Parent Coaching

A Parent Coach closes the gap between where a parent is and where a parent wants to be.    A Coach will work with a mum or dad to identify clear goals and develop effective strategies to achieve them.  At coaching sessions, most parents present problems and challenges.  The majority of mums and dads will seek the services of a Coach because they have a specific parenting problem or problems that they want to solve - PESTs.

All parents have PESTs:

• Problems affecting many parents
• Energy sinks to an all time low when parents think about them
• Stress levels hit an all time high when parents think about them
• Time - it is never the right time to deal with the problem

Parents can't wave a magic wand and change their teenager... but they can change the way they respond to their teenager and this will bring about significant improvements.

Three key stages to Parent Coaching

• Identify the specific problem or challenge
• Identify the solution
• Identify the actions the parents can take to resolve the problems

Youth Coaching

There are a number of challenges being faced by young people in today's society around choices, transition to adulthood, education and those questions regarding what they do after GCSE's.  Do they go onto study AS and if so, in what?  Perhaps college would be better to take a BTEC, vocational or equivalent qualification?  Or maybe, as two 15-year olds recently said,  "Yippee, only one year left at school".  So perhaps they need to consider what work they will look for?  For some there are no choices, their parents decided when they were born what they would do regardless of what the young people would like to do. 

Youth Coaching is aimed at exploring the above challenges through the use of coaching and coaching tools in order to support young people in a positive and productive way.  Parents mean well but regretably they are very often too close to the challenge and are the last resort for youngsters to turn to.  Coaching will also help to explore and identify the different emotions young people feel particularly during times of transition.  More young people are attracted to coaching because they both expect and enjoy the opportunity of putting their ideas and opinions forward, gaining clarity and taking responsibility for themselves.

The challenges that your youngster is facing may be:

• crime
• binge drinking
• assult and violence
• drugs
• peer pressure
• mental health challenges
• depression
• physical, mental and sexual abuse
• fitting in
• achieving a balance between school and their social life
• having a single parent

How will it help?

Bringing coaching to young people is like a breath of fresh air because its core skills are:

• Questionning to explore what the problem or challenge really is.
• Listening to understand
• Time and space for the individual to think.
• An opportunity for options to be explored.
• Allowing choices to be selected.

The Coaching Academy

The Diploma programme advocated by The Coaching Academy (TCA) is the most experiential and comprehensive coach training programme available today.

Accreditation
Coaching is a skill which does not involve delving into people's past, nor does it involve giving advice or making suggestions.  Therefore, the chances of coaching causing harm are very slim although this is no excuse for bad coaching.  This is why high quality, substantive and accredited training courses for people entering the profession are extremely important. TCA has 6 external, professional and academic endorsements and accreditations.  These currently are:

• The Open College Network (OCN)

• Association for NLP (ANLP)

• The Open and Distance Learning Quality Council (ODLQC)

• Education  Development International plc (EDI) 

• The Institute of Leadership and Management
• CPD Certification Service

Roshni Shah is a qualified Performance Coach (MERIT).

Continuing Professional Development
March 2011 - Level 2 LSCB Multi-Agency Safeguarding Training Course