerment and potential joy and fulfilment in the workplace.

This book is an important and timely evidenced-based contribution to workforce discussions in the current climate of challenge and reduction. It will contribute to shaping sustainable growth-based career planning policy and decision-making across the healthcare professions.”

Veryan Richards

Lay Consultant

Associate Lay Consultant, The Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice, St Catherine’s College, Oxford

“We live in a world hurried by a rough clamber to the clouds. So often colleagues reflect that it is not until we get there—into whichever of the clouds we were headed for—that we realise what may have been missed along the way: consolidated, broad learning; curiosity to explore and gain complementary skills and knowledge; nuance; joy; innovation; excitement; purpose; time to breathe; the chance to enjoy family life, not just survive it.

This beautiful slice of humanity gives permission to us all, whatever our life stage, to take back control: to enjoy career, life, and everything in between over the course of a rich journey, rather than having achieved it all in the first xx years only to look back and wonder why.

This book is a must-read for current and future health and care professionals (and indeed all career paths) and for people supporting this vital workforce. It offers a refreshing alternative to the traditional career ladder, inviting us to adopt a more human, flexible, growth-based approach to retain and develop staff, valuing the non-linear flow of the river.

Blending theory with real-life stories, this book highlights the value of healthcare careers across many different roles in practice settings, leadership, education, and research, and shows how they can coexist. The Kawa model offers a powerful, evidence-based metaphor for understanding careers as rivers—unique and evolving—with insights from the Kawa research community, alongside a dedicated chapter on human resources.

This is a deeply human book, reminding us that career choices happen in the context of our lives outside of work. Twenty colleagues from across nine healthcare professions share their successes and their growing pains too. Steph, in her true expert style, has crafted an honest, practical book to inspire and help us navigate meaningful healthcare careers within a complex landscape, offering good reason to stay, to thrive, and to grow. Thank you Steph for your creative and compassionate leadership of this innovative and vital work.”

Professor Beverley Harden MBE FCSP

Deputy Chief Allied Health Professions Officer

Multiprofessional Lead for Advanced and Consultant Practice

NHS England

Visiting Professor, University of Winchester

“Growth-based Career Planning is a powerful reminder that careers are not ladders to climb but rivers to navigate. Professional growth doesn’t always mean climbing, but sometimes pausing, pivoting, or simply being.

Stephanie Tempest’s use of the Kawa model brings a human, holistic lens to career development. This book is a gift to healthcare professionals and those who employ them at any stage—encouraging growth with purpose. This book is a must read for those who want to shape a career that aligns with their values and bring joy to their work. It’s refreshing to see a contemporary and evidence informed approach to workforce development in healthcare.”

Professor Alison Leary PhD FRCN FQICN MBE

Chair of Healthcare & Workforce Modelling LSBU

Senior Consultant WHO Europe