Introduction
