Fostering Success Coaching

3% of alumni of foster care earn

a bachelor degree or higher by

their mid-20s as compared to

24% of the general population.

70% of alumni foster care aspire to attend college.

Alumni of foster care students in college report more willingness to utilize certain campus services than students in the general population. These services include: social enrichment, personal counseling and academic assistance.

Did You Know?

70%

3%

Source: www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/Midwest%20Evaluation_Report_4_10_12.pdf

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What is Fostering Success Coaching?

The Fostering Success Coaching model of practice provides a framework for professionals to offer integrative support to students from foster care preparing for or enrolled in post-secondary education. Developed, refined and tested at Western Michigan University, the Fostering Success Coaching model can be applied as a full program of support. It can also be adapted as a core skill set to educational advisors, educational mentors, caregivers and other professionals providing support to young people who have experienced foster care and/or adverse childhood experiences during key transition periods to post-secondary education, and from post-secondary graduation to career.

The model is a philosophy of action that prioritizes partnership between coach and student as a key to success. It augments Supporting Success: Improving Higher Education Outcomes for Students from Foster Care, a guide published by Casey Family Programs in 2010.1 In particular, the model trains professionals to effectively engage students in accessing and utilizing direct support services. Because campus-based support services for youth aging out of foster care or with adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) vary widely, the model targets individualized professional training that adds value to all organizations providing educational support for students, regardless of program design or service approach.

The Fostering Success Coaching model is defined by standards of coaching that are the basis for model fidelity. The Center for Fostering Success develops and oversees implementation of standards for all certified individuals and programs. Standards reflect core elements of the model and are considered in context of the organization in which they are applied.

The Fostering Success Coaching Model Evolution

In the spring of 2007, WMU responded to a call by the Michigan Department of Human Services to engage post- secondary institutions in responding to the dismal rates of educational achievement and career progress by young people aging out of the foster care system. In response, the University informally launched its Foster Youth and Higher Education Initiative, which today is known as the Center for Fostering Success. This effort engaged the WMU campus community and involved forming a student advisory group comprised of seven students from foster care enrolled at the University to help guide efforts.

In fall 2008, WMU joined a national movement to support foster youth in higher education by launching a campus-based support and tuition-scholarship effort for students from foster care, most commonly known as the Seita Scholars Program. The program grew the number of former foster youth under the age of 23 attending WMU from 12 in spring 2007 to 160 students annually 2012. Since 2008, the program’s directors, staff and students have worked together to develop, monitor and refine the Fostering Success Coaching model, and this effort continues today. The coaching model is the primary method of direct student support. To date, the efforts of WMU’s program show promising results. Third-semester retention rates and graduation rates for WMU students from foster care, known as Seita Scholars, are comparable to the rate for other students who are first time in any college. WMU’s model is leveling the academic playing field for this group of students.

1casey.org/Resources/Publications/SupportingSuccess.htm

In particular, the model trains professionals to effectively engage students in accessing and utilizing direct support services.

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Cultural HumilityThe Fostering Success Coaching model helps professionals learn to connect with students’ worldviews through a lens clarifying how the identity of “foster care youth” intersects with other cultural dimensions of growing up including race, gender, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and any other sociocultural category important to the student.

Interdependent RelationshipsThe Fostering Success Coaching model helps professionals build, maintain and end reciprocal partnerships, where students are viewed as experts of their lived experience of foster care, and coaches are experts at thriving in college and career.

Learner CenteredThe Fostering Success Coaching model helps professionals be informed about how foster care and adverse childhood experiences impact opportunities and approaches to learning; and, to use this knowledge to help students comprehensively assess their strengths and struggles, prioritize needs and solve problems. Students are coached to be in the “driver’s seat” of their college experience, and any life obstacles that emerge are used as opportunities for students to learn and grow.

