Life Skills Coaching - Advanced (Level 4)

COURSE OVERVIEW

A distance learning course is the ideal way to gain a Advanced qualification in Life Skills Coaching. Whether you're looking to go on to further education, improve your job prospects or expand your knowledge, distance learning Advanced Life Skills Coaching is a flexible and convenient course, which allows you to comprehensively prepare for an exam or career through home study. What's more, because the distance learning Level 4 Advanced Life Skills Coaching course is a fully comprehensive course, no prior knowledge is required.

The Advanced Life Skills Coaching Diploma course is designed as a complete professional training package, incorporating a full range of therapeutical models in a complete holistic Life Skills Coaching programme.The student will gain competence in modalities including; Basic Counselling, Psychoanalysis, CBT, Coaching, Advanced Coaching, Basic NLP and Self Hypnosis. These are all combined with the knowledge of how to work with support networks and other professionals, a well as how to set up in professional practice.

Extensive use of case studies is combined with examination of specific application topics (such as stress, anger, smoking and emotional issues) so that the student will gain knowledge of how to apply skills to a range of typical client presentations and issues. The course is designed to enable the student to adhere to the existing National Occupational Standards for Counselling.

How is the course structured?
The Advanced Life Skills Coachingcourse is divided into twenty five comprehensive modules.

Module 1: What is Life Coaching

• What to expect from the course
• What is coaching
• What are lifeskills
• What elements of therapy are contained within life coaching

Module 2: What do clients usually want from Life Coaching?

• Typical presenting clients
• Typical presented problems
• Typical presented goals
• Dealing with personal prejudices and opinions

Module 3: Surface life coaching versus holistic life coaching?

• Behavioural therapy approach and rapid intervention
• Holistic theory and cycles of change
• Clients with deeper issues wanting only surface change
• Ethics of eliciting deeper change

Module 4: Common misconceptions and errors

• Errors made by practitioners
• Mistaken beliefs about coaching
• Examining the role of the life coach

Module 5: Areas and levels of change

• The different levels of life (looking at different models)
• Expectations from areas of life
• Imbalances in levels of life
• Dissonance between surface needs and driving needs

Module 6: Counselling Skills

• What is counselling
• National Occupational Standards for Counselling

Module 7: Counselling Skills continued

• Open questioning
• Basic methods (reflection, reframing, summary, challenge)
• Common errors
• Balancing listening and assessment
• Common models of counselling (Egan, Nelson etc.)

Module 8: Basic Coaching Skills

• Determining validity of goals
• Determining ecology of goals
• Three stages of goal setting
• Working through the process
• Case study

Module 9: Advanced Coaching Skills

• Specialised Coaching techniques

Module 10: Coaching the client in relaxation techniques

• Teaching basic relaxation methods, introduction
• Is it meditation or self hypnosis?
• Models of visualisation
• Models of personal affirmations
• Safety Precautions with teaching aids e.g. tapes

Module 11: Coaching the client in altered states

• Is it self hypnosis or NLP?
• Eliciting different states of relaxation, concentration, elation
• Choosing emotional states and ensuring ecology
• Anchoring emotional and physical states at will
• Performing exercises with the client
• Ensuring the client can continue to adapt and expand
• Training aids: Log book, handouts, tapes etc.
• Recommended books and topics to read

Module 12: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Part 1

• Safety, fears, ecology and good practice
• Image manipulation
• Advanced use of anchoring
• Affirmations in relaxed state
• Affirmations in waking state

Module 13: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Part 2

• Using principles of CBT
• CBT principles with the client
• CBT as homework
• Self analysis using CBT

Module 14: Basic Psychoanalysis theory and useful techniques

• Analysis in coaching
• Topic association method

Module 15: Referral and working with other practitioners

• Knowing when the case is too complex
• Referral to other practitioners
• Protecting yourself
• Professional clients “the heart sick”
• Cooperating with other practitioners
• Cooperating with Medical Doctors

