What occurs when a Ph.D. with a ardour for habits change, a knack for curriculum design, and a present for connection leads your well being coach coaching? You get Dr. Shana Walsh—AFPA’s Director of Training and Curriculum, and the chief of our Grasp Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach program.
With a Ph.D. in Kinesiology, Train Vitamin, and Well being Promotion, in addition to credentials as a Nationwide Board-Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach, Grasp Licensed Well being Training Specialist, and Licensed Private Coach, Dr. Walsh brings many years of expertise to each course she touches. From shaping what you be taught behind the scenes to guiding reside Zoom periods with vitality and empathy, she’s each the architect and advocate on your teaching journey.
On this interview, Shana shares her strategy to constructing student-centered packages, what makes AFPA’s reside cohort expertise so distinctive, and some enjoyable details, just like the time she did a pull-up whereas hula-hooping.
The Secrets and techniques Behind AFPA’s Curriculum
As AFPA’s Training & Curriculum Director, how do you form the coed studying expertise?
My function encompasses your complete course improvement lifecycle. This ranges from the starting stage, the place we strategize new course choices and matters that align with pupil wants, to creating written and video studying supplies, and securing top-tier instructors which might be specialists of their respective areas. I’m additionally concerned in aiding present college students all through their AFPA studying journey. In each stage, I prioritize the standard of the schooling we offer, making certain probably the most useful and relevant content material for our college students. It’s extraordinarily rewarding to see one thing go from an concept scribbled on a notepad in pencil to a certification college students can earn to alter the trajectory of their profession and their lives.
What’s one thing most individuals may not understand about how AFPA develops its curriculum?
Most individuals may not understand that we at all times begin by asking, ‘What’s finest for the coed?’ The reply to that single query drives each determination we make, from the matters we educate, the instructing strategies we make use of, the instructors we choose, and even the little particulars, just like the on-screen colours in our programs (nay for orange, yay for blue).
Past course improvement, what typically goes unseen is how a lot we have fun alongside our college students. After they earn their certificates and discover success within the area, we’re completely ecstatic. In any case, that’s our final purpose: to supply the schooling they should actually propel them into the skilled roles they search.
How do you guarantee AFPA’s packages keep present with analysis, traits, and finest practices?
Within the well being business, new analysis is continually rising, offering new data and redefining finest practices. At AFPA, we perceive that offering our college students with outdated data is solely not an possibility, so we take a proactive strategy as an alternative. We make it part of our routine to watch the newest problems with main tutorial and business journals, attend business conferences, tune into webinars, and community with different skilled organizations and specialists within the area. We’ve even been identified to edit a reside course to tweak a truth or two based mostly on newly gleaned information. We do that to ensure that when our college students graduate, they’ve probably the most present data attainable to excel of their careers.
What do you see as a number of the most useful expertise college students acquire from AFPA packages?
A few of the most useful expertise college students acquire from AFPA packages embody:
- Complete Information: Each single one among our programs supplies a wealth of data on the subject of examine. For college students actually searching for to realize experience in a particular space, AFPA is the final word useful resource.
- Holistic Views: At AFPA, we deeply perceive how intertwined all areas of well being are. For that motive, we infuse holistic views into every little thing we educate, supporting our college students to see the larger image.
- Sensible Utility and Teaching Abilities: It’s one factor to know what to do, however it’s one other to have the ability to do it successfully. We don’t simply educate the abilities, we additionally present ample follow alternatives to use them to actual world situations.
- Skilled Confidence and Profession Readiness: Our packages are designed to construct college students’ confidence of their skills, making ready them to excel on their chosen profession journey.
What makes the reside cohort expertise particular at AFPA?
The Superior Well being Teaching Intensive is the dynamic, reside element of our Licensed Grasp Well being and Wellness Coach program, and it’s AFPA’s solely reside course. In a single Zoom room, we unite individuals from throughout the nation and across the globe. Whereas all of us come from vastly completely different walks of life, we share a profound commonality: a deep want to empower others to turn into the perfect model of themselves. There’s magic in bringing collectively adults of all ages, with their various backgrounds and wealthy life experiences, watching them be taught and develop collectively. It’s actually transformative.
Study How you can Set Your self Aside as a Board-Licensed Well being Coach
Attending to Know Dr. Walsh Exterior the Classroom
What are a number of quirky or stunning issues about you that your college students may not know?
I’ve efficiently accomplished one pull up whereas hula-hooping.
Additionally, I’ve scored within the 99th percentile for extroversion on a number of persona assessments. Once I was in first grade, my instructor moved my seat for speaking so many instances, I ended up sitting subsequent to each single child in school.
I didn’t be taught to experience a motorcycle till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I wished to focus all my vitality on rollerblading.
Once you’re not engaged on curriculum, instructing, or teaching, how do you recharge?
As a quintessential extrovert, I recharge by spending time with others. Whether or not it’s from good dialog with my neighbors sitting across the firepit, some pleasant competitors in rec pickleball, or absorbing high quality time at dwelling with my household, the vitality I get from social connectedness fills my cup.
When you needed to sum up your philosophy on habits change in a single sentence, what would it not be?
When you change your well being, you alter your life.
Her Recommendation for Aspiring Coaches
What recommendation would you give to somebody who’s on the fence about becoming a member of the following reside well being teaching session?
When you’re on the fence about becoming a member of the following reside course, remind your self that this is among the best and reasonably priced methods to turn into a Nationwide Board Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach. As an NBHWC-Accredited program, AFPA presents a direct and supportive path to board certification with out pointless delays or bills.
In case your purpose is to supply a significant service to others by means of the ability of well being and wellness teaching, whereas incomes a dwelling doing work that makes a distinction, that is your alternative. You’ll acquire the abilities to assist individuals make actual, lasting modifications of their lives—and be compensated for the worth you present. Well being and wellness teaching remains to be an rising area, which implies there’s room to develop, contribute, and set up your self in an rising career.
On the identical time, this isn’t nearly your shoppers—it’s a transformative expertise for you, too. Via this coaching, you’ll deepen your individual self-awareness, develop important teaching expertise, and construct the boldness wanted to not solely go the board examination however to really be an amazing coach.
If that sounds just like the form of profession and private progress you’ve been in search of, cease hesitating and enroll at this time!
📆 The following AFPA reside well being teaching session begins quickly.
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