Coaching Families and Colleagues

Preparing home visitors to partner with families of infants and toddlers

“…One of these skill sets involves ways of helping parents identify what they already do and whether it matches what they believe is important to do to support their children's development. Home visitors must be able to use coaching skills to promote developmentally supportive parent-child interactions by providing strengths-based feedback based on their observations of parent-child activities during home visits (Rush, Shelden, & Hanft, 2003;Shanley & Niec, 2010). Thus, most of the visit time in high-quality home visits is spent in triadic interactions with the parent and child engaged together with the home visitor (Hughes-Belding & Peterson, 2016).…”

Partnering for Change: An Innovative School-Based Occupational Therapy Service Delivery Model for Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

“…While working with teachers to support their existing skills and develop new skills, coaching interactions emphasize partnership and self-discovery (Rush et al, 2003). The goals of coaching are for the recipient to gain in competence, build on existing knowledge, and promote ongoing learning (Shepherd & Hanft, 2008).…”

Family Coaching: An Emerging Family Science Field

“…Family coaches strive to develop the capacity of a parent or family member to improve abilities and skills (Rush, Shelden, & Hanft, 2003). Family coaches utilize practices such as powerful questioning (e.g., probing, comparative), providing feedback, conducting assessments (e.g., strengths, self-awareness), planning actions, evaluating actions, and offering accountability in nonjudgmental interactions (Rush & Shelden, 2006). Although the coach and client come to the setting with different abilities and roles (and therefore are never completely equal), the emphasis is consistently on creating a relationship of parity where power is shared (Stober, 2006).…”

“…Coaching approaches are also being tested in social work professions that utilize coaching with families needing psychosocial intervention (Beyer, 2008;Noble, Perkins, & Fatout, 2000). Additionally, in children with nonnormative developmental delays, Rush et al (2003) advocated an early-intervention coaching process that partners families with coaches. More research is needed on the effective use of coaching with lower functioning families.…”