Module 16: Emotional issues and case studies

• Confidence
• Self Esteem
• Self Image
• Behavioural versus holistic
• Case study

Module 17: Deeper emotional issues and case studies

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Phobias and Fears
• Ensuring appropriate advertising, referral and practice
• Case study

Module 18: Weight Loss and Control

• Lifestyle issues
• Assisting the client in choosing a diet plan
• Assisting the client in choosing an exercise plan
• Boundaries of the life coach in weight loss advice
• Ensuring appropriate advertising and practice
• Case study

Module 19: Stop Smoking Coaching

• Lifestyle issues
• Positive versus negative methods
• Visualisation methods
• Motivational counselling methods
• Self help techniques
• Learning aids e.g. tapes and handouts
• Case study

Module 20: Performance Coaching

• Common types of performance coaching
• Sports performance coaching
• Business performance coaching
• Public speaking coaching
• Boundaries of the life coach in performance coaching
• Case study

Module 21: Faith and Spiritual issues

• Common types
• What is spiritual and what is faith?
• Grief and bereavement
• Abuse
• Religious imposition
• Fear of the future
• Supporting without converting
• Working within existing faith models
• Case study

Module 22: Anger and Stress Management Coaching

• Safety concerns, confidentiality and referral
• Addressing lifestyle issues
• Relaxation therapy
• Nutrition issues
• Relationship issues
• Underlying causes
• Behavioural change
• Working with other professionals
• Case study

Module 23: Working with couples or groups

• Typical presented issues
• Initial meeting and planning response
• Facilitating discussions
• Homework and agreements
• When to refer and working alongside other professionals

Module 24: Non-Specific Issues

• Common presentations
• Feeling lost
• Not happy despite having everything
• The survivor with no time to live
• The person in imbalance
• Tracking the feelings and memories
• Using advanced anchoring for changing remembered emotions
• Combining anchoring with inner child methods
• Working with service users (clients) of state agencies
• Case study

Module 25: Professional Practice and Responsibilities

• Preparing for practice, what you need
• Principles of informed consent and contracts / agreement
• Providing information in appropriate formats for the learner
• Dissemination of information from sources of authority
• Creating your own learning materials
• Advertising
• Registration and Insurance
• NOS National Occupational Standards
• Confidentiality and ethics
• What you may or may not call yourself
• Importance of Ongoing Professional Development and supervision
• Other topics of training to support your career
• Looking after yourself and your loved ones

Home Study Tutor Support

You will be provided with comprehensive materials designed to provide you with everything required to complete your Advanced Life Skills Coaching course. You will have your own personal tutor helping you with your course work and with any questions you may have. Plus you can contact our Student Advisors by email or phone for all the practical advice you may need – so we really are with you 100%.

What's more, you'll have access to the online student portal, where you can interact with other students, browse our resource library and manage your account.

Course Assessments

The Advanced Life Skills Coaching courseis marked through a process of continuous assessment guided by your tutor following NCFE guidelines. This means that your qualification will be awarded according to your performance on assessments rather than by taking an exam.

We send the full course out with the units listed above, you then read through the course in your own time and complete the assignments which you send to your tutor for marking. There is no word count for these assignments. However, one sentence answers will be rejected and you will have to re-submit it for marking.

Upon verification of the activities, exercises and assignments, a certificate of achievement will be awarded by the national awarding organisation NCFE, as confirmation that your written work has met all of the learning outcomes and assessment criteria for the programme.

Course Duration

We recommend you spend approximately 110 hours of your time studying for the Advanced Life Skills Coaching course. The pace of study is completely up to you. To give an example, if you dedicate 2 hours a week to the course it would take you a year to complete but if you could spare 4 hours a week you could complete it in six months.

Get started today, and you can earn your Level 4 NCFE Award in Advanced Life Skills Coaching in as little as six months, or take up to a year, if you prefer – the choice is yours.