Fostering Success Coaching Model

The basic needs of young people placed in foster care or who have lived through other traumas are no different than others of the same age; however, how they receive and perceive the world is filtered by early adverse childhood experiences that often include abuse, neglect or abandonment by their birth parents. Additionally, placement in foster care further shapes growth and development as children encounter foster care professionals, temporary living arrangements with foster parents or group home staff, separation from siblings or extended family, and court or agency restrictions on childhood activities. The Fostering Success Coach Training model is comprised of seven core elements and three practice elements that together take into consideration these and many other adverse conditions of childhood that are common to students who grew up as wards of the foster care system.

Core Elements

There are seven core elements of the model and, together, they represent the philosophical foundation for supportive action. The core elements are equally significant, and each informs the prac-tice skills of a trained Fostering Success Coach.

Students are coached to be in the “driver’s seat” of their college experience, and any life obstacles that emerge are used as opportunities for students to learn and grow.

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Teaching in Real TimeThe Fostering Success Coaching model emphasizes using strength-based techniques to help students set goals commensurate with developmental milestones appropriate to age and stage of college. Coaching happens in response to students’ real-life challenges and successes that take place in various locations such as office, community or campus.

Skill-Based Asset DevelopmentThe Fostering Success Coaching model involves custom-ized skills teaching for each student across seven life domains that are considered key to successful transition for students who have aged out of foster care or have lived through significant adverse childhood experiences.

Network DevelopmentThe Fostering Success Coaching model understands how the foster care experience and adverse childhood experiences hinder students’ capacity to develop quality personal and professional networks that are key to college and career success. Coaches work with students to build networks supportive of their individual career trajectory and work with campus departments and community organizations to increase students’ successful engagement with peers and professionals.

Empowerment EvaluationThe Fostering Success Coaching model utilizes basic evaluation principles to monitor coaching practices and student outcomes. Basic evaluation tools are integrated into the coaching practice to maintain objectivity in service delivery and help make decisions that yield better student outcomes.

Practice Steps

The seven core elements inform the three practice steps of the Fostering Success Coaching model. The practice steps include assessment, prioritizing and teaching, and are used in a continuous cycle throughout the coach-student relationship. The three practice elements applied in sequence comprise a single coaching interaction.

1. AssessmentThe Fostering Success Coaching model trains professionals to assess students’ strengths and challenges across seven life domains from a holistic, integrated perspective. Trained coaches engage students with key coaching techniques such as effective questioning, normalizing and empathizing, and naming strengths and challenges during assessment. Coaches are attuned to verbal and nonverbal communication.

2. PrioritizingThe Fostering Success Coaching model uses a student needs hierarchy as they partner with students to determine priorities for intervention. It is typical for students from foster care to have significant life challenges in multiple life domains at one time such as unmet health needs, relationship difficulty with family, unstable housing, insufficient funds, or reluctance to ask for help. Coach-es work with students to prioritize challenges and log strengths to set a plan that empowers and supports students to respond proactively to challenges that arise during the “aging out” years.

3. TeachingThe Fostering Success Coaching model activities use the “cycle of teaching and learning” to implement targeted interventions aimed at either increasing knowledge, cultivating awareness or building skills. Targeting behavior, action and habits, coaches use praise and developmental teaching techniques to maximize skill building during brief interactions with students.Targeting behavior,

action and habits, coaches use praise

and developmental teaching techniques to

maximize skill building during brief interactions

with students.

Fostering Success Coach Training4

Trained coaches use a common coaching language to facilitate student growth and learning.

Trained coaches are comfortable working with students as partners and are transparent about any power they hold as part of their professional roles, such as mandated reporters and scholarship reviewer.

The coaching interaction focuses primarily on the present moment experience with students allowing for reciprocal learning as the means to arrive at active solutions.

The Fostering Success Coaching model is founded on several basic assumptions which are integral to its fidelity and capacity to benefit students who have aged out of foster care or have lived through adverse childhood experience. These assumptions include the following:

The model is intended to be delivered by professionals with a college degree.

The model is a best fit for individuals who possess the following qualities: compassionate, decisive, ability to engage both inductive and deductive thinking, as well as conceptual and concrete problem-solving.

The coaching skill set is developed through quality and regular supervision. Supervision can be arranged through the Center for Fostering Success.

