Why coaches will love online training

Coaching is a critical job at any agency wanting to provide quality MiiWrap and make a difference in the lives of youth and families. Programs cannot have consistently good MiiWrap without good coaching. Good coaching means well trained coaches who have enough time to do the coaching part of their jobs. Good coaching also requires support and supervision for coaches, to ensure they are providing good coaching. Programs need coaches who can take new staff through the process of learning MiiWrap, improve the skillset of existing staff, and monitor and support continuous improvement in the quality and fidelity of MiiWrap provided by all of the staff. 

Most coaches want to be good at coaching. But time constrains and competing priorities often strain the ability to do so. Good coaching takes time. Even experienced MiiWrap staff require ongoing coaching. And coaches often have responsibilities beyond coaching, including their own case load, administrative work, and supervisions of other programs for the agency. Under this pressure, some coaching needs cannot remain the highest priority.

This reality is one of the major reasons we decided to create an online MiiWrap program. The program alleviates many of the organizational, administrative, and creative pressures on coaches during new staff training, as well as initial coaching such as setting up shadowing, behavioral rehearsals, and scheduling time to watch staff practice. The course provides a structure that frees coaches to focus their energy on the teaching and guiding part of coaching, not the administrative and organizational minutia. Below are some of the ways online MiiWrap training addresses common coach concerns.  

Organize staff learning and coach-staff interactions

While there are many advantages of our online course, its user-ready nature may be the most immediately obvious. The online Foundations of MiiWrap course gives consistent structure to the training process in two important ways. First, all students learn the same skills and have the same opportunities for learning. Second, the course structures coach-staff interaction, making it less burdensome to provide meaningful feedback. 

The online Foundations of MiiWrap course standardizes the training experience so that everyone learns the same things. In live training, anything can happen. One training can run long, so another has to run short. A trainer may be stronger in some parts than others. Some coaches don’t like to provide live training. The online course changes this dynamic, ensuring every staff person gets the same experience and learns the same material.

The online course also standardizes the coaching experience. This is important because it ensures the best coaching for each staff. And importantly for you, it standardizes the way coaches organize feedback. Our goal was to reduce the time and organizational burdens of individualized coaching. The course keeps all of an individual’s work together so you can prepare for debriefing.  Preparing to debrief a staff member can be chaotic. What have they done? Where are they struggling? Did I take any notes last time, and if so where are they? With the online course, staff progress, detailed quiz results, shadowing scoring sheets, applied learning essay answers, and more are together and ready to go. No folders required.

The course also provides structure for guiding debriefing sessions with staff. Staff learn vocabulary, theory, and skills as they progress through a module. They are asked to consider specific questions throughout the process. At the end of the module, they need to debrief all of this learning with their coach. The process is structured and coaches follow a debriefing guide that is specific to each module. Coach debriefing is an integral part of MiiWrap learning; it provides staff the opportunity to get their questions answered and gives coaches insight into staff learning. The online course maximizes the benefit of this process at the end of each module by providing standardized guides for this interaction.

Individualize learning to create the best MiiWrap staff

While the course content is highly structured for staff, the trajectory is variable. The course is self-paced, but with no extra work on the part of the coach. Some new staff come in with a strong wraparound and motivational interviewing background, and just need to learn how it all works together. Some have never worked with a real family before. Learners have different needs and learn at different paces. The online Foundations of MiiWrap course allows for this variability with no extra effort on the part of coaches.

Provide practice in an impactful and convenient way

Although it may not be the first thing to come to mind when imagining an online course, the online Foundations of MiiWrap course provides a lot of opportunity for practice. And, if we didn’t mention yet, it standardizes the experience while reducing agency burden to provide shadowing and rehearsal opportunities.

Shadowing has long been a trouble spot for many programs. Live shadowing is difficult to schedule and the quality of interactions may vary by staff. As a coach, it is hard to debrief a shadowing you didn’t observe. The online Foundations of MiiWrap course includes specifically curated shadowing videos for every module. These are accompanied by scoring sheets for the learners to submit, and debriefing questions for the coach to use. It’s always the same, always correct, and always available.

Behavioral rehearsals are another important practice component of MiiWrap learning. The online course makes behavioral rehearsals easier by creating flexibility in how, when, and with whom they can be done. Scheduling rehearsals can be difficult. It’s one thing if you have a class working together, but when staff start in ones and twos, are working at their own pace, or are not all based in the same office, it can be a challenge. The online course gives staff everything they need to complete the behavioral rehearsals on their own schedule. They only need a person to record themselves with, including partners, older kids, friends, staff…anyone.

Integrate best-practices in education into every interaction

The online Foundations of MiiWrap course was created to maximize learning by including learning theory at each step. This removes the responsibility from the coach to provide evidence-based learning in every interaction. Many excellent coaches are not teachers or trainers. In the past, this has been problematic because they had to create so many learning aids for their staff. From trainings to activities to debriefing sessions – it could be very overwhelming when made by someone without a background in adult learning principles. Our program is ready out of the box. No training or activity creation required. And have assurance that staff are learning with theory-informed courses.

Easily track staff progress and certifications

On a final administrative note, the online course makes it easy to see which staff received training and when. The dashboard seamlessly creates a digital record of learning and growth. This makes it easy to track staff progress through the course. It also makes it easy to track how many trained and certified staff are at an agency. Need to prove to some granting or certifying body that your staff completed their training with details? The online course provides tracking information seamlessly in graphs, charts, and spreadsheets.

This course is designed to make training effortless and coaching much easier. Coaches who have used our program are thrilled with how much time it gives them back, while learners are excited about how much easier it is to actually learn the process. Learn more about the online Foundations of MiiWrap course from our blog, and check out training opportunities on our website.