Coaching to Support Social and Emotional Skills

Coaching to Support Social and Emotional Skills

Joyce Escorcia: Hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for this season’s first Coaching Corner webinar. Today, we're going to be talking about coaching to support social and emotional skills. I am Joyce Escorcia, and I'm joined today by my colleague Sarah Basler, and we're also excited to have you here with us today. And thank you for choosing to spend an hour with us.

Today, we are super excited to have Adrienne Golden with us, and she's going to be sharing and just talking and sharing resources and strategies today. She is a research associate from Vanderbilt University, and she's just got tons of knowledge and experience with practice-based coaching and with building coaching relationships. We're really excited to meet her and just learn a little bit more along with her today. And you're going to hear more from Sarah and Adrienne in just a few moments.

Here is our agenda for today; this is what we're going to be doing. We're going to be exploring resources and strategies for building relationships with children, families, and even team members. And then we're also going to practice using different coaching strategies with some scenarios, based on that relationship-building piece in those practices. We are excited to dig into that with you today.

And for the next four Coaching Corner webinars, we're going to be focusing in on social emotional and development, which is one of the domains of the Head Start Early Learning and Outcomes Framework, or the ELOF. And the feedback that we received from last season was that a focus on social emotional development was really what was wanted and what was needed. And we are just excited to be able to delivery on that and share some of those resources and strategies that we think that you could find helpful.

And each Coaching Corner webinar this season, we'll also be focusing on different tiers of the pyramid model. The pyramid model is that framework of evidence-based practices for promoting young children's healthy social and emotional development. The pyramid builds upon a tiered public health approach by proving those universal supports to all children to promote wellness and then targeted services to those children who need more support. And then also more intensive services for those who need them as well.

Today we're going to really focus on those universal practices, thinking about nurturing your responsive relationships. And we know that those are really essential to healthy social emotional development. For more information about the pyramid model, check out the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations, or NCPMI. We've got all that information in the viewer’s guide for you today as well. Definitely check them out if you want to dig deeper.

We know that nurturing your responsive relationships with adults are upon the foundation of children's healthy social emotional development. And we know that children who have developed trusting relationships with adults are really better able to manage their own thoughts, feelings, actions. And they build strong social emotional skills. And they also gain self-confidence and are more likely to engage in positive behaviors. We know that those relationships really are key and are really foundational pieces. And when we talk about relationships, they include different partners. The relationships that we most commonly think of are those relationships that adults build with children. That's definitely one. But we also want to think about those relationships that we build with families and then also those collaborative relationships we build with team members within our program.

We're going to talk about each layer of those relationships today. One way to think about building relationships with children, families, and even members of our team is by imagining that each person is coming to you with this piggy bank. And we're going to watch a short clip of Dr. Gail Joseph while she's explaining the relationship piggy bank metaphor. This could be new information to some, and this could be a refresher. You may have seen the piggy bank resources or video as well.

[Video begins]

[Music]

Dr.Gail Joseph: One of the best metaphors there is for a relationship with somebody, a positive relationship if you will, is that of a piggy bank. Now many people have used this metaphor, and you've probably heard it yourself. But if you think about it, who you have a positive relationship with in your life, it was because there were many, many, many small positive interactions over time. You can think about those as like, coins in your piggy bank, little deposits that were made right over time. You had a fun interaction, you had a fun conversation, you shared a fun moment. All of those things build up this positive piggy bank, a positive relationship between you and that person.

And if you think about it, that piggy banks probably pretty full with the people that you are closest to. And when something happens in that relationship, maybe they didn't call you back when you called them, or maybe they said something that hurt your feelings. Or maybe they asked you to do something that was really challenging for you, like meet them for exercise or something like that. Well, your relationship has enough deposits in there that those little withdrawals, if you will, are going to be OK, right? Your relationships going to be OK because it's so full and that there will be positive interactions to refill it.

Well, let's think about that child with challenging behavior. How full is their piggy bank? Have you made small interactions or deposits with them over time? Is there a lot to draw upon when you do have to ask them to do something that's challenging? Like maybe sit quietly during a circle time, or stop their impulse to talk and instead raise a quiet hand. Or cut on a straight line, like those types of things that they might find challenging. If there are not positive deposits in their bank account, we're – as I say – writing blank checks or bad checks for them. We want to make sure that we're building positive relationships with children. Again, thinking about that piggy bank as a metaphor, let's think about small things that we can do every day with a child that start acting as deposits in that bank account.

