What occurs when a Ph.D. with a ardour for conduct 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 a long time of expertise to each course she touches. From shaping what you study behind the scenes to guiding dwell Zoom classes with power and empathy, she’s each the architect and advocate to your teaching journey.
On this interview, Shana shares her strategy to constructing student-centered applications, what makes AFPA’s dwell 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 growth lifecycle. This ranges from the strategy planning stage, the place we strategize new course choices and matters that align with scholar 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 helping present college students all through their AFPA studying journey. In each stage, I prioritize the standard of the training we offer, guaranteeing essentially the most worthwhile and relevant content material for our college students. It’s extraordinarily rewarding to see one thing go from an thought 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 won’t notice about how AFPA develops its curriculum?
Most individuals won’t notice that we at all times begin by asking, ‘What’s greatest for the coed?’ The reply to that single query drives each determination we make, from the matters we train, 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 growth, what usually goes unseen is how a lot we rejoice alongside our college students. After they earn their certificates and discover success within the subject, we’re completely ecstatic. In spite of everything, that’s our final objective: to offer the training they should really propel them into the skilled roles they search.
How do you guarantee AFPA’s applications keep present with analysis, developments, and greatest practices?
Within the well being business, new analysis is consistently rising, offering new data and redefining greatest practices. At AFPA, we perceive that offering our college students with outdated data is just not an choice, so we take a proactive strategy as a substitute. We make it part of our routine to observe 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 subject. We’ve even been identified to edit a dwell 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 essentially the most present data doable to excel of their careers.
What do you see as a few of the Most worthy abilities college students achieve from AFPA applications?
Among the Most worthy abilities college students achieve from AFPA applications embody:
- Complete Data: Each single certainly one of our programs offers a wealth of information on the subject of research. For college students actually searching for to realize experience in a selected space, AFPA is the last 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 thing we train, supporting our college students to see the larger image.
- Sensible Software 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 train the abilities, we additionally present ample apply alternatives to use them to actual world eventualities.
- Skilled Confidence and Profession Readiness: Our applications are designed to construct college students’ confidence of their skills, getting ready them to excel on their chosen profession journey.
What makes the dwell cohort expertise particular at AFPA?
The Superior Well being Teaching Intensive is the dynamic, dwell element of our Licensed Grasp Well being and Wellness Coach program, and it’s AFPA’s solely dwell course. In a single Zoom room, we unite folks 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 out to be 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 study and develop collectively. It’s really transformative.
Study Learn how to 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 shocking issues about you that your college students won’t 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. After 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 study to journey a motorbike till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I wished to focus all my power on rollerblading.
While 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 power I get from social connectedness fills my cup.
If you happen to needed to sum up your philosophy on conduct change in a single sentence, what wouldn’t it be?
If you happen to 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 subsequent dwell well being teaching session?
If you happen to’re on the fence about becoming a member of the subsequent dwell course, remind your self that this is without doubt one of the best and reasonably priced methods to turn out to be a Nationwide Board Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach. As an NBHWC-Authorised program, AFPA gives a direct and supportive path to board certification with out pointless delays or bills.
In case your objective is to offer a significant service to others via the facility of well being and wellness teaching, whereas incomes a dwelling doing work that makes a distinction, that is your alternative. You’ll achieve the abilities to assist folks make actual, lasting adjustments of their lives—and be compensated for the worth you present. Well being and wellness teaching continues to be an rising subject, which suggests there’s room to develop, contribute, and set up your self in an rising occupation.
On the identical time, this isn’t nearly your shoppers—it’s a transformative expertise for you, too. By means of this coaching, you’ll deepen your personal self-awareness, develop important teaching abilities, and construct the arrogance wanted to not solely cross the board examination however to really be an amazing coach.
If that sounds just like the type of profession and private development you’ve been in search of, cease hesitating and enroll in the present day!
📆 The subsequent AFPA dwell well being teaching session begins quickly.
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