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 Diet, 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 dwell Zoom classes with power 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 dwell cohort expertise so distinctive, and some enjoyable information, 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 the whole course growth lifecycle. This ranges from the strategy planning stage, the place we strategize new course choices and subjects that align with pupil wants, to creating written and video studying supplies, and securing top-tier instructors which are 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 schooling we offer, guaranteeing probably the most beneficial 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 vary 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 all the time begin by asking, ‘What’s finest for the coed?’ The reply to that single query drives each choice we make, from the subjects we train, the educating 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 typically goes unseen is how a lot we have fun 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 purpose: to offer the schooling they should really propel them into the skilled roles they search.
How do you guarantee AFPA’s packages keep present with analysis, developments, and finest practices?
Within the well being business, new analysis is consistently rising, offering new data and redefining finest practices. At AFPA, we perceive that offering our college students with outdated data is solely 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 educational 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 primarily based on newly gleaned information. We do that to ensure that when our college students graduate, they’ve probably the most present data doable to excel of their careers.
What do you see as among the most precious abilities college students achieve from AFPA packages?
A number of the most precious abilities college students achieve from AFPA packages embody:
- Complete Data: Each single one among our programs supplies a wealth of data on the subject of research. For college kids actually looking for to realize experience in a particular 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 all the pieces we train, supporting our college students to see the larger image.
- Sensible Utility and Teaching Abilities: It’s one factor to know what to do, but it surely’s one other to have the ability to do it successfully. We don’t simply train 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 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 individuals from throughout the nation and across the globe. Whereas all of us come from vastly totally 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 be taught and develop collectively. It’s really transformative.
Be taught Easy methods to Set Your self Aside as a Board-Licensed Well being Coach
Attending to Know Dr. Walsh Outdoors the Classroom
What are just a few quirky or shocking 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 trainer 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 motorbike till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I wished to focus all my power on rollerblading.
Whenever you’re not engaged on curriculum, educating, 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 house with my household, the power I get from social connectedness fills my cup.
When you needed to sum up your philosophy on conduct change in a single sentence, what wouldn’t it 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 dwell well being teaching session?
When you’re on the fence about becoming a member of the following dwell course, remind your self that this is likely one of the most effective and inexpensive methods to turn out to be a Nationwide Board Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach. As an NBHWC-Accepted program, AFPA provides a direct and supportive path to board certification with out pointless delays or bills.
In case your purpose is to offer 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 achieve the abilities to assist individuals make actual, lasting adjustments of their lives—and be compensated for the worth you present. Well being and wellness teaching remains to be an rising subject, which implies there’s room to develop, contribute, and set up your self in an rising career.
On the similar time, this isn’t nearly your purchasers—it’s a transformative expertise for you, too. Via this coaching, you’ll deepen your individual self-awareness, develop important teaching abilities, and construct the boldness wanted to not solely cross the board examination however to actually be an awesome coach.
If that sounds just like the sort of profession and private progress you’ve been searching for, cease hesitating and enroll right this moment!
📆 The following AFPA dwell well being teaching session begins quickly.
Be part of a world group of aspiring coaches and be taught from among the subject’s main educators.
