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 many years of expertise to each course she touches. From shaping what you be taught behind the scenes to guiding stay Zoom periods with power and empathy, she’s each the architect and advocate to your teaching journey.
On this interview, Shana shares her method to constructing student-centered packages, what makes AFPA’s stay 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 scholar studying expertise?
My position encompasses the 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 can be consultants 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 essentially the most precious 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 understand about how AFPA develops its curriculum?
Most individuals won’t understand that we at all times begin by asking, ‘What’s finest for the scholar?’ The reply to that single query drives each resolution 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 rejoice alongside our college students. After they earn their certificates and discover success within the discipline, we’re completely ecstatic. In spite of everything, that’s our final aim: to supply the schooling they should really propel them into the skilled roles they search.
How do you guarantee AFPA’s packages keep present with analysis, tendencies, and finest practices?
Within the well being trade, new analysis is continually rising, offering new info and redefining finest practices. At AFPA, we perceive that offering our college students with outdated info is solely not an choice, so we take a proactive method as an alternative. We make it part of our routine to observe the most recent problems with main educational and trade journals, attend trade conferences, tune into webinars, and community with different skilled organizations and consultants within the discipline. We’ve even been identified to edit a stay course to tweak a reality or two based mostly on newly gleaned data. We do that to ensure that when our college students graduate, they’ve essentially the most present info potential to excel of their careers.
What do you see as a few of the most useful abilities college students achieve from AFPA packages?
Among the most useful abilities college students achieve from AFPA packages embody:
- Complete Information: Each single one in all our programs gives a wealth of data on the subject of research. For college kids actually in search of to realize experience in a selected 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 cause, we infuse holistic views into all the pieces we educate, supporting our college students to see the larger image.
- Sensible Software and Teaching Expertise: 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 educate the talents, we additionally present ample follow alternatives to use them to actual world eventualities.
- Skilled Confidence and Profession Readiness: Our packages are designed to construct college students’ confidence of their talents, getting ready them to excel on their chosen profession journey.
What makes the stay cohort expertise particular at AFPA?
The Superior Well being Teaching Intensive is the dynamic, stay part of our Licensed Grasp Well being and Wellness Coach program, and it’s AFPA’s solely stay course. In a single Zoom room, we unite folks 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 need to empower others to turn out to be one of the best 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.
Study 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 character assessments. After I was in first grade, my instructor moved my seat for speaking so many occasions, I ended up sitting subsequent to each single child at school.
I didn’t be taught to journey a motorcycle till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I needed to focus all my power on rollerblading.
If 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.
For those who needed to sum up your philosophy on conduct change in a single sentence, what wouldn’t it be?
For those who change your well being, you modify 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 stay well being teaching session?
For those who’re on the fence about becoming a member of the subsequent stay course, remind your self that this is without doubt one of the best and inexpensive methods to turn out to be a Nationwide Board Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach. As an NBHWC-Authorised program, AFPA affords a direct and supportive path to board certification with out pointless delays or bills.
In case your aim is to supply a significant service to others via the facility of well being and wellness teaching, whereas incomes a residing doing work that makes a distinction, that is your alternative. You’ll achieve the talents 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 discipline, which implies there’s room to develop, contribute, and set up your self in an rising occupation.
On the similar time, this isn’t nearly your purchasers—it’s a transformative expertise for you, too. By this coaching, you’ll deepen your individual self-awareness, develop important teaching abilities, and construct the arrogance wanted to not solely cross the board examination however to actually be an incredible coach.
If that sounds just like the form of profession and private progress you’ve been on the lookout for, cease hesitating and enroll immediately!
📆 The subsequent AFPA stay well being teaching session begins quickly.
Be part of a worldwide group of aspiring coaches and be taught from a few of the discipline’s main educators.
