Anne’s Story
Anne is a Certified Cognitive Coach (CCC) specializing in working with neurodivergent individuals (autistic, ADHD, and other related traits), high school aged through adulthood. Her experience with neurodiversity is both professional and personal, as she learned in late 2018 that she is autistic herself. This first-hand knowledge of neurodiversity is something that is invaluable to Anne when working with her clients, as she has a direct understanding of their challenges, and more importantly, their strengths. She seeks to help her clients thrive by helping them create lives that work for them, become their best neurodivergent selves, and embrace who they are.
Clients Best Suited For Coaching
Coaching is an active process, where the coach and client work together, with the client in the driver’s seat, to help the client achieve their desired goals. This process works only for clients who want to put in the work required to achieve their goals. This means they understand that results do not happen overnight and that change is a process that requires action on their part, along with time and effort. If a client is unwilling to put in the time, effort, and work required of coaching, the process will not work.
Alternatively, clients who are committed to the coaching process, actively engaged in learning new skills, and dedicated to integrating those new skills into their daily lives will see success in the form of achieving their goals through learning and integrating positive life skills that they can build on for the rest of their lives.
Being coachable means the client is open to receiving feedback in order to improve. They understand there is always room to learn and grow, and show appreciation for the coach’s time by actively listening and learning from them. The coach learns a great deal from each client as well.
Prior to starting services, Anne conducts a brief, complimentary phone screening call with each prospective client to determine what their goals are, assess their readiness for coaching, and ensure it feels like a good match for her to work with them. If it feels like a good match for both coach and client, Anne sends the client the coaching contract. Once she receives the client’s completed, signed, and dated coaching contract, the first coaching session can be scheduled.
Clients who are good matches to work with Anne are individuals high school aged through adulthood who are wanting to work on any of the following areas: Learning or improving their executive functioning skills such as planning and organizing their time effectively, breaking tasks down into smaller steps to lessen overwhelm, independent living skills such as self-care, budgeting, task completion, resume creation, interviewing for, getting, and keeping a job, maintaining relationships, improving communication, creating and maintaining daily routines, self-advocacy, gaining emotional intelligence skills such as self-awareness and emotional regulation, managing sensory needs and reducing sensory overload.
Anne is kind, direct, thorough, and provides detailed session summaries and progress notes via email. Because she is neurodivergent, she can often help clients understand a new diagnosis. She is skilled at working with parents of neurodivergent adolescents and young adults should they desire parent coaching. Anne is a passionate mental health advocate, and helps educate her clients on the importance of good mental health.
With their permission, Anne often serves as a member of her clients’ support teams by collaborating with their therapists, psychiatrists, educators, and other related professionals to ensure the highest quality client care and to improve overall client outcomes.
Anne’s goal with every coaching session is to help her clients feel truly seen, heard, and understood. She has been coaching professionally since 2018.
How Long Does Coaching Take?
The length of time it takes for each person to see the results of their work varies from person to person. Initially, when a client first begins working with a coach, it is helpful to meet weekly for several sessions in order for the client to begin obtaining traction toward their goals. At this stage, the client and coach are identifying internal and external obstacles, and the client is learning new skills.
Once clients have gained self-awareness and momentum, they may wish to meet every other week to maintain their motivation and practice new skills between sessions.
Once clients feel they are making good progress, they may wish to cut back to coaching sessions to once a month to maintain their gains. This allows them to test their new skills, and determine which areas they feel confident in, and which areas they may need more support.
Once clients have met their goals, they may choose to meet for quarterly “check in” sessions. This allows them to review what strategies are working well and what may need to be to be tweaked in order to keep them moving forward.
Anne’s Credentials, Professional Liability Insurance, and Code of Ethics
Anne obtained her life coaching certification from World Coach Institute, an International Coach Federation (ICF) accredited coach training program, her Certified Cognitive Coach credential, Credential #CCC22578096, from the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES), which meets the credentialing needs of professionals who work with individuals with special needs and cognitive differences, and also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Central Florida. She regularly adds to her coaching knowledge and skills through continuing education. Anne abides by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) code of ethics, and maintains professional liability insurance through Alternative Balance/Citadel Insurance Services, LC.
