Culturally Responsive Coaching

Culturally Responsive Coaching

Julie Gretchen: So, making sure the coaching relationship is built on a trusting foundation does, in part, ensure that it's culturally responsive, because you're making sure that you have a trusting relationship and that you can communicate with one another openly and honestly. I think it's also important to have your own reflective practice, both self-reflection and in a group of peers. So, coaching peers that I work with, we often talk about our coaching relationships and are able to ask each other some questions, and sometimes difficult questions, to make sure that we're still being culturally responsive in our coaching work.

Kristin Monson: I work towards being culturally responsive by listening more and talking less, and understanding that there is a power dynamic that is there simply because "coach" is next to my name or because I work for the community colleges of Spokane, and working past that, working to the point of them seeing me as somebody there to support them in their own professional growth and letting them do more of the talking than me, and me searching and wondering more than anything else.

Patrick Valisto: I have several sites that are Native American-based, and so me, myself, being a Native American, I have an appreciation and an understanding of the cultural background and experiences of – of those centers. And so, a cool thing about my coaching job is I get to – to learn from other Native Americans and have that connection with them.

And so, just the other day, I was at – at a site, and just learning the – the language and getting to know the program. And it was pretty cool, because I already – one of the teachers already gave me a name in Salish. And so, I'm going to try to pronounce it, and I hope I'm doing justice to it, but I'll try to pronounce it right now. They gave me the name [Speaks Salish], and it means "Wolf." And any advice I would give is to also have that respect when you come into a site and it's a different culture than yours to just learn as much as you can and be as friendly as possible, and be a learner, because I think that's part of growing the relationship with that, with that site, and identifying and being accepting of their culture. When sometimes when you get into like, those kind of programs, and like, just coming along different lines of – of interactions between people – so some elders and some other people are on guard of protecting that culture, so you kind of have to find a balance and meet them where they're at, and respect it.

And if they say "no pictures," or they don't want to share too much, but they're willing to share a little bit – but you just kind of have to back off and respect that. And once they get, you know, you have a trust with them and they understand that you're not there to – to infringe upon, you know, the culture, or their own family history or anything like that, then I think they will tend to know that you're for them and not going to take something away from them. So.