Coaching and Reflective Supervision in Early Childhood

Coaching in early intervention is a way to provide family-centered care that actively involves YOU! 

This tip sheet describes the importance of coaching in early intervention.

This book introduces coaching and mentoring, written by an experienced and multidisciplinary team. Taking you all the way through from the emerging theory to informed practice, the book covers: skills, purposes and outcomes of coaching and mentoring processes, and the many settings in which they take place.

This practical book explores the role of the coach and reviews the “whats,” “whys,” and “how-tos” of successful collaboration with parents.

This book is a practical guide for all coaches and professionals who support the work of teachers and includes access to 30 coaching videos and bonus material.

This book provides extensive information about conducting EI visits and gathering information to individualize interventions and develop service plans. This book also allows PR actioners to reflect on what they do, why, and how they do it.

This book is a comprehensive resource with practical strategies for promoting reflection among early childhood professionals. Accompanying CD-ROM lists hundreds of additional resources (including in print, on-line and on video) and contains many activities and course syllabi that can be used both in pre-service and in-service training.

This book is full of practical and effective ways for professionals to become capable and proficient through reflective practice.

Mary Claire Heffron and Trudy Murch

This comprehensive resource book provides background information about reflective supervision and practical advice for implementing this type of supervision in programs serving infants and young children.

This hands-on guide shows professionals how to conduct skillful coaching in any setting—home, school, or community.

This book gives a descriptive, phenomenological understanding of human development through the lens of the Integrated Experiential Learning Process, and how it can be applied in coaching.

The GROOMER Framework for Change Model™ is a mental model that offers an intentional framework to facilitate transformational lasting change. This workbook can be used by supervisors working with staff or peer-to-peer.

This video demonstrates how to serve bilingual families in early intervention settings and telehealth visits, discusses the roles of parent and therapist in EI bilingual homes, and considers the role of interpreters. It also presents tips, case studies, ethical considerations, and video examples of best practices.

This video will refresh providers’ thinking with the strategies of experienced, working early interventionists who use the CID Domains of Knowledge as a framework for planning and preparing for family sessions. This course will help focus planning and preparation using a coaching model to accomplish the all-important goal of parent engagement, bringing results that last a lifetime. Note: this video is free, but you must register and purchase (for $0.00) the link to the video.

In this video, working early interventionists share their experiences to help other professionals confidently work with families. Their field-tested strategies, examples and tips will guide professionals toward cultivating mutual respect and common purpose through coaching. Note: this video is free, but you must register and purchase (for $0.00) the link to the video.

This video discusses the benefits of reflection during the supervisory process and demonstrates strategies for reflective supervision. The accompanying manual provides additional resources for using the DVD in training setting.

This DVD presents five video vignettes that can be used to encourage careful observation and reflection of real-life interactions between professionals and families. Discussions follow each vignette and discussion questions are provided for further exploration.

Videos discuss and demonstrate positive strategies for communication among adults to support infants and toddlers.

This video, featuring Dathan Rush, describes characteristics of the coaching interaction style with parents of children receiving early intervention services.

This presentation describes the practice of using everyday activities and routines to support children and families in early intervention. The process of coaching families is detailed with tangible examples and resources for supporting family practitioners-partnerships. 

This article provides suggestions on using the coaching model to engage families in early intervention visits.

This article examines the caregiver coaching divide and identifies strategies for researchers and Part C programs to bridge the gap so that all families benefit from a capacity-building approach during this critical developmental period of the child’s life. Using available evidence and implementation science frameworks, the authors suggest five actionable strategies for research and practice teams.

This article presents an overview of the changing landscape of professional development for early childhood educators. The article discusses of why professional development is important for early childhood educators and provides resources related to coaching and reflective supervision.

This article presents a practical discussion of ten important factors to consider when coaching adults to improve their caregiving practices.

This article from the Virginia early intervention program describes strategies to successfully engage families during live video visits in early intervention.

Early Intervention (EI) programs serve families of young children (birth through 36 months) who have delays and disabilities. Recent movements in early intervention have emphasized caregiver coaching as an avenue for promoting family involvement and child outcomes. This article from the Military Families Learning Network, provides an over view of five coaching strategies used in EI.

This training module for Texas EI providers provides foundational information on the coaching approach to service delivery, offering the opportunity to observe each of the five fundamental coaching components through video demonstrations.

This document from the Early Intervention Training Program includes the various aspects of a family’s journey through early intervention and strategies service coordinators may consider as they plan “with” the family, rather than “for” the family.

This web-based resource includes articles and videos to help infant-toddler educators build competencies. Tools are provided for supervisors and administrators to assist in coaching infant toddler educators to improve quality of practices.

Ongoing professional development is critical to support early intervention providers’ implementation of best practices for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families. This article, created by Early Intervention in Natural Environments Specialization Training (EI-NEST) at Kent State University, describes coaching in the context of supporting families in EI.

This video training resource for early childhood coaches is based on the 5 key characteristics of coaching as outlined by Rush and Shelden. These characteristics can be applied to a number of early childhood settings.

These ECTAC (Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center) web resources includes webinar videos and web-based tools to improve practice-based coaching. Tools are aligned to the DEC Recommended practices.

Created by the US Office of Head Start, this web resource provides information about practice-based coaching and tools to implement coaching. Video resources are included.

This special issue of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy highlights current practice and research in occupational therapy with our youngest clients, from birth to 3 years of age, and their families in early intervention (EI).