[Video ends]

Joyce: Wow, that's a lot to think about there. I loved how she even brought up writing bad checks, and it just makes me reflect off what have I been a positive in other people and also in little ones that are around me as well. Let's think about ways that we can make some of those deposits. And we know there are many different ways. And one way to think about it is about providing empathy. That was one way to make a big deposit into that piggy bank.

When we think about providing empathy, it really is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. For a child that might sound like, “Wow, you work really hard on that tower. And when it fell that was really upsetting.” Or for a family member it might be, “It can be hard to respond to your child's challenging behavior, especially when it's the end of the day and you're tired.” Or for a member of your team it could be, “You just organized the art supplies, and after a certain time, they all got mixed up again. I am so sorry about that.” Then another deposit into that piggy bank could also be just playing together. For children this would be just letting them take the lead and following their interests and ideas in play, wherever that may lead.

And then another deposit could be just shared interest. When we're thinking about sharing interests, it's really a great way to make a deposit. That can be finding out what children, families, or even your team members interests are. Or sharing things about yourself with others, really looking for that connection. Fostering that sense of belonging. And then also, another big deposit would be just giving your time and positive attention. This would apply to children, to families, and also to team members.

And then the final one we wanted to bring up today would be to just send a positive note, text, or a call. Just a positive gesture like this can really go a long way for families and even for team members. And even children, if you send a positive note home about the child and the family shares that with the child, just think about how proud they would feel. Like, “Oh my goodness like, I did this thing, and someone noticed.”

These aren't the only ways to make those deposits, and every person is different. And depending on culture, all of those things that really, deposits can look differently. But really what filled one person’s emotional bank may not fill another person’s bank. But it's really a good list to get us started. And as a coach, it really is important for us to not only think about how a coachee is making deposits for children, families, and team members, but as a coach to also think, how are we filling our coachee’s piggy banks.

With that being said, we really want to hear from you now, and we invite you to share via that purple Q&A widget. What are some of your favorite ways to make deposits with your coachees? When you're thinking about what has really worked well. And again, everyone is different. And how people communicate and their learning styles, all of those things play into it. But we want to hear from you. I'm going to go down here to my Q&A and just going to give you guys a few seconds to think about that.

And just let us know, what are some of the ways that you make deposits with your coachees? And Sarah, I'm going to just pop in with you and just check in with you while we're waiting to hear what – have you found some ways that you found successful for filling coachee’s piggy banks?

Sarah Basler: One of the ways that I really like to fill a coachee’s piggy bank is thinking about, like learning about a coachee and asking about how their family is. Or, if I know that they like a certain show, or just checking in on them with their interests, that's one of my favorite ways. Also, giving, like sweet treats, or some of their favorite things. Like if I know that I have a coachee that loves Pepsi, I might bring them a Pepsi when we meet. Those little things go a long way. Looks like we've got some responses coming in now.

Joyce: I know, there's a bunch of things coming in. Erica shared just celebrating their successes. Julie shares that for her, it's just been giving time during the meeting – whether it's chat, vent, like anything to get the meeting started – before settling in to coaching, she's found to be successful. Sherry shares that it's just really about finding out about them, just being interested in who they are outside of work, which I think is an amazing idea there.

Sarah: I see Tiffany put … Oh, I was going to say, I think we were looking at the same one. Tiffany says validating their feelings. Because I think sometimes when we're working with young children or families, we can feel isolated, and things bubble up for us. And just letting them know, “Hey, I hear you. That was tough.” That providing empathy is a big one.

Joyce: Definitely, and sometimes it's not that we have the answers or can change things, but just being able to say, “I heard you, and we're in this together,” makes all the difference. Cynthia also shared that hand written notes … Cynthia and Missy both shared just notes go a long way. And I know for me, that's been a big thing as well. And I know I've saved some notes that I've gotten across, like different times in my life that I just go back to and just remind myself of something that made my day or brought a smile to my face. And Carol even shared just being a respectful listener.

