“The CCAR Recovery Coach Academy is a 60-hour training masquerading as thirty,” is a refrain my fellow teachers /trainers /facilitators* have been hearing from me for a decade. The observation is both compliment – the program references so many basic coaching tenets – and frustration. Lately, the frustration is winning out.
Two items:
- How often do you hear a presenter use the dread phrase, “we’ve a lot to cover.” Who’s this “we”? You’re in charge. I don’t need to hear about your problems. I’m here to receive and process according to the learning objectives you posted, not to participate in a race to the finish of your slide deck. Lose the slide deck, love the lesson –PLEASE!
- How often do you hear a participant invoke the dread “ELMO.” Never? Thank your luck stars! This nasty little phrase sounds smart but, on examination, proves to be only smart-assed. For the uninitiated, the reference is not so much to a beloved Muppet monster, but permission for fellow participants to interrupt a peer’s process of understanding and digesting the material on offer. For what reason? Because the bully is bored. {“Enough – let’s move on!”) This in a roomful of people who have pledged to “respect” each other.
When pressed on how we’ll manage to “get through all the material” if we can’t call on Elmo, Phil Valentine earned my undying (yes!) respect for responding, “that’s the facilitator’s job; trust the facilitator.” Phil is a master.
Over the years, as I increasingly enjoy developing PowerPoints, I have less and less use of them. (I created the above graphic in PowerPoint.) Shadowing me as he prepares to become a teacher/trainer/facilitator, one intern looked me in the eye recently and asked, “how much of the material you prepared did you actually deliver today?” Great question! (The world needs more questions.)
“About 50%,” I acknowledged. But feedback from his fellow participants told a more important story: we hit all our learning objectives for the day. By the time we regrouped the following morning and reviewed the previous day’s lessons, participants again hit the top notes. How? They were engaged and workin’ it. In their own time and without sabotage from the phony demands of prepared material or Elmo.
And, yes, we closed the day at the exact time promised.
So how is this done? Very simply. Stop – a lot. Get spontaneous. Trust that responding in the moment to something apparently off-track can be a terrific opportunity for skills practice in real time and rich conceptual discussions. If you’re truly present to your group and your material, you’ll ultimately keep the focus on what matters.
One participant recently observed, “You knew all along where this conversation was going when you asked that first question (that’s not in the facilitator guide), didn’t you?” No, I didn’t. The question occurred to me because it was in the group. I asked the question because, as Claudia Black once remarked to me, “I wanted to hear the answer.” (Ah, curiosity – the trainer’s secret ingredient!) But I did know how the question was relevant, and how I could relate it to the day’s objectives. Which, to paraphrase Phil, is my job.
No disrespect, but too many trainers come into the field by accident, not by a passion or a talent to teach/train/facilitate. I was horrified to learn that many behavioral health agencies think so little of these arts that handing a Facilitators Guide – and told to deliver it – is believed to be enough preparation for trainers. Whaaaat!!!!!
These same agencies (or their cousins) are currently lobbying to destroy the NYCB Trainer Registry by restoring opaque vetting authority to themselves and away from an organization expressly established to elevate training standards by vesting authority in trainers themselves. In its day, not only did NYCB introduce minimum experience as a Trainer Registry member requirement but pioneered a training profession-specific ethical code – the Member Standards of Practice, complete with a transparent complaints protocol. As you would expect in any profession. We may hope that NYCB sticks to its foundational principles. The field needs it!
I’ve been a professional trainer for decades. In that time, the very worst training I’ve attended has been in the peer recovery profession. I’ve listened to self-styled trainers misinterpret the meaning and value of the concepts they’re trusted to convey. I’ve been in classes where the facilitator was so out of his depth that, with vestiges of co-dependency, I was tempted to deliver the material for him and put him out of his misery. I’ve been in groups where not knowing the meaning of “self-seeking” was considered OK for a module exploring the Promises of Sobriety from AA literature.
But I will not despair.
There’s always hope in a new generation, and trainers are coming into the field from inprov theater and psychodrama; modalities without workbooks or slidedecks, but skillful in spontaneity and highly attuned to the energy and attention of the moment.
Bring ’em on!
*Please see the CCAR webinar, “Teacher, Trainer, Facilitator-Exploring our Professional Practice” for a comprehensive discussion of these roles, https://tinyurl.com/CCAR-ST-Train-Jun-2025.
