The output from our two-day LEAP Summit produced by the LAB (LEAP Advisory Board) was prodigious.  All LAB members participated. NH came from Chicago and we also had Skype contributions from coaches in California and France, our lawyer, and the Head of the company we hope will be producing LEAP-specific materials. Our agenda was long and the work was intense, but we LEAP-ed LEAP, producing an Objective Tree with 26 priority objectives under six main ones. We were so focused on leaving to get NH to Pike Place market, that we forgot to take a picture of the group.   One of our first objectives was to organize, schedule, evaluate and complete the certification process for three new LEAP facilitators in the pipeline.  And I am happy to announce that Stephanie Shannon is now certified and ready to take on clients! 

It has been just a year since the members of the "Juanita Group" expressed an interest in becoming LEAP facilitators. There are a number of steps. First you must do your own LEAP plan, then take the course on line--finding your own client--and then a seasoned LEAP facilitator must observe and evaluate you. We conducted the requisite LEAP last year at this time, and then each coach trainee worked though the LEAP facilitator’s course on line, reading materials, watching training videos, and LEAP-ing a client by going through all 10 steps. All of this (12 hours with the client, 12 hours reading materials, and 6 hours posting the client’s work on a confidential folder on the Moodle platform and discussing it with a LEAP coach on Skype, takes about 30 hours. Once a trainee has completed this, including a client evaluation of his/her experience, the coach trainee does his/her own self evaluation.  Then, an experienced LEAP coach observes him/her do an entire LEAP with one, two or three clients.  During a LEAP workshop, the facilitator does his/her own plan along with the participants—shares it and use it for demonstration purposes.  The last time I trained LEAP facilitators was in Switzerland!  This time was the first time I observed someone who had gone through the on-line training course.  And it was thrilling to learn how well the on line course prepared the trainee.  It made a dramatic difference.

Also, what always amazes me about LEAP is that, no matter how many times I have facilitated a workshop, or how many times I have observed others, I always learn something new.  Since this was the first time that I certified someone who had done the course on line, I having completed a practice plan with a client all on her own really improved the process. My “observee” was more comfortable, confident and probing. She also made a significant contribution to the process integrated a new column into Step 8 that made it more dynamic, calling column 4 in the log frame, “Completed Tasks.” I was quite impressed!  When asked how the observation client felt about her plan, she stated, “I feel proud.”  And that, is what it’s all about.