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Lifestyle Coaches play a key role
in your CDC-recognized lifestyle change program.
They not only guide each session,
but also keep participants coming back.
During the program year, they track participants' progress
and support and encourage participants to discover,
adapt, and adopt healthy changes to prevent or delay
type 2 diabetes.
Participant success leads the way
for an organization to achieve full recognition from CDC.
In this first of a five-part video series,
Lifestyle Coach Linda Vaughn explains how Lifestyle Coaches
can help participants achieve successful outcomes.
Being a Lifestyle Coach means that
your purpose and role is to facilitate learning
among members of the group.
When they come in, they have misconceptions sometimes.
They don't know what to think it's going to be about.
They sometimes think they're coming for exercise,
but our role as a coach is to present the material
and allow the group to take over;
not to just use our expertise to teach them.
The learning you facilitate adheres
to the Diabetes Prevention Recognition Program's
Standards and Operating Procedures, or DPRP Standards.
They outline the quality assurance framework
for delivering the National Diabetes Prevention Program
and lay out the program requirements.
Lifestyle Coaches are on the front lines,
representing the program and following
the guidance offered in the DPRP Standards.
It's important to have the Standards in the back
of our mind while doing our work as Lifestyle Coaches
because we're founded by incredible research,
and that research developed a protocol.
And the only way a protocol can be delivered
is if it's done consistently across the board.
HOST: To learn how to become a Lifestyle Coach
and deliver this program, you must have
formal training in a CDC-approved curriculum.
This is done through a training organization
listed on the CDC website,
a private organization with a national network
of CDC-recognized program sites, a CDC-recognized
online organization, or a CDC master trainer,
who has received specialized training and has delivered
the lifestyle change program for at least one year.
Additional training on topics such as HIPAA,
the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,
or cultural competency is strongly encouraged.
You can also mentor with a more experienced Lifestyle Coach,
ask your program coordinator for a performance review,
participate in peer-to-peer coach meetings or online
communities, or participate in CDC webinar trainings.
The more you know, the more effective you'll be
at facilitating classes and what approaches work best...
like listening without lecturing.
Motivational interviewing is one type of training
that hones listening skills.
Beyond just the initial curriculum training,
refresher training or discussions
with coach peers or your program coordinator
can help address common facilitation challenges.
The most common barriers to delivering the classes to me
are when we get on a subject, one person takes the floor,
and this is typical to any group environment,
one person takes the floor.
And in order to facilitate learning for everyone,
a coach needs to have the ability to facilitate that
and to pull that back and allow others to speak.
And it may be through just perusing the room and saying
what do you think, what do you think, that type of thing.
The only way I know to help with those situations
when we get the challenges is just to go back to the research.
Are you open to reading?
I have a lot of research for you that may help you
understand why we have this orientation in the program.
So I do better one on one if the challenges come just to
speak to the person personally and deal with the challenge.
HOST: Another challenge Lifestyle Coaches
frequently need to address is providing make-up sessions.
If someone in your class needs a make-up session,
it must be approximately one hour long
and use a CDC-approved curriculum module,
but can be delivered in any of the program delivery modes.
There are several types of
lifestyle change program delivery modes:
in person, where the coach and a group or a coach
and a participant meet face to face;
online, where everyone logs in remotely
and can communicate outside of course sessions
by email, text, or phone;
distance learning, where content is delivered
using remote classrooms, conference calls, or Skype;
or combination, where course sessions are given
through a combination of the other program delivery modes.
The program design that we chose to offer
for the [National] DPP program was
the in-person group program concept.
This gives people an opportunity to have
a face to face interaction
and a lot of social support in that environment.
We certainly have had a demand in some of
the corporations we have dealt with for online programs
for those who simply can't in their schedule.
Whereas, if they could go to the online format,
then they are able to connect virtually in that format,
still get the same content and material
and still have what they need
to succeed and progress through the program
just like the in-person folks do.
As soon as participants arrive for class,
greet them and get their weight.
Since weight can be a sensitive issue,
consider doing this in another room or behind a privacy screen,
or use sticky notes to document weight.
Then record weight and minutes of physical activity.
For classes that are not in person, electronic scales
can be used or participants can self-report their weight.
