Coaching Essentials for Healthcare Professionals

Each of the 9 sessions that comprise this certificate program will focus on a different aspect of the coaching approach as it relates to the healthcare context.

We will meet online from January – June 2025, where short presentations and assigned readings will introduce foundational coaching theories and frameworks.

In between sessions, you will practice core skills through training activities and coaching conversations and track your development in a reflection journal.

Sessions will be held on Tuesdays and will run for 2 hours from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm ET.

Session Dates

• Tuesday, January 21, 2025
• Tuesday, February 4, 2025
• Tuesday, February 25, 2025
• Tuesday, March 25, 2025
• Tuesday, April 15, 2025
• Tuesday, April 22, 2025
• Tuesday, May 13, 2025
• Tuesday, May 27, 2025
• Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Topics Include

• Session 1:
  Introduction to Coaching in Healthcare

  This introductory session will discuss what coaching is and is not by differentiating it from mentoring and therapy. Participants will explore why coaching skills are important to them within their careers as well as practice a simple model that can be used in a variety of situations. Assumptions that lie behind coaching will be discussed as well as the qualities that are required to be an effective coach.

• Session 2:
  Why is it so Challenging for Healthcare Practitioners to Coach / Think like Coaches? Developing a Coaching Mindset

  Being in caring professions, healthcare practitioners take pride in their expertise and like to offer advice. Coaching instead considers the coaches capable of coming up with their own solutions. To think like a coach one needs a coaching mindset. Participants will learn what is required to “partner” with a client, when to just listen, when to give advice and when to walk through a coaching conversation. The difference between coaching and motivational interviewing will be discussed. Challenges such as resisting the temptation to give advice will be discussed and practical strategies developed to address what is needed for the coach trainee to be grounded and confident as they begin to practice.

• Session 3:
  Conducting Coaching Conversations – Getting off on the Right Foot by Establishing an Agreement

  All coaching conversations require some structure. The agreement is the scaffold for that structure and helps to define success at the end of the coaching session. Using the T-Grow method, participants will learn how to partner with a coachee in beginning, maintaining, and closing a structured coaching conversation.

• Session 4:
  Beyond Structure – Building Client Rapport

  Just as patient care is both a science and an art, so too does the skill of coaching reach beyond the technical aspects. Building rapport with the coachee requires creating a relationship based on trust, honesty, and vulnerability. Establishing trust and rapport are essential skills and qualities of a coach. This session will provide information and skill training on specific aspects of building and maintaining rapport.

• Session 5:
  Asking Effective Coaching Questions

  Questions serve many roles in the coaching partnership. They help the coach understand the coachee’s values, needs and beliefs. Critically, they are an essential tool to guide the coachee’s insight and learning, facilitating the coachee’s ability to self-reflect and come up with solutions to their personal and/ or professional quandaries.

• Session 6:
  Practice, Feedback and Mentor Coaching

  Coaching is both a way of being and a way of doing. As one acquires increased understanding of the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors required in coaching, there is nothing more important than ongoing practice. Being observed by trained eyes, particularly by a mentor coach providing individualized feedback is particularly useful in advancing one’s capabilities as a coach. This session will be devoted to practice, feedback, and mentor coaching.

• Session 7:
  Facilitating Client Growth – Shifting Perspectives

  Some coaching requests are based on concrete goals and require an approach that is transactional and oriented towards solutions. Other coaching requests are clearly asking for more exploration into how a coachee perceives themselves and the goals they are aspiring to achieve. We all have blind spots in our thinking and self-awareness that prevent us from seeing all available options. Building upon the previous session, we will focus on asking powerful questions to create greater coachee self-awareness, choice, ideas for action, and accountability.

• Session 8:
  Intuition, Curiosity and Boldness in Coaching

  Coach and coachee are partners. As such the insights a coach experiences, observed incongruencies and just plain intuition are all important aspects of coaching. How do we bring these valuable aspects into coaching while maintaining a partnering versus leading approach? And when is it appropriate for / how might the coach provide their own experience as an offer to nudge the insight of the coachee?

• Session 9:
  Coaching Essentials: Pulling It All Together

  As the program comes to a close, this final session will address challenges in coaching, particularly those related to coaching within healthcare. We will brainstorm ways in which to address those challenges. Finally, we will discuss wrapping up a coaching conversation or coaching series.

Certificate Eligibility

To be eligible for the Certificate of Completion, learners must attain a minimum of 85% class attendance (all webinars, practice, and mentoring sessions) and complete all required assignments.

Final Assignment

Learners are required to submit a written summary of their learnings and how they have impacted their growth and development as a coach. The final assignment is due two weeks after the last session (a specific deadline will be provided). Additional details will be provided upon introduction to the program.