title: Introducing Emotion Coaching into primary, secondary and early years educational settings: the voice of practitioners and model of engagement
Creators: name: Gilbert, C.L
Publisher: name: Bath Spa University
Year: 2017

description: Emotion Coaching is an observed parenting style considered to promote children's mental, physical and academic outcomes. It informs a successful parenting programme (Gottman et al., 1996, 1997; Gottman and DeClaire, 1997). In 2011, Emotion Coaching was adapted to provide a novel, relational-based practitioner approach to support emotional regulation and behaviours in UK educational and early-years setting (*Rose, McGuire-Snieckus and Gilbert, 2015). This inductive qualitative study, guided by constructivist grounded theory, gives a voice to the practitioners' experience of Emotion Coaching in educational and early-years settings. Twenty-one practitioners (18 female, 3 males) working in primary and secondary and early-years settings, voluntarily participated in intensive, semi-structured interviews. Their voice informed the exploration or their engagement with emotions, their Emotion Coaching training experience and practice and their views on Emotion Coaching efficacy and sustainability. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, before undergoing constructivist grounded theory analysis. Practitioners both viewed and used Emotion Coaching as a technique and an approach for managing emotions and emotional behaviours. Emotion Coaching practice was positioned on a 'spectrum of Emotion Coaching use', reflecting discourses of welfare and control. Conceptualization of the practitioner's Emotion Coaching experience identified: Structuring emotional identities; Positioning educational settings; Emotional journeying; and Building emotional toolkits, as integral to practitioner engagement in training and use of Emotion Coaching in practice. A model of practitioner Emotion Coaching engagement is proposed, which evidences four states in the integration of Emotion Coaching into practice (Accept, Adopt, Adapt, Sustain). The model of practitioner Emotion Coaching engagement recognises the centrality of the practitioner's emotional awareness in their acceptance of the Emotion Coaching premise 'emotions matter to learning' and the training experience. Successful use increased practitioner Emotion Coaching adoption, leading to adaption and assimilation into routine practice repertoires. The model of practitioner Emotion Coaching engagement proposes Emotion Coaching practice can be marginalized or disregarded if practitioners are unreceptive to, or challenged by, the Emotion Coaching premise or had compromised training experiences. Practitioner perceptions of unsatisfactory outcomes of lack of supportive colleagues can contribute to a reluctance to practise, which compromises Emotion Coaching adoption. Lack of use increases Emotion Coaching marginalization and can lead to eventual abandonment from practice. Although some practitioners' practice appears to be innately Emotion Coaching - informed, the consensus was that Emotion Coaching had to be practised to be effectively adopted and adapted. Regardless of the practitioners' receptivity to Emotion Coaching, all participants in the study evidenced increased emotional awareness.