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 Schooling 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 Schooling Specialist, and Licensed Private Coach, Dr. Walsh brings a long time of expertise to each course she touches. From shaping what you be taught behind the scenes to guiding dwell Zoom classes with vitality 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 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 Schooling & Curriculum Director, how do you form the coed studying expertise?
My function encompasses your complete course growth lifecycle. This ranges from the starting 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 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 notice about how AFPA develops its curriculum?
Most individuals may not notice that we at all times begin by asking, ‘What’s greatest for the coed?’ The reply to that single query drives each resolution we make, from the subjects 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 typically goes unseen is how a lot we have fun alongside our college students. Once they earn their certificates and discover success within the subject, we’re completely ecstatic. In any case, that’s our final objective: to offer the schooling they should actually propel them into the skilled roles they search.
How do you guarantee AFPA’s packages keep present with analysis, tendencies, and greatest practices?
Within the well being trade, 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 possibility, so we take a proactive method as a substitute. We make it part of our routine to watch the most recent problems with main educational and trade journals, attend trade conferences, tune into webinars, and community with different skilled organizations and specialists within the subject. We’ve even been recognized to edit a dwell course to tweak a truth or two primarily based on newly gleaned data. We do that to ensure that when our college students graduate, they’ve probably the most present data potential to excel of their careers.
What do you see as a number of the Most worthy abilities college students achieve from AFPA packages?
A number of the Most worthy abilities college students achieve from AFPA packages embody:
- Complete Information: Each single one in all our programs supplies a wealth of data on the subject of research. For college kids actually in search of 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 cause, we infuse holistic views into all the things 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 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 part 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 totally different walks of life, we share a profound commonality: a deep need to empower others to turn out to be the very best model of themselves. There’s magic in bringing collectively adults of all ages, with their numerous backgrounds and wealthy life experiences, watching them be taught and develop collectively. It’s actually transformative.
Be taught Set Your self Aside as a Board-Licensed Well being Coach
Attending to Know Dr. Walsh Outdoors the Classroom
What are a number of 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 character assessments. Once I was in first grade, my trainer 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 trip a motorcycle till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I needed to focus all my vitality on rollerblading.
Whenever 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.
Should you needed to sum up your philosophy on conduct change in a single sentence, what wouldn’t it be?
Should you 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 following dwell well being teaching session?
Should you’re on the fence about becoming a member of the following dwell 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-Accredited program, AFPA affords 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 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 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 career.
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 individual self-awareness, develop important teaching abilities, and construct the boldness wanted to not solely cross the board examination however to actually be a terrific coach.
If that sounds just like the form of profession and private development you’ve been on the lookout for, cease hesitating and enroll immediately!
📆 The subsequent AFPA dwell well being teaching session begins quickly.
Be part of a world group of aspiring coaches and be taught from a number of the subject’s main educators.
