Recently we had a Kidpower Coaching conference call that I want to tell you about, and invite you to participate!

Kidpower’s founder and executive director, Irene van der Zande, facilitated a conference call on behalf of a partner organization where she fielded individual questions about building confidence and using intuition to make safe choices. This was one of countless times that Irene has offered people who care deeply about children and keeping them safe an opportunity to learn how to turn their specific concerns and problems into practices that build skills for safety.

Over the years many parents and professionals have asked for phone conferences with Irene and other Kidpower leaders to address specific questions or problems. The requests are so numerous, though, that it would be impossible to field so many individual calls.

And yet, those of us who have trained with Irene have experienced first hand how her ability to ask the right questions and work through problems in the moment to show how to use Kidpower skills and strategies to practice safety skills can just “flick the switch” on something that had seemed too challenging to handle. Her warmth and insight are truly exceptional and something I personally treasure having had access to these past 20+ years.

That’s why I’m so pleased to be letting you know that Kidpower International is going to start offering a regular “Turning Problems into Practices” coaching conference call, where you can sign up to participate and ask your question to get help to solve a “people safety” problem.

To help kick-off our new Kidpower “Turning Problems into Practices” Coaching Conference Calls, we want to hear from you! 

We have a very short survey (2-3 mins) with a list of topics for you to rate your interest and the opportunity to suggest more topics for these calls. We also want to know where you are and what days and times would work best for you to participate in a 1-hour call – to help us schedule them in a way that really lets as many people as possible dial-in.

Click or copy this link to take our survey now:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KC859N7

As you know, Kidpower offers many free resources online – more than 150 articles, podcasts, videos and webinars; and also free email consultations with concerned parents, grandparents, teachers, school administrators, therapists and other caring adults.

Until now, phone coaching for specific individual questions and problems has been something we didn’t feel we could offer for free. But phone conferencing technology improvements and our successful use of a FLIP approach, where we offer participants articles and questions to read, and the opportunity to ask their own questions ahead of the call, has proven to be very effective for helping many participants in just one hour.

At Kidpower we know that adult leadership is vital to protect young people from harm and empower them to take charge of their own well being. And we know there are many kinds of obstacles to taking positive action in the face of bullying, abuse and other violence. These calls are meant to help caring adults learn the Kidpower Positive Practice approach with a chance to personally work through an obstacle you may face.

Please fill out our very short survey to let us know what topics you would most like to learn about how to apply Kidpower ideas and teach skills in the moment, and learn how to “turn problems into practices” that build skills and and provide long-lasting solutions.

Next week we will announce the first call and topic, which will be in May, and invite you to join us. We look forward to hearing from you and talking with you on these calls!

With gratitude for all you do to keep kids safe,

Beth McGreevy

Beth (she/her/hers) is the Web Communications Director and a Senior Program Leader for Kidpower International. She is a former journalist, now writing & editing coach, business technology and strategy consultant, child protection and gender inclusion advocate, and has been a Kidpower instructor (for all-ages) since 1992.