50 The Coaching Toolkit for Child Welfare Practice
Coaches, learners, supervisors, and agency leadership are
encouraged to be flexible and humble enough to know that the process
of coaching will be dynamic and potentially complicated. They must
acknowledge what they do not know and search for and access
resources to help.
Principles of cultural humility (adapted from Ortega and Faller,
1997)
Embrace the complexity of diversity: In day-to-day existence each
individual occupies multiple positions with related identities and
statuses. These identities operate together, or intersect, to
distinguish each of us as individuals.
Be open to individual differences and the social experiences
resulting from these differences: Intersecting group memberships
affect people’s expectations, quality of life, capacities as individuals
and parents, and life choices.
Reserve judgment: Place value on the learner’s cultural
expressions of concern and perspective.
“Know thyself” and how coaches’ biases interfere with the
ability to listen objectively and work with learners: Coaches must
engage simultaneously in a process of realistic, ongoing self-
appraisal of biases and stereotypes.
Critically challenge one’s “openness” to learn from others:^
Coaches should assess how their own attitudes and behaviors create
a barrier to learning from others.