Let's see. A couple of folks have just shared about figuring out what different ways to show affection towards that person, whether it's that verbal praise, or we got high five, again everyone is a little bit different here. Checking in to see how they're feeling and doing, making sure to point all the positives. Lots of great things in here. Random healthy snack with a note, Geneva shared. I'll just be honest, I like snacks healthy or not, so I say, way to go Geneva on trying to promote those healthy snacks there too. Lots of great things coming in there.

And again, we're just laying the groundwork, and we’re going to dig a little deeper into this. I'm going to keep us moving just a bit here. And the other thing that we want to point out for this Coaching Corner season, is that … And if you’ve seen Teacher Time, our webinar series, Teacher Time, this may look familiar to you, what we call the basics. You may have seen those there and these are just a collection of strategies that can be used in any group care setting when interacting with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Home visitors can also encourage families to use these practices with their children.

The basics are those effective – we're thinking about coaches and coachees – the basics are these effective practices coachees can apply no matter what content they are focusing on. For example, like math, literacy, social emotional skills, it's always important to remember these basics. And they're just strategies you can use to support your coachees as well. It's one connection that we do have with our Teacher Time webinar series. If you want to know more, we encourage you, check out Teacher Time. You may also encourage your coachees to check out Teacher Time as well. And maybe it's something that you do together. Maybe it … Pulling out a clip from there, but to really look at those different strategies that they could use. Just another point of connection and another resource that you can use.

Another way that we've made that connection with the basics, with our Coaching Corner webinar, is by providing some sample needs assessments that your coachees could use as well. Those are included in the resource widget for the webinar today. And these are just resources that can help you identify some of those positive practices that you could coach coachees around as well. We just wanted to point that out.

And with that being said, we want to do just a quick pulse check here. And we want to see what do you think about sample strengths and needs assessments and action plans? Do you find them helpful for your work as a coach? And I'm going to launch the pulse check here, and you're just going to do a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Thumbs up if you do find sample strengths and needs assessments and action plans is helpful to your work as a coach. Thumbs down if you think, “No, not so much. It's good info, but they're not really helpful to me in my work as a coach.” Again, thumbs up if you say yes, they're super helpful, thumbs down if you say they're not super helpful.

We see – I see some thumbs ups coming here. And we had a couple of thumbs downs here. Give it just a few more seconds, folks are still responding here. I will say that it's pretty one-sided here that most folks say or feel, that they find sample strengths and needs assessments and action plans to be helpful for them in their work. Again, we just want to put that question out there and see.

Alright, the numbers keep climbing, but I don't know if our results are going to change here. The majority of folks really find those things helpful. And that's good for us to know, and we like to know those things. We know those are the things that we want to keep providing for you guys here in our time together. And with that, I'm going to end the pulse check, and I'm going to turn it over to Sarah.

Sarah: Alright. Thanks Joyce, and thank you everybody for giving us all those ideas in the Q&A. It's always good to hear how other people are supporting coachees. Now we're going to shift to our Mindful Moment segment. This part of the webinar is where we like to take the topic that we're sharing. In this case, it's responsive relationships. And we really want to talk about how it can affect you in your role as a coach. Today, we are super excited to have our guest expert Adrienne to talk a little bit about relationships, their importance, and how they relate to you as a coach. Adrienne, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and your early childhood background?

Adrienne Golden: Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. As we mentioned at the top of the webinar, I'm a research associate at Vanderbilt, and I work with Dr. Mary Louise Hemmeter and Sarah. And prior to my current role, I was a special education preschool teacher for six years. During that time I implemented the pyramid model in my classroom.

And one of the things that I was most passionate about while I was teaching was building those really strong relationships with my colleagues. I'm particularly excited to be here for this conversation about building relationships. After I taught, I came back to Vanderbilt to get my PhD in special education, which I finished up last year. And during that time and now in my current position, I'm able to do a lot of coaching using PBC to support teachers around pyramid model implementation. As well as to support district coaches as they use PBC.

Sarah: Alrighty, thank you. OK. We're going to dive right into our interview. We know that building relationships and strong collaborative partnerships with your coachee is foundational to PBC. As a coach, you really have to start building that partnership with your coachee before you can support your coachee to build relationships with their children, families, and their team that they work with. But, wondering as a coach, what are some of your favorite strategies for building partnerships with your coachees?

