Family-Centered Coaching strengthens how human service providers engage families and community partners by shifting power to families. While FCC can be used with anyone, regardless of their familial status, it was designed specifically to support people who set and achieve their goals within the context of their family.
Coaches create an environment where family members are able to think more creatively and critically about their goals and make choices that are more aligned with their family goals. In partnership with families, organizations can then create new pathways to economic prosperity, personal fulfillment, and racial justice.
Organizations practicing FCC span 35 states. They are rural and urban, community-based nonprofit and government-based, small and large. The model spans across programs providing workforce development, early learning, housing services, and more–all working holistically in partnership with families. Watch this video to from our partner in Maricopa County, Arizona to hear first-hand how one organization transformed how they worked with families through FCC.
The Learning Journey
The Prosperity Agenda offers this learning journey to support staff as they steward their organization through the successful adoption of FCC. Through a comprehensive series of learning experiences, we support you from an initial organizational assessment and all the way through the launch of a continuous improvement process.
Adoption of FCC will look unique in each individual organization. The FCC learning journey, however, consistently offers these outcomes:
- Deepens how organizations center on the experience of families/participants
- Fosters a shared language that supports collaboration
- Builds greater empathy within teams and throughout various levels of the organization
- Breaks down organizational silos
- Increases the sense of purpose among staff
- Honors families as they report that they are making progress on their goals
The Learning Experiences
Through a comprehensive series of learning experiences, we support you from an initial learning survey and reflection and all the way through the launch of a community of practice.
- Learning Culture Survey: To allow you and your staff to reflect on your organization’s learning culture, we begin with a discussion about the elements of a culture of learning. We provide a learning culture survey for you to utilize throughout your organization. The results and reflection help guide how we can work together to best leverage strengths and navigate challenges towards adoption of FCC.
- Family-Centered Coaching Kickoff: This 1-hour virtual kickoff meeting is open to anyone across the organization that would like to understand the FCC approach and adoption process. It helps build buy in, clarity, and collective vision and voice as we move toward a coaching approach. There is no limit to the number of participants in this event. During this event, we’ll Provide an opportunity for leadership to share the big picture behind the shift to FCC and hope for what lays ahead. (We’ll help craft that message, as needed.) Present an overview of FCC and the learning journey. Offer space for attendees to share their thoughts and ask questions.
- Anatomy of the Family-Centered Coaching Mindset: This series of seven 90-minute workshops invites staff working at all levels of the organization to reflect on how they view the people they support, and to become more aware of how our experiences, biases, and social systems may hyper-focus on “individual responsibility.” This learning experience is not about the “how-to’s” of FCC. Rather, it zooms in on how our mindsets impact the families you serve in both intentional and unintentional ways. These sessions are limited to 60 participants. Note that the first session orients staff to the online classroom platform and other internet-based resources. Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet with their small learning groups to plan how and when they will work together to complete learning reflections and engage in fruitful discussions.
- Family-Centered Coaching Toolkit Onboarding: This series of six 2-hour workshops is designed to onboard staff working directly with families, and their supervisors, to the FCC framework and toolkit. These sessions are a bridge from mindset to practice. Staff learn how to build trusting, collaborative, and non-judgmental relationships with participants. Through key coaching skills and tools, staff learn to facilitate transformative coaching conversations. These sessions are limited to 40 participants.
- Supervision Onboarding: During four 2-hour workshops, TPA equips supervisors with the process and tools to support their own coaching practices as well as set up and facilitate a community of practice that will support coaches in their practice of FCC. Supervisors are introduced to: The Coaching Conversation Model, a one-on-one conversation structure between supervisor and coach to support coaching skills. The Coaching Confidence Survey, a reflective tool for coaches to assess their coaching behaviors. The Community of Practice materials, which staff will use to hold Community of Practice sessions. These sessions are limited to 40 participants.
- Community of Practice Launch Support: The vision of the Community of Practice is to support and center families through the practice of Family-Centered Coaching. This is a deliberate space for coaches and supervisors to discuss the successes and challenges of coaching and work together to bring shared understanding to their organization and participants. Through reflective tools, coaches and supervisors work together to improve coaching practices throughout their work. We provide ready-to-use facilitator guides, slides, and videos as well as a process to reflect on data from the CBSA.
The Prosperity Agenda provides these resources as the designated national administrator of Family-Centered Coaching.