Coaching & Consultation
Move from learning and planning to confident use
CBSI provides individualized and team-based support for applying practices, understanding challenges, receiving feedback, and solving problems in the settings where change needs to occur.
Two Connected Forms of Support
Choose the emphasis that fits the question
Coaching and consultation often work together, but they serve different immediate purposes.
Coaching
Builds skill through application, demonstration, guided practice, observation or review, feedback, reflection, and repeated opportunities to improve over time.
Consultation
Brings relevant expertise into a defined question or challenge. Partners examine context and information together, identify workable options, develop a plan, and review what happens next.
An engagement may emphasize one form or combine both as needs change.
Begin With a Meaningful Goal
Prior CBSI training is not required when consultation is the appropriate starting point
Work may begin with a practice introduced through training, an existing program, a case or team challenge, a leadership or supervision need, a pattern in available data, or an implementation barrier. CBSI first clarifies what the partner hopes will change, who should be involved, and what information or experience can guide the work.
Support May Include
See what's included
- Applying, adapting, or strengthening behavioral and educational practices.
- Reviewing data, routines, environments, or patterns that may be influencing outcomes.
- Demonstration, guided practice, observation, feedback, and reflection.
- Collaborative problem solving around communication, instruction, regulation, participation, or support needs.
- Team, supervisory, leadership, or mentoring routines that support consistent practice.
- Planning across roles, settings, transitions, sites, or partner organizations.
- Identifying when a challenge requires a broader implementation, workforce, organizational, systems, or evaluation response.
A Practical Learning Cycle
Use experience and information to guide the next action
| Stage | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Define | Clarify the goal, people affected, setting, current approach, and desired decision or outcome. |
| Understand | Review available information, perspectives, routines, strengths, and barriers. |
| Plan | Select or co-design practical strategies, supports, roles, and indicators of progress. |
| Apply | Try the approach in context with demonstration, practice, feedback, or problem solving as appropriate. |
| Review | Use data and experience to identify what is working, what needs adjustment, and what should happen next. |
| Build Local Capacity | Strengthen the knowledge, routines, tools, and leadership needed to continue the work with less external support. |
Flexible Scope and Intensity
Coaching and consultation may involve an individual, family, small team, classroom, clinic, workplace, organization, or cross-role group. Support may be brief and targeted or continue across a defined period. The form and frequency should match the goal, readiness, available capacity, and complexity of the work.