Adrienne: Great question. I feel like I saw a lot of these in chat, or in the Q&A section when you asked about deposits. But I definitely love just including time during our debrief or coaching meetings to really engage in small talk with the coachee, learn more about them, how their day went, anything they're comfortable sharing. And then engage coachees in conversations about their preferences related to coaching.

What can I do to make sure that they're comfortable during coaching? Did they like to get feedback during the observation when I'm the classroom? Do they prefer I save that for the debrief? Do they like to see visual data like bringing a graph? Or do they more want to just discuss it? Do they want to role play different scenarios with me or have me model something in the classroom? Making sure I'm thinking about and asking them to tell me their preferences.

I think another helpful thing is just checking in with coaches and asking – or coachees rather –and asking how they're doing. What exciting things they've done since we last met? What things have they tried that maybe haven't gone so well, but just giving that moment to check in. And then I think a big thing that really gets teachers, is to offer help. Not only am I there to observe you and give you feedback, but I can make stuff for you. I can bring in laminated materials; I can lead a lesson; I can model things with individual children. I think that really helps to solidify that partnership when you're offering your help.

Sarah: Those are all great ways to establish yourself as a good support and a trusted person to embark on this coaching journey with. One of the relationships we often neglect, or is talked about less often, is that relationship that we see built between a coachee and the members of their team. But it's really so important, and in fact, it's actually something that I hear coachees talk about a lot, like their relationship with their team or their partners maybe not being as strong as they'd like.

When we're referring to a team, that could include co-teachers, or assistant teachers, family child care providers or anybody that works with them in the home. That could be a home visitor team, related service providers like disability managers, or ed managers, child development specialists, anybody really that the coachee has direct contact with. Tell us a little bit about why building this relationship with other members of the team is so important.

Adrienne: Like I said when I was introducing myself, this is probably one of the things that I was most passionate about when I was teaching aside from actually working with the kids. I think first and foremost, it just builds a really strong community among team members, like everybody is a part of this team that we're working on. When you build that community, it just makes everything easier. And then when team members have that really strong relationship from the beginning, when concerns do arise, it's much easier to address them or to have those more difficult conversations. Because you've built that strong relationship to where you can address those things.

And then once you have a strong relationship going, it gives you a lot more time to focus on the children, their families, the actual classroom environment. Because you've built that relationship, everyone knows what's going on. It's much easier to focus on the kiddos.

And then I think another really great piece about strong relationships is then if you have strong relationships as adults, that's what you're going to model for children. When I am friendly with my co-teacher, and we look like we're enjoying each other’s company, we're modeling that positive relationship for children. For those in home-based settings, the home visitors, it's important for the coachee to build relationships with the family. And that also models that positive relationship for children. And then just in the end when you have a strong community among your team, it just makes everyone's job easier and more fun, really you enjoy being around each other.

Sarah: I mean nobody wants to be around someone that they don't really get along with. I agree with that, making it enjoyable and everyone's job easier. Let's see. What are some strategies that you recommend coachees use when they're building relationships with their team members?

Adrienne: I think that this needs to be intentional going in from day one, I think open communication is the biggest thing, just everyone feeling like they have a voice. From day one with your team, whoever that might be, setting that tone of collaboration, and we're really here to work together, we value all team members, we value everyone's strengths and opinions and ideas, and we're open to hearing those. And walking through those together.

I think one way that we can really show that value is by asking team members, what are your strengths in the classroom, or in the home visiting site, what's a strength of yours, what's your preference related to responsibilities? We can't always do the things we most want to do, but it's really helpful when we can share roles in the classroom and people can build off of their strengths in the classroom.

And then I think, especially when you're doing something that might not be your preference, acknowledging effort and successes of team members across the day. If they're in a really challenging situation with a child, taking that time to acknowledge, “I saw that and I know it was getting frustrating, but you stayed so calm.” Anything like that, just acknowledging that throughout the day.

And then I think one of my favorite things was to make our environment fun for the teachers, of course we want that for the children, but also for the teachers. We used to do a monthly pancake breakfast. We would get to school a little bit before the kids came, and we would rotate bringing in pancakes for breakfast and just sit together 15, 20 minutes as a team. And just enjoy our pancake breakfast.

