Tips for Providing Skill Coaching to Reinforce Workshop Content in Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Programs

The coaching tips in this brief are drawn from work conducted with Montefiore Medical Center in the Strengthening the Implementation of Marriage and Relationship Programs (SIMR) study. Montefiore is an HMRE grant recipient funded by the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) and based in the Bronx borough of New York City. Montefiore participated in rapid cycle learning to improve their approaches to delivering virtual HMRE services, including their virtual delivery of skill coaching. The SIMR project has two related goals: (1) to improve the service delivery of grant recipients in the study and (2) to develop lessons from the broader HMRE field about promising practices for addressing common implementation challenges, including challenges related to recruitment, retention, and content engagement.

This brief shares six tips to support HMRE programs interested in enhancing their approach to skill coaching:

1. Identify core skills offered by the program and structure coaching sessions around them: An HMRE program planning to offer skill-coaching sessions should first identify the key concepts of its curriculum. These key concepts should be the focus of the skill-coaching sessions. Programs should then create a structure for each session that covers one skill per session and enables participants to practice the skill in 15 minutes.  

2. Develop a clear plan for each couple and set expectations for the session: Before beginning a coaching session, coaches should consider what they know about the couple and identify likely barriers and potential pivot points (see Tip 5). Coaches should briefly remind the couple of the goals and expectations for the session and explain how they will practice the skill during the session.

3. Focus on “quick win” issues:  HMRE skill-coaching sessions should focus on “quick win” issues—that is, issues couples can make significant progress on in a 15-minute session. They should avoid sensitive topics that would require lengthy discussion or be emotionally triggering.

4. Listen to the couple and give quick coaching guidance: The coach’s role is mostly to listen and observe a couple talking to each other and practicing a skill. If the coach identifies a point of correction or clarification, they should interject quickly to remind the couple how to apply the skill and get them back on track.

5. If distractions or problems arise, lean in or pivot: If distractions take couples off course during coaching sessions, coaches can either lean in or pivot. To lean in, coaches can use the issue as a springboard to practice a skill. To pivot, the coach can stop the session and turn instead to calm and soothe the couple.

6. Empower participants to use the skill again: The goal of skill-coaching sessions is to give the couple an opportunity to practice a skill in a way that empowers them to use it. Coaches should strive for couples to have success in the session and end it in a positive way that encourages the couple to use the skill again. 

Montefiore Medical Center worked with the SIMR team to test and refine strategies to enhance virtual skill coaching using rapid cycle learning. Rapid cycle learning is a method for quickly and iteratively testing strategies to strengthen implementation of programming. It often involves successive cycles to pilot strategies, collect feedback from staff and program participants on how these strategies are working, and gather data to demonstrate whether the strategies are supporting improvement. Based on what grant recipients learn, staff can refine and test strategies again in a subsequent learning cycle.

HMRE and similar programs are encouraged to implement the skill-coaching strategies in this brief and refine them to work in their own services and contexts. It is worth noting that these strategies are promising but not proven. To fit these strategies to their contexts, the strategies may need further testing and refinement. Through further testing and evaluation, grant recipients can continue to contribute to insights that benefit the HMRE field.

Friend, Daniel, Sheila Cavallo, Heather Gordon, Annie Buonaspina, and Scott Baumgartner. SIMR Practice Brief: Tips for Providing Skill Coaching to Reinforce Workshop Content in Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Programs. OPRE Report #2023-049, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023.