What is a Social Emotional Skills Coach?
As a Social Emotional Skills Coach, I work with students who have social emotional/cognitive skill challenges.
Are you a therapist?
I am different from a counselor and therapist, meaning that my approach is educational and non-therapeutic. I help facilitate the development and progress of specific social skills pertaining to social attention, social interpretation, problem solving, and perspective taking.
What groups of people and ages do you work with?
I work with neurodiverse and neurotypical clients in their tweens to twenties. Depending on the age, needs, and situation of the client, my coaching may extend to parents or other caregivers. I provide professional development for school faculty and staff, as well as consultations with administration.
Initial Consultation with client and/or caregivers of client
During this meeting we discuss the client’s areas of strengths and challenges, prioritization of needs, and formulate the next steps to support social emotional cognitive skill development and/or progress.
Individual Social Emotional Skills Coaching
My facilitation scope is educational, meaning I focus on social emotional skill development and reinforcement through instruction and practice. Each session is tailored to meet the individual’s level of need for social emotional skill development and/or reinforcement.
School/Social Observation and Follow Up Consultation
- A school or social observation is a method used to gather information about the client’s social behaviors within environments where they are expected to apply social emotional cognitive skills. Typical social environments include but are not limited to school lunch, recess, group work, games, physical education, etc. During this observation, time will be utilized by observing the client’s social attention, interpretation, problem-solving skills, and perspective taking skills. The goal of this observation is to identify social emotional cognitive skills challenges and develop a coaching plan that is tailored to meet the specific needs of the client.
- During the Follow Up Consultation, the results of the observation and the next steps forward are discussed with parents/caregivers and the client, dependent on developmental appropriateness.
Parent Coaching
I offer coaching to parents or caregivers to support them with implementing their child’s social emotional cognitive skill strategies in both home and outside environments, as well as resources that reinforce their child’s social emotional skill progression.
Professional/School Team Collaboration
- The purpose of this collaboration connects the client’s educational and professional teams together so that multiple perspectives of the client’s skills are discussed and addressed. It also provides a means for team members to utilize similar strategies and implement consistent vocabulary to help the client’s social emotional cognitive skills progress.
- This collaboration can be met through connecting via phone calls and/or meeting with the client’s educational team, therapist, or any other related professional that is involved with the client’s progress.
Consultation with Educators and Administration
I collaborate with administration to discuss the social emotional needs of students and how best to support educators with social emotional skill development. This may involve professional development for educators and push-in class lessons for students.