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 dwell Zoom classes with vitality and empathy, she’s each the architect and advocate in 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 the whole 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 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, making certain essentially the most invaluable 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 all the time begin by asking, ‘What’s greatest for the coed?’ The reply to that single query drives each determination we make, from the subjects 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 growth, what usually goes unseen is how a lot we rejoice alongside our college students. Once they earn their certificates and discover success within the discipline, we’re completely ecstatic. In spite of everything, that’s our final objective: to supply the schooling they should actually 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 trade, new analysis is continually rising, offering new data and redefining greatest 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 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 consultants within the discipline. We’ve even been recognized to edit a dwell course to tweak a reality or two primarily based on newly gleaned information. We do that to ensure that when our college students graduate, they’ve essentially the most present data attainable to excel of their careers.
What do you see as a few of the most respected expertise college students acquire from AFPA applications?
A number of the most respected expertise college students acquire from AFPA applications embody:
- Complete Data: Each single one in all our programs offers a wealth of information on the subject of examine. For college students 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 motive, we infuse holistic views into the whole lot we educate, supporting our college students to see the larger image.
- Sensible Software and Teaching Abilities: It’s one factor to know what to do, nevertheless it’s one other to have the ability to do it successfully. We don’t simply educate the abilities, we additionally present ample apply alternatives to use them to actual world situations.
- 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 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 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 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 stunning 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 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 journey a motorbike till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I needed to focus all my vitality 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 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 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 subsequent dwell well being teaching session?
When you’re on the fence about becoming a member of the subsequent dwell course, remind your self that this is likely one of the best and reasonably priced methods to turn into a Nationwide Board Licensed Well being and Wellness Coach. As an NBHWC-Accredited program, AFPA provides a direct and supportive path to board certification with out pointless delays or bills.
In case your objective is to supply a significant service to others by way of the facility 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 folks 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 discipline, which suggests there’s room to develop, contribute, and set up your self in an rising career.
On the similar time, this isn’t nearly your shoppers—it’s a transformative expertise for you, too. By way of this coaching, you’ll deepen your individual self-awareness, develop important teaching expertise, and construct the arrogance wanted to not solely go the board examination however to really 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 at this time!
📆 The following AFPA dwell well being teaching session begins quickly.
Be part of a world group of aspiring coaches and be taught from a few of the discipline’s main educators.
