Harrisburg, PA ---- Community Life Coaches, Chris and Carol Green commissioned the Shalom House Women Shelter's first 'Life Success' Coaches through their Leadership Life Coach Certificate Program.
"All of these women diligently worked to obtain this certificate," Chris and Carol Green shared. "The class consisted of 7 members of the Shalom House Women's shelter staff and one member of the Shalom House Board of Directors."
In 2018, the Shalom House Women's Shelter committed to having its entire staff become Life Success Coaches. With the official certificates conferred upon this first class in a ceremony at The Rock Church in Harrisburg, PA, Shalom House took a giant step toward fulfilling that goal.
The CARE-Ready Leadership Life Coach Certificate Program, administered by Fruitful Life Network and United Graduate College Seminary International, is accredited by the United Association of Christian Churches and Ministries International (founded in 1975).
Shalom House was established in 1986 by a Catholic nun, Sister Patricia Brennan. This urban-centered women's shelter had at the core of its mission, to get women and children, experiencing homelessness, off the streets and housed in a safe, home-like environment. Yet, the heart of the mission was about much more – the more being to put an end to the cycle of homelessness in the lives of women and children in our community.
Shalom House continues to provide emergency, transitional and permanent housing for homeless women and children with nowhere else to go. For many years this was the primary mission, adding the provision of basic needs (assistance with a bed, food, clothing, and access to community programs and services to address the unique challenges a woman and children may be facing).
Today, however, Shalom House’s primary objective is transformational housing. For women and children experiencing homelessness, the goal is the gift of hope: hope for a transformed independent and sustainable life, which includes, but is not limited to a transition to stable housing.
"In conjunction with partner organizations," explains Executive Director Denise Britton, "we help residents achieve the six vital linchpins of life: family health, financial health, social health, spiritual health, physical health, and mental health.
"These partnerships allow “wrap around” services and support, personally designed for each woman and/or child. Lastly, partnerships leverage our results and dramatically improve what we can do alone."
A key to moving closer to more lives transformed to long term independence, was Shalom House's incorporation Chris and Carol Green's Life Coaching into their service delivery protocols.
"Life coaching casts a forward-looking vision," Britton contends. "The tone and character of conversations are respectful, regarding the client as being capable, resourceful, and whole. Coaches find that optimal solutions are within the clients themselves. The coach follows the client's agenda, helping her discover her own value, purpose and goals."
Life coaching is based on 1:1 relationship-building with an agreed upon a set of deliverables. The primary deliverable is a life plan that the client can use to improve her life and achieve her long term goals. The emphasis is on the coaching relationship, building trust, and opening doors of positive exploration for what a life can truly be … unencumbered and confident.
"The coaching component also incorporates a personal reflection for the coach / mentor, to assess any areas of needed growth in their own life," Britton concludes. "For truly, no one can lead another further than their own level of growth and competency. If transformation is the real objective; real plans for interrupting any barriers within the agency itself must be identified, and addressed."
For Shalom House, Life Coaching has been a critical component to removing barriers and opening the doors to transformation wider than ever before.
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Chris and Carol Green are not affiliated with any political party, religious dogma, or 'bandwagon' social movements. They have been under-the-radar leaders in a national phenomenon in which people of faith have been moving, by the thousands, out of their traditions and buildings to take Christ's healing and hope to their families and neighborhoods.
Learn more about the CARE-Ready Leadership Life Coach Certificate Program at www.CandCconnections.com/lifecoachtraining
