Health coaching

Te Pou co-ordinates the delivery of health coach training for the integrated primary mental health and addiction programme. The health coach training programmes are delivered through two training providers, Total Healthcare and Health Literacy NZ in cohorts of 10-12 people. The programmes are designed for people who are employed to provide health coaching in general practice and community settings, as part of the integrated primary mental health and addiction programme. Read the Te Whatu Ora practice profile.

Learning outcomes

This outlines the learning outcomes and required topics for the delivery of the national health coach training in the integrated primary mental health and addiction programme. How it is structured by each programme provider will be slightly different.

Learning outcome 1

Work in partnership with people from diverse backgrounds and health contexts to improve their wellbeing

Required Knowledge and Skills:

1. Support tāngata whaiora physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing in an integrated way by intentional identification of non-physical challenges to connect with emotional wellbeing.
2. Recognise mental health and addiction challenges.
3. Use Equally Well to recognise physical health conditions affected by mental health and addictions.
4. Use Te Whare Tapa Wha to discuss wellbeing priorities.
5. Use Hua Oranga, Duke and helpfulness rating scales to discuss wellbeing priorities.
6. Support tāngata whaiora with physical long-term conditions.
7. Operate in a values-informed way, aligned with the essential level of Let’s get real.
8. Communication and engagement skills build connection, tangata whaiora led and facilitate choice e. g. active listening, open questions, enquiry, non-judgemental language, managing assumptions, accessible explanations, using compassion and empathy.
9. Operate in a culturally safe way, guided by what the tangata whaiora needs. Recognise institutional racism, power and privilege, and your own bias and use a model of engagement appropriate for population groups in the practice community.
10. Facilitate and support, group work with tangata whiaora and whanau.
11. Work in various settings that meet the needs of tangata whaiora and whānau, e.g. home visits, community settings, community classes, and groups (virtual, in-person or phone).
12. Provide brief motivational and behavioural interventions to overcome barriers and support change.
13. Facilitate tāngata whaiora wellbeing priorities into goals and health and wellbeing support plans and track changes
14. Operate within a trauma-informed approach, including recognition of historical and ongoing colonisation impacts and ACEs.
15. Identify violence indicators and respond in alignment with organisational policies and procedures.

Learning outcome 2

Work collaboratively within the primary health team

Required Knowledge and Skills:

1. Build working relationships alongside others in the practice team to align with the Te Pou Skills for Integration at the essential level.
2. How does the Health Coach role Complement the HIP, community support worker, and Awhi Ora roles when supporting the same tangata whaiora
3. Provide timely feedback and appropriately discuss tangata whaiora with team members.
4. Integrate practice into different types of primary health contexts.
5. Connect people with other team members to support continuity of care. This includes primary care, whanau ora, and community organisation contexts.
6. Work within the primary health team to improve access and choice for Māori, Pasifka, and rangatahi.
7. Manage time to support 6-8 visits a day, including scheduled appointments, warm handovers, and meeting with whanau and groups.
8. Capture individual, whānau and group meetings in notes, records and patient management systems to required standards and procedures.

Learning outcome 3

Connect people with services and resources to support their wellbeing

Required Knowledge and Skills:

1. Access and navigate, holistic services and support relevant to the tangata whaiora and community. Community both health and life related (e. g. safety, employment, justice, housing, benefits, marae/iwi).
2. Coach tāngata whaiora to navigate the health and social systems
3. Develop close working relationships with providers of services and support so you can provide introductions, effectively communicate, maintain privacy and confidentiality.
4. Maintain contact with services while jointly working with tangata whaiora.
5. Find and provide tangata whaiora with relevant information and resources, including websites, apps, community resources, pathways for support and Equally Well website¹.

Learning outcome 4

Health Coach maintains wellbeing and safety

Required Knowledge and Skills:

1. Health Coach maintains self-care.
2. Health Coach establishes and maintains support networks.
3. Potential safety issues are identified, and practice and provider procedures are used to manage these e. g. home visits, transporting people, community activity groups, access to clinical support and supervision, boundaries.
4. Seek, receive, reflect on, deal with and give appropriate feedback.
5. Reflect on professional practice (e.g. cultural safety, emotional wellbeing, agency, self-confidence, and self-esteem) using a recognised framework.

Health Coaching for Wellbeing – by Total Healthcare (Formally known as Tamaki Health – Health Coach Training)

The benefits of training Health Coaches with our team:

Our Experience:

All of our team have experience as Health Coaches / IPMHA practitioners working with our populations. We understand what it is like to work in a clinic and in our lived experience feeds into continuous quality improvement of the training.

Kānohi ki te kānohi (Face to Face): We provide the option of in-person
classroom teaching PLUS on the ground on site support and assessment. This enhanced learning environment leads to confident practice-ready
Health Coaches.

Evidence-based curriculum: Our curriculum has been developed, honed and tested since 2015 utilising:

• Evidence-based core material from the Centre for Excellence in Primary Care
• Co-design with Tangata-Whaiora, health professionals, health coaches in Aotearoa primary care setting
• Improvement science methodologies
  

Our model of Health Coaching has been externally evaluated in the “Fit for the future” pilots which preceded IPMHA.

Our training has three phases :

Phase one of the programme is delivered in person/virtually over five-and-a-half consecutive days.
Phase two is conducted onsite in the trainee’s practice, ideally within 2- 4 weeks after phase one, where the trainer supports the trainee in their locality and assesses their competency skills.
PLUS six weekly webinars and one virtual mentoring session.
Phase three happens approximately 3-6 months after phase one training. It includes one day onsite in the trainee’s practice.

Health Literacy NZ’s programme

Our programme will be delivered to groups of 10 to 12 Health Coaches and has four components:

1. A discussion with new providers to find out about the employing organisation, the health coaches and how they will be working.
2. Introduction to health coaching – 18-hour workshop for health coaches, delivered online in 2-hour modules over one week, or in-person in a two day workshop.
   
3. Ongoing support and mentoring for health coaches for 10 weeks by email, phone, zoom and webinars.
4. Bringing It All Together – 8-hour workshop with health coaches delivered online in 2-hour sessions over 2 days; or one day in-person to present case studies and reflect on progress and extend skills in behaviour change.