Critical Coaching Assumptions

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Fostering Success Coach Training

Training and certification is designed for professionals who are working with students enrolled in educational programs from high school through college who are currently in foster care, have aged out of foster care, or have lived through adverse childhood experiences but were never placed in foster care.

Training has three levels:Fostering Success Coach: Level I

This beginning level introduces the seven core elements and three practice elements, which make up the core infrastructure of the Fostering Success Coach Model. Level I training focuses on building a strong conceptual foundation for working with youth, and provides basic practice skill set for working with students from foster care. Highlights include:

Learn the seven Core Elements of the Fostering Success Coaching Model philosophy of action: interdependent relationships, cultural humility, learner centered, teaching in real time, skill-based assets, network development and empowerment evaluation.

Learn the three Practice Steps of the Fostering Success Coaching Model, which make up a coaching interaction: assessment, prioritize and teach.

Learn basic coaching skills that help students thrive in education and career development.

Fostering Success Coach: Level IIThis intermediate level introduces advanced practice skills, and emphasizes building competency in applying the Fostering Success Coaching Model to challenges of persistent or crisis nature and presented by students and systems. Highlights include:

Learn how to apply the Fostering Success Coaching Model to scenarios involving student crisis and conflict and system inequities.

Learn how to use coaching data to inform incremental skill building with students and professional development as a coach.

Learn the Fostering Success Coaching Model Intervention Review method for systematic reflection of coaching interactions with students.

Learn strategies to improve institutional systems of student support.

Learn intermediate coaching skills that help students thrive in education and career development.

Fostering Success Coach: CertifiedThis level incorporates a train the trainer approach, teaching the Level I and II material for training, super-vision, and consulting purposes with beginning and intermediate coaches. Highlights include:

Learn to use the Fostering Success Coaching Supervision model with individuals who have completed Level I and II trainings.

Learn how to train the Fostering Success Coach Training curriculum at Levels I and II.

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Highlights of Fostering Success Coach Training

The Fostering Success Coaching ModelLearn to apply the model to respond effectively to a range of student challenges and help students build a repertoire of skills that will benefit their academic and career goals.

The Coaching Tool Kit Providing knowledge, tools and resources for ongoing learning to effectively work with students from foster care. The tool kit includes the coaching workbook, skills teaching textbooks and exclusive Web-based content, worksheets and readings for optimal learning.

Skills TrainingIntensive skill development during training equips the trained with the necessary interpersonal skills to effectively partner and build capacity with students in various settings and modes, including face-to-face, phone, email and texting.

Tracking ProgressSimple strategies to track and monitor data that show patterns of progress for students from foster care as they progress towards graduation.

Expert ConsultationOngoing consultation services are available for those who wish to advance to Level II or Certification.

Upon completion of the training, a Fostering Success Coach will be able to do the following:

Dynamically understand the experience of foster care, including common beliefs, behaviors, characteristics and strengths students from foster care bring to college.

Use methods to partner with students to build interdepen-dent relationships, allowing the professional to “do with” instead of “do for.”

Build student capacity by using methods for increasing knowledge, cultivating awareness, and teaching skills for progress in the seven life domains, as identified by Casey Family Programs.

Identify and reinforce behavior and skills that are assets for student growth and progress towards graduation and career transition.

Use methods to fill knowledge, awareness and skill gaps that present challenges for student success and progress towards graduation and career transition.

Increase networks for student support on campus and in the community, as well use methods for increasing the student’s personal and professional support networks.

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Fostering Success Coach Training8

“I’m excited to go back and use this. Facilitators did a great job at putting us at ease and modeling for us.”

“I really enjoyed the training, the feedback, networking and experience.”

“The training exceeded my expectations. The trainers were fantastic and were very encouraging but also provided feedback both in strengths and areas of growth in a very kind way.”

“I loved that the training was student-centered.”

Fostering Success Coach Training Feedback

1903 W. Michigan Ave.Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5392

wmich.edu/fosteringsuccess/outreach/trainingcfs-coaching@wmich.edu

(269) 387-8384