NACD Needs Your Help
Finding New Evaluators & Coaches

Dear members of our NACD Family,

I hope you are managing through these difficult and challenging times. Fortunately, it appears that most of our families are doing well. Let us all hope that the world gets a handle on the COVID-19 virus soon so we can get back to “normal.” As I have always said, we need smarter folks, better brains to solve these major global issues. We need to simply be smarter.

I am writing to let you all know that we need to bring on and train more evaluators and coaches. Finding people who understand our work and have the ability to dedicate themselves to our mission is challenging; and then finding those willing to put in the years of training and through it all find themselves in a position where they can travel presents a formidable hurdle. But that is the task we have and have always had.

We are very fortunate to have a great team of dedicated evaluators who together represent over 150 years with NACD. That’s a lot of hours, a lot of kids, a lot of “Whole Kids,” and a lot of years of prioritizing and living NACD every day. 

Our experience tells us that to be successful—as in, taking someone through extensive training before they can work with their first child and getting them to the point where they can travel, evaluate, and work with the required dedication that they need—they need to start simply as part of our NACD Family. You have to live it to get it!

I’m reaching out to you, our NACD Family, in our attempt to find some folks to train. 

Being part of the NACD family, you should all have a fairly good idea as to what coaches and evaluators are, but there are some basic requirements for each position.
 

Basic Requirements for Evaluators

Evaluator positions are essentially full time, demanding positions that are not 9-5 and often involve some work or even travel on weekends. We would need to find folks with degrees in related fields, such as education, psychology, counseling, or specific therapies. If they have professional experience, that is certainly helpful. We need folks who are comfortable with technology and who know their way around computers and the Internet. We need folks that can make a long-term commitment. Training someone who starts with degrees and experience still requires five to ten years of specific training with us to even begin to see the full range of “whole children.” And then they need to be ready to spend the rest of their careers discovering and learning more. Our philosophy is that we can never do our jobs well enough, and we need to be constantly exploring, reviewing, and testing new methodologies, and simply continuing to create better ways. The evaluators are also called upon to speak to groups and at conferences, interact with NACD Facebook, and to write articles. Key to evaluators’ ongoing training is a willingness to ask questions and seek answers. Because of the range of individuals with whom we work and the endless variety of issues, trainees need to play a very active role in their own training, identifying holes in their knowledge and asking the questions needed to fill in the blanks. We need smart folks willing to push themselves and never be complacent. Potential evaluators also need to be able to move to Utah and most likely stay based in Utah. And our preference is to find people from within our extended NACD family who “get” it. Evaluator positions cannot be perceived as jobs, or both they and we will fail. It’s a privilege and a mission that requires dedication.

Included on our list of the NACD Family members are parents who have or have had children on program, who are now free to move and start a new career, those who have graduated from NACD programs, siblings of children who were or are now on NACD programs, and those who have worked closely with a child on program. 

We do have the ability to be a bit flexible when hiring younger folks. Lyn and Sara, evaluators who have been with us for 25 years each, have been educating and raising their children while working as evaluators. Challenging, but with help and flexibility, possible.

For those who get it and who want a challenging but incredibly rewarding career, please consider becoming an evaluator.

Key Points

• Degree in related field
• Willing to relocate to Utah
• Long-term commitment
• Self-motivated
• Willing and able to speak to groups 
• Ability to write 
• Travel required

Basic Requirements for Coaches

The most basic requirement for a coach is to have lived an NACD program. This would include parents, graduates, and those who were actively involved with program implementation. Coaching caseloads can vary and as such the daily time commitment is flexible. There is also some flexibility in when in the day that time is spent. 

Coaching can be done from wherever, however with the majority of the caseload being in the U.S., living in the U.S. is required.

Coaches need to be familiar and comfortable with technology, be able to communicate well in person, via phone, or face to face over Skype or Zoom. In addition to acting as a liaison between the family and their evaluator, coaches need to become knowledgeable regarding program implementation and be able to establish a close relationship with their families and be sensitive to their needs. There are also administrative duties associated with the position, so attention to protocols and details are very important. 

We have the need for both full- and part-time coaches.
 
All my best,
Bob