
By Megan FritschAssociated PressLife skills is a core component of a caregiver’s job description, yet it’s rarely discussed in the same way as the other skills.
In a recent survey, more than 70 percent of caregivers in a survey by CareerCast said they needed to learn life skills to be successful in the job market.
“If you want to become a life skills coach or a life coach for a client, you’re going to have to start by taking a look at how life skills are learned,” said Laura Lappin, director of career services for the American Association of Career Counselors.
“The job that we’re looking for, and I’m not talking about just a career, is someone who’s willing to learn how to be a life-skills coach or life-counselor for their client.”
Lappin said the key to making life skills a core part of a career is to take a look in the mirror.
“That’s really where you’re teaching somebody how to live their life and how to care for themselves,” she said.
“How to be kind to themselves and how they treat their clients.”
Life skills are not a new topic in the profession, with research showing that life skills can boost a caregiper’s success rate and even lead to improved relationships with clients.
In recent years, some studies have found that life skill development can improve the lives of people with a range of conditions, including diabetes, depression, substance abuse, autism, chronic pain and other chronic illnesses.
But there’s still much more research that needs to be done before we can say whether life skills work for every type of caregiver.
While the benefits of life skills might be obvious, some caregivers may be less likely to take the time to learn them, said Sarah Stegall, associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus.
“You have to remember that they are there for the benefit of the client,” Stegal said.
She said life skills also need to go hand-in-hand with a healthy, self-aware approach to caring for the client.
“One of the things that you need is an awareness of your own personal health and well-being,” Stecall said.
Stegall said she doesn’t think that a life skill coach needs to have any kind of medical background, but she said she does recommend that a caregipper take a holistic approach to their care.
“I would just say that a lot of the research shows that the way to build a life Skills Coach is to really understand the client’s needs, and how that impacts their day-to-day life,” she wrote in an email.
“Life Skills coaches also need access to a wide variety of medical care, as well as physical therapy and occupational therapy.
They should also be aware of their clients’ mental health needs, as it can be difficult to understand people who have chronic illnesses and disabilities.”
For many caregivers, the biggest challenge of being a life mentor is keeping up with the latest research and technology.
For example, there’s no shortage of apps that provide a digital record of the caregiver, but few have the tools to teach the client to interact with the system, Stegill said.
Many life skills coaches have used their own apps, such as the Life Skills Academy, which is a self-paced online course that helps the caregiper learn about different aspects of the caregiving industry.
Stigall said that she often advises people to sign up for a Life Skills coach program through a company like CareerCast, as that can save the caregipper money and provide them with an online platform to keep up with research.
But some companies have stopped offering life skills programs, citing concerns about a lack of training.
Lapping, a company that helps people learn life-skill skills through online courses, stopped offering its Life Skills programs in 2014.
It’s not clear if the company is still offering them.
A few life skills courses are still offered through CareerCast.
One of them, The Life Skills Certification Course, offers online training and has about a quarter of a million people taking it, according to CareerCast founder and CEO Lisa Poynter.
“We know the impact that this program has on our community and our community members,” she told The Associated Press.
Poynters said CareerCast does not provide paid classes, but that it does provide access to courses for people who don’t want to take on full-time jobs.
“There’s a whole spectrum of careers that people who are seeking to improve their lives can choose to pursue,” she added.
“They don’t necessarily have to be life skills or life coach, but they can pursue the career they want to pursue.”
While the online courses may seem like a step in the right direction, some employers are not ready to embrace the concept.
“It’s just not the