And then I think in terms of like actually building this open communication, setting team norms. Just sitting down with your team to set what are things that are important to us. For example, we'll only talk about things going on with individual children when we're not in front of the children. Everyone's ideas are important. Everyone gets an opportunity to share their perspective. Just things … That's going to be different from team to team. But just setting up those norms of what's important to the team and making sure you stick to those will really make everyone comfortable and feel included.

Sarah: And I like that you said that everyone's ideas are important. Because I think when setting team norms, you would want to make sure that everyone has something to contribute to those norms. That not just one person is setting these norms and these are just Adrienne's norms, they're the teams norms. I like that. Alright. Are there any materials that you've used or that you know about that are helpful for a coachee to use with their team or when building or maintaining those relationships?

Adrienne: I am a big, big fan of matrices. I could make a matrix for pretty much everything. For teaming I think of roles and responsibility matrix or some staff to zoning matrix could be really helpful. I think that participants have access to an example. Just filling out the times of day and all the teachers that you have and what is each person responsible for different times of day. Think is really helpful, just is really clear, everyone can look at it and just know what needs to be done.

We've also, or I've used team member preference surveys. And these can be really simple, just listing out the types of responsibilities you have during the day and asking teachers what do you prefer to do if you're thinking about teaching lessons. Do you prefer to lead a large group activity? Do you prefer to be in certain play centers? Things like that, just so you can gather that information and do your best to build off of people’s interests.

And then something that I know really helped us stay on track and make sure everyone's voice was heard, when we met as a team throughout the year for meetings, we would have an agenda. And we would work together to create that agenda, and anyone could add something to the agenda, so everyone had a chance to provide input into the agenda or items for things that we needed to discuss. I think that that one kept us on track. And then also everyone was able to say, “Hey, this came up for me” and then “I really like to discuss it, so I'm going to put it on that agenda.” It wasn't just me coming in saying, here are the things that are important to me to talk about. That kept us on track I think in team meetings.

Sarah: And I think some of these things that you've mentioned would also be great, like we're talking about supporting a coachee to build strong relationships with their team. But also these would be things that a coach could use with a coachee. For instance like a preference or interest survey related to like preferences for how you like to be coached or what your interests are to learn about them.

And also meeting agendas, I always have to have an agenda. Even when I'm coaching, setting a team agenda and you can ask your coachee, is there something you want to make sure that we talk about today? Like, leaving space for a coachee. I like how although these are driven towards how we support coachees to do these with their team. You can also use these as a coach with your coachee.

Danielle: Yep. And Sarah that's a great way to model too, we talked about modeling for children positive relationships. But if you start off your coaching relationship with meeting agendas and with these surveys embedded throughout. Then when you bring it up to your coach, you're like, “Hey, this might be helpful for your team.” You've already been modeling how that can be helpful.

Sarah: That's what Joyce always like to call the parallel process.

Joyce: I was just thinking the same thing, I was like, “We live in this world of like parallel processes, right?” Just to be able to see it then, like as a coachee like, “Oh, OK, like I saw how Sarah did it, I saw how Adrienne did it, how we use, so I can use it now in my classroom, or with my co-teacher.” You read my mind Sarah.

Sarah: Yep. And sorry I'm just going to get even more meta with that, like a home visitor could do this with families, right? Like how do you want us to interact together? Like setting those norms in the beginning of a partnership, those are some great – great strategies all around.

Alright. Once we have that team built and you have those strong relationships, what are some of those ways that you would recommend partners can continue to support one another professionally?

Adrienne: I think once you get to a point where you have a really strong relationship and things are going well in your classroom, and you've set up all of your routines and things are going well. You can really start to support one another's professional development. Here we're talking about team members working together in a classroom. And a coach could support their coachee to set this up in their classroom. You might share articles. One teacher might share articles with another, they might provide additional information if one attends a training, that can share that back.

And then if you really want to take it another step further, peers in the same classroom could even start coaching one another. This is where team members who are working in the same classroom could observe one another, even if you take five minutes and look over it, your peer over in the play centers. And then just provide them with some supportive and constructive feedback. Again you can build off of what your coach, or what the coach has modeled for the coachee. And then the peers can provide each other with that supportive and constructive feedback around the implementation of whatever effective practice they're wanting to focus on.

It's a great opportunity to use Coaching Companion through Head Start if you really want to dig a little deeper into that peer coaching. I think that that could be a way to really build if you've had a good relationship in the classroom and want to up the ante.

Sarah: And I like that you say that because it makes me think about, so as a coach, you're not coaching these teachers just til the end of time, right? Like your partnership, your coaching relationship at some point dwindles down. I think peer coaching would be a good next step right? Like, I'm coaching the coachee and then I support the coachee to install peer coaching. And then I as the coach, once they're ready in that, it's a way to sustain practice and also support one another. I love that you shared that. It's always a good way to think about like sustaining.

Adrienne: For sure.

Joyce: Just to pop in. The other thing I think is great to just to building capacity and confidence, and for them to also model like what's been done with them. Adrienne, like you and I, we have this great coaching relationship, and you really been able to show me like what is a strengths based approach and what does it mean to provide that support. Again, then I feel more confident to be able to do it with a peer.

What better way that even build capacity and also thinking about coaches for the future. Whether it's intensive coaching, or they continue in peer coaching. I think, a lot of times people shy away from things like, “Oh, I could never be a coach.” But really, with doing this, you're just setting them up to do it from a natural part of who they are. I think it's really amazing.

Adrienne: And I think, too, the coachee could then become stronger at their practice too. Because now you're paying more attention to what your assistants or co-teacher are doing and you're taking in new ideas. I think on many levels it'll help strengthen lots of practices.

Sarah: Alright, well that was great. Thank you so much for sharing those ideas and strategies about building relationships or supporting coachees to build relationships with members of their team. Now we're going to jump into some coaching and practice. During this segment, we like to walk through some scenarios, or watch a video. Today, we're going to be walking through some scenarios related to some relationship-based practices. And we want to get your perspective, and we want to hear from you about what you might do. And we're going to have Adrienne share maybe her expert opinion on what she would recommend these coaches in these situations would do next.

Alright. Meet Monique. Monique is Maria's coach. Maria is a new lead teacher in the Sequoias classroom and the assistant teacher is Dylan, pictured here. And Dylan's been in the classroom for two years and Maria is the third lead teacher that he has been paired with during this three years. And what would you recommend would be some strategies that Monique and coach Maria can use to ensure that this partnership really starts off well with Dylan? We can use the Q&A to share your response. What would you recommend? What can Maria do to start this partnership off right with Dylan? It sounds like he's gone through quite a few teachers. We don't really know much about why. What would you recommend? Let's see.

Joyce: While we're waiting for our Q&A – because it can be a little bit delayed in responses coming in – if I were Dylan, I would just be like, “Alright, Maria. Are you really staying?” I might have some hesitancy there. I don't want to get too attached.

Sarah: And this would make me wonder what that experience had been like for Dylan. I'd want Maria to get in there and talk with Dylan. Figure out what's been going on. What did you like? What didn't you like? We're getting some responses in now. Make them feel welcome. Have a meeting. I like this one, Kimberly says, “Having a meeting to discuss teaching style and discuss expectations.” That's so big because maybe Dylan really likes to be engaged in the classroom and wants to lead lessons. But maybe the last teachers haven't really given him an opportunity. Finding out teaching style and what they expect and what they want to participate in.

Joyce: I'll also add in too in that meeting could be some of Geneva's healthy snacks.

Sarah: Yes.

Joyce: Kind of getting to know.

Sarah: Yes, bring those healthy snacks. And Misty Joy says for Maria to respect his two years of experience. And ask him what's working well and what needs adjustments. I think that's huge because, while the teachers have rotated in and out, Dylan's been a constant. He probably knows some, the interests of the children, what works, what doesn't work. I love that. Finding out what's going on there and what they think.

Joyce: I'll say … And Sarah, that came up. Joanne said the same thing, just asking his advice on classroom and families. Dylan is the expert as far as what's been happening in there and how it's been happening.

Sarah: Yep. And then Janelle has response here, “Ask him what he's enjoyed and not enjoyed about working with previous teachers. Give him the opportunity to share his experience and his knowledge. Ask Dylan how he feels about a third new teacher and explore teaching styles, responsibilities, interests, challenges, and career goals.” I think that you just hit all the mark there, Janelle. Really finding out … Let's pinpoint maybe what was going on before, what do you want to be a part of, and how can we go from here. Do you have anything you want to add, Adrienne?