Next, hand out materials for in-person classes or,
for online classes, make sure they're uploaded in advance.
Review the main points from the previous session, take
questions, have participants share how things are going,
and outline and present the session's key topics.
Close the session by telling participants
what you'd like them to try at home, summarizing
the session's main points and, once again, taking questions.
Of course, taking time to prepare
before each session is essential.
To prepare for a successful class,
especially if there's props, they have to be ready
and already on the table.
Secondly, we have to know our lesson
from the front end to the back because
the lessons are intended to kind of graduate week to week,
and there's always something to do the next week.
HOST: Increasing the intensity of your coaching
and building trust can lead to
improved outcomes for participants,
and providing specific positive feedback about the changes and
choices they are making is an important key to their success.
CDC-approved curricula all cover the same content,
but may vary in their approach to delivering that content.
For example, some require participants
to provide their food tracker at each session,
while others foster coach review
and interaction and trust building.
We have to be willing to follow up with the members
who come because adhering to tracking food is probably
one of the most difficult things for anyone to do,
and it takes a lot of effort.
And I think in our role as a coach is
when they do write their food down,
we owe it to them as coaches to read everything they write us
and do the yay, look how much water you had this week.
The exercise piece is even harder
to get anyone to adhere to.
And so for me as a coach, it's encouragement, encouragement,
encouragement, and not any of that disapproval.
HOST: However, as important as encouragement is,
you won't always be available
outside of class time to offer it.
That's why teaching participants how to self-monitor
and manage their food intake and physical activity
even after the program ends
is critical to their continued success.
You can help participants to stay on track
by suggesting resources they can continue using, like
calorie counters, apps, food measurers, and fitness tools.
However, it's important to encourage participants to
go beyond your recommendations and find what works for them.
Self-discovery is key in this process,
and what participants learn from fellow participants
may have the biggest impact of all.
The most successful Lifestyle Coaches go that extra mile,
giving support that goes beyond sessions.
This could be reaching out by phone,
creating a closed Facebook group,
setting up healthy eating or exercise get-togethers...
whatever works for you and your participants.
It can also help for participants to meet
outside of class to motivate and keep each other accountable.
Participants often have personal barriers
that get in the way of making lifestyle changes.
One-on-one support can help them work through these
and guide them to life-changing "aha" moments.
Getting someone to exercise
who never has exercised before is a great big challenge.
A lot of excuse-making, things we're all familiar with
when we know we need to change something.
We have the knowledge that we need to,
but that doesn't necessarily lead to behavioral change.
So when it comes up, and it always comes up
in teaching these programs, especially the exercise piece,
then I like to talk to them personally.
We keep working with the group sessions
up until the first eight weeks about this issue,
but if it's not working and we continue to have resistance,
then I prefer to go to them privately.
For example, we had a woman, and she was a food service worker
and made it very clear she would never exercise.
Just one suggestion of going to get a pedometer
to measure what she's doing already was
the jumpstart to her eventually dropping two uniform sizes.
HOST: If possible, use some of your session time
to ask for volunteers and focus on a challenge
one or two participants are having,
and discuss possible solutions.
Naturally, many common challenges
will be covered by the CDC-approved curriculum.
To make sure the participants get the most out of
every session, in my view, we have to facilitate the learning.
We have to be quiet as the leaders
and gently continue fostering conversation.
It needs to be turned back to the group.
What do you think? What do you think?
What do you think about what she just said?
She said she can't. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Let them talk to one another, crosstalk with each other
and then we step back and we're just facilitating learning.
That's where it's most powerful, in my view.
So I think that the more that we listen and facilitate
learning and let them do it, let the group do it,
that's when they get the most out of it
because they're contributing.
It is your job as the Lifestyle Coach
to support and encourage participants
to keep up the program and work with each other.
If they run into a roadblock, offer some suggestions
such as new foods or activities to try.
Never forget that making lifestyle changes is difficult
and takes time, so don't expect results too soon.
To learn more, watch the rest of the Lifestyle Coach series
and visit CDC's National DPP website.
If you have any questions, just send an email to:
D-P-R-P Ask at C-D-C-dot-gov.
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