Neuro-coaching for Social Services Professionals

Course Description

This training is specifically for individuals in the social services professions and is geared towards providing skills to better enable interaction with clients. Participants in this training will gain the knowledge and proficiency to help clients find their own solutions and take ownership and responsibility for the outcomes.

MODULE 1: COACHING

• Exploration of the definitions of coaching
• Understanding how coaching can be an important skill for social work practitioners and the value coaching can add to enhancing their interaction with clients
• Understanding the emphasis on the quality of the relationship between the social work practitioner and the client and the importance of reflection on assessment and evaluation of progress and changes observed. We explore how social work practitioners are able to integrate these fundamentals in their consultation sessions with clients.

Expected outcomes:

• To have a clear understanding of the fundamentals of coaching and how it differs from mentoring.
• Understand when and how to best use coaching during client engagement
• Understanding that Coaching is a distinct intervention that can be used to build capacity of social work practitioners and is particularly useful for supporting the application of knowledge and skills directly into practice and performance or in introducing innovation or new working methods to bring about change personally and with clients.

MODULE 2: CLEAN LANGUAGE
Time allocation: 4 hours

• Overview of clean language and metaphors and their effective use in coaching
• Exploration of the use of non-leading questions by social work practitioners when trying to get clients to share fully about experiences without influencing and leading them by sharing opinions and interpretations of what is said.
• Social work practitioners are upskilled with the techniques of communication mirroring – being able to reflect back to the client what they have communicated and in so doing allow the client to provide further valuable insights and information.
• Social work practitioners learn the skills for building rapport with the client to promote effective engagement.

Expected outcomes:

• To have a better understanding of how to apply clean language principles

MODULE 3: BODY LANGAUGE

• Understanding body language basics, the six universal facial expressions and personal space empowers the social work practitioners with skills to use verbal and non-verbal communication to create meaning in what is being shared in consultation sessions with clients.
• Non-verbal communication can also be used to build rapport and trust with clients during consultation sessions thereby helping clients to have open and honest interaction.
• Social work practitioners learn the skills for building rapport with the client to promote effective engagement.

Expected outcomes:

• To understand how to read body language and how to apply non-verbal communication interpretation during client consultation to improve the communication.

MODULE 4: PERSONALITY

• Developing understanding of personality typology and personality traits theories will help the social work practitioner create self-awareness in self and their clients and improve their knowledge of behaviour and what drives motivation.

This module empowers the social work practitioner with skills to identify the different personalities of their clients, and this knowledge will improve client interaction because the practitioner is able to adapt their language, communication and behaviour to align with that of their client.

Expected Outcomes

• By understanding the differences in personalities and temperament and how the temperament influences behaviour, the practitioner will be skilled to adapt and use communication strategies that align with those of their clients.

MODULE 5: PERSONAL AWARENESS AND DEVELOPMENT

• Creating self awareness in the Social work practitioner via exploration of a variety of theories and models so that they are more cognisant of their own behaviour and motivation and how this might affect client interaction

Expected outcomes:

• Self-awareness of the practitioner so that they might be consciousness of unconscious bias and how it can affect their engagement with clients
• Social work practitioners are able to improve their emotional intelligence quotient which in turn will enable them to enhance their client interaction.

MODULE 6: COACHING TOOLS AND TEMPLATES

• Peer coaching sessions for practical experience is done and participants are guided on how to use the tools and coaching templates effectively

Expected outcomes:

• Ability to choose the appropriate tools and techniques to obtain the desired coaching outcome during client consultation sessions.

SACSSP registered
Suitable Audience: Managers, Supervisors, Team Leaders, Social workers, Principals and Educators, Parents, Individuals wanting to become coaches