Adrienne: I don't think I do. Everyone has said so many great things. I had a similar situation to this with a co-teacher when I came into the classroom. And all the things people have said we did, like I had a conversation about, “I'm open to productive feedback. I want to hear what we've done in the past. I want this to be our new classroom together, and let's collaborate but please share your prior experiences so we can both move forward and the same page.” But I love all the suggestions people are putting in the Q&A.

Sarah: Alright. Well, I think we've solved this relationship. Now we're going to move on and meet coach Paolo and his coachee Kate. Let's see here. Kate, pictured here, is a family child care provider and wants to work on building relationships with the children in her care. She's finding a hard time fitting in time to build those connections with the children. She's got a lot of activities planned for them, and the daily routine and cleaning is taking up so much time. She doesn't feel like she has time for building those relationships.

What are some strategies that Paolo could recommend Kate use to set that foundation with the children in her care? Building those relationships with those children. Let's see. Do you have anything – while we're waiting for some responses to come in – Adrienne, that you might recommend for Kate to do?

Adrienne: I think one of the first things they could try is looking at Kate's daily schedule together and setting some small goals. Maybe finding one spot in the daily schedule where Kate feels like it might be easiest to at least set aside five or ten minutes where she can roam around and engage with children, and build those relationships. Maybe set a small goal like, “For this week, I want to have at least one conversation with two different children every day, and I've identified this is the time of day where that's easiest.” Maybe it's snack time when they're all hopefully sitting together at the table, less moving parts. Something like that. That could be a good place to start and then build from there.

Sarah: I'm seeing lots of people put in having children like help out with the cleaning and with the chores and with the routines. Have them help clean up; playing with the children. Many people are saying, oh this one’s great. Marissa says, “The interests of the children is always the most important. Clean while they sleep and prioritize work while kids are doing table top activities, or they're engaged somewhere else.” As well as looking at the daily schedule, because the kids are their first priority.

And I think too that takes a lot of pressure off, I think sometimes we think all these other things are so much more important. I have so many things on my to-do list to do, but I think sometimes it might release some of the pressure if you remember that the children are the first. And playing is the first priority. Maybe you can feel relieved if the fact like, “Let's do this first, we can do those other things later.” Let's see. So many.

Joyce: I love that you said that play is a first priority. I think, like as adults, just giving ourselves permission to just be in the moment and play. Knowing that, “Hey, I'll get to that paperwork or that other thing.” That giving ourselves permission like, “Hey, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I am right where I need to be.” I love that you mentioned that as well.

Adrienne: I love that someone pointed out diapering or pottying. I think that's such a great time. As a teacher, I know spent lots of time with children during the potty routine, and that's such a great time. Even for 30 seconds, you have them one-on-one. For the most part. Just having that brief conversation, I think that's a great use of time during that routine.

Joyce: And I will say I have a 2-year old, and we're spending lots of time in the potty. She wants me to sit with her. We have good conversations right there.

Sarah: Alright. Well, I'm going to move us on to the next scenario, because I want to make sure that we have time to share some of the resources. This scenario we're working with Annette, and she is a home visitor, and Carmen is her coach. Annette has been working with the Torres family. She's having some trouble building relationships with that family.

During a recording of a home visit, Carmen the coach noticed that Annette has given the child and the parents nicknames. And when Carmen asks Annette about it, Annette states that she has trouble pronouncing their names and that she's given them nicknames to make it easier for her. What should Carmen recommend Annette do to help build this relationship with the Torres family? Or maybe fix this relationship that might have gotten off to a rocky start? Any suggestions while we wait for these responses to come in?

Adrienne: I definitely think that's a great place to start a coaching conversation. With Annette just say, “Hey, this is something that I noticed. Tell me more about that.” And get Annette talking and then encourage her to reflect on how that might make the family feel, how that might be impacting their relationships, start from that and then maybe see can we write a goal about this? What support do you need about figuring out how to ask them about their preferred names, resources for practicing how to pronounce the names. And then that could be an action plan goal, that we write about practicing names and being sure to use them. In context, I think could be a good place to start.

Sarah: We're getting lots of responses like that. Many people are saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Step back. Ask them how to pronounce their name. Ask them what they would like to be called, and learn more about their culture,” which I think is great advice. Finding out more about their culture. And someone says also letting them know that she wasn't meaning to offend them. Offer, “I'm sorry I didn't know how to pronounce your name. Could you please help me with that?” Let's see.

