Family Coaching: An Emerging Family Science Field

Abstract

Although there is a rich history of collaboration and distinction among family practitioners, to remain progressive, the domains of family practice must continue to evolve based on the current practices of family professionals. Recently, family coaching (FC) has captured the professional attention of practitioners as another collaborative yet distinct field in family science. FC seeks to foster the achievement of family-identified goals through a process-driven relationship between a family and professional coach. In this article, the authors introduce FC and explore it as an extension to the domains of family practice model. In addition, the authors offer results from a nationwide sample of family practitioners (N = 180) regarding their experiences and opinions of FC to further substantiate the field's progression.As the field of family science continues to adapt to the changing needs of families, its methods of delivery for family practice are also evolving. Family coaching is one such example in its approach to delivering prevention and intervention services to families. Much like family life education, family therapy, and family case management, the aim of family coaching (FC) is to help families become more successful. FC is an emergent field; in this

The use of coaching strategies within the field of social work

“…This study found that social workers are interested in receiving coaching training and feel that it is important for coaches to be credentialed. This is consistent with Allen and Huff's (2014) findings that family professionals are interested in receiving coach training and they view coaching as an up-and-coming approach to serving families. As a participant that had never heard of coaching, but recognised the strategies of coaching as being the 'essence what social workers do', it is natural that social work training programmes be more widely spread among universities and social work programmes.…”

“…Furthermore, research suggests that coaching has positive effects, such as higher levels of goal attainment among clients, stressing the importance of having an evidence-based approach when it comes to the use of coaching (Grant, 2008). The conversation of coaching families is also addressed in family science literature; there is growing support that coaching families is an effective approach to serving families and the practice is rising in popularity among family practitioners (Allen, 2013;Allen & Huff, 2014).…”

Family and Parent Coaching Certification Processes: What Do Current Programs Do?

“…Family coaches utilize a strengthsbased, solution-focused process to help individuals and families strengthen their relationships and reach goals set by them (Kovacs, 2012). In family life coaching, the client is viewed as an expert in his or her life, and the process of coaching is one of collaboration between coach and client (Allen, 2013;Allen & Huff, 2014). In addition, the role of the coach may change with the family's needs.…”

“…Coaching has become a wide-spread phenomenon, used in many fields and diverse practices. However, there is a deficit of research and professionalism of coaching, especially family life coaching (Allen & Huff, 2014 greatly, influencing the training and credentialing needed. To ensure quality in the area of family life coaching, where the coach may be an expert as well as a guide, this trend necessitates further guidelines and research on the relationship between the coach and client, as has already occurred in other fields.…”

“…Quality individualized help may make a difference as to whether a family thrives; however, it may be difficult for families to determine what is quality help in such a diverse field. Family life coaching is an emerging field of family science that is gaining in popularity among family practitioners (Allen & Huff, 2014). While coaching is growing as an applied family science, there is lack of consistency in training and credentialing in the field of coaching (Carr, 2005).…”