Joyce: Barbara says it definitely needs to be a goal. Like learning their name.

Sarah: No wonder there's a barrier in that relationship, right? They're like, “She can't even say my name right. She's giving me a nickname.” I's very important to understand cultural preferences, says Joanne. And then she says she can ask the parents to help her and ask to use the correct pronunciation.

Anything else that maybe we might want to suggest here? Everybody's right on board with that. First step, we got to learn how to pronounce the name. Alright. Well, thank you for your responses everyone.

Now we're going to dive right into our focus on equity. And here, we talk about all things equity in learning environments. And this could mean inclusion. This could mean related to gender, or race, or culture. When we say equity, we mean all things. Here is a resource we'd like to share. As a coach, you actually have a really neat opportunity to see what's happening in that learning environment with an objective lens. You're like that second set of eyes.

And here's a tool that you might use to collect data, to identify maybe who … It's designed to collect data on positive attention. Who you're providing positive attention to, or how much positive attention versus negative attention that your providing. But you could collect data on who's receiving this positive attention, to the negative attention. Getting an idea, are there any inequities in what you're noticing the coachee providing to the families, or the children in their care. And any patterns related to who receives this positive attention. And a coach could share this with a coachee and prompt them to reflect about what do you notice about who's receiving this positive attention? And it can open them up to having some conversations about what might be causing these differences.

When a coachee is aware of these inequities, then they can be more intentional about making an effort to do it in a different way. This resource comes from challengingbehavior.org. And we've included a link in the resource widget for you. And then one more that I'd like to share that goes right alongside with what Adrienne was saying about making a matrix. We often don't think about equitable practices with our team members. It's really important to think about that, how a coachee and their team members are working together, because that can really impact how the team is working together in the learning environment.

We want to make sure that tasks are divided equitably. One way to do that is looking at this staff matrix. And this resource is more geared to coachees that are working in a group setting, a classroom environment or a family child care. But it really helps when we take into account everyone's strengths on the team and think about how we can use those strengths to our advantages. What activities do you like to do? What activities do you really not like to do? We make sure that you're not stuck doing those all the time. Again, this is in the resource widget for you and it can help you plan out your day, plan out how to divide those tasks equitably. Alright.

Joyce: Alright and one other we wanted to remind you guys about Koko and Koko's Corner. Before we end our time together we just wanted to bring Koko back up. And in your viewer’s guide, you're going to see Koko has his own corner in our viewers guide. If you want to get more information about the Head Start Coaching Companion, that's where you can go to find out how to get connected with Koko and the Head Start Coaching Companion.

Here for this viewer’s guide, Koko really gives you the opportunity to learn more about the features of the Head Start Coaching Companion. But also in this episode Koko is really encouraging you to try out maybe creating a coaching cycle. As Adrienne pointed out about how that could be something that you could do with your coaching. Really any form of coaching you could use the Head Start Coaching Companion to help make that happen. You can just follow that QR code and watch that quick start video of the process and dive in. And again, if you need any help or assistance with that, just reach out to us via the Coaching Companion help desk. And we are just one click away to help you with all things Coaching Companion.

We wanted to point out too PUSHPLAY, a DTL on demand. If you missed a DTL webinar, no worries. It's right there. Just a click away, you can find a recording of this webinar. It will be available on PUSHPLAY and other webinars as well. Again, just you can go to that link or that QR code right there and that will get you straight to PUSHPLAY.

And as always, we love to see and hear from you guys and always look forward to connecting with you on MyPeers. If you haven't joined MyPeers, give it a try. We have a practice-based coaching community there, and it's a great place to really ask questions, share resources. Folks are always putting resources that they're using there. And just connect with other coaches across the country around anything coaching related. You have a question, you put it there. You get in like real-time answers and suggestions and again just resources to be able to explore. And then Sarah's on MyPeers quite a bit as well and we're posting resources and things. Again, just encourage you to just continue the conversation in MyPeers.

And we are so glad that you joined us today. Again, it really is about just creating and fostering and nurturing those relationships. Whether it's with children, with families, with those that we work with. It's really just about staying connected. With that, we say thank you. We look forward to seeing you on our next Coaching Corner webinar. And we'll see you on MyPeers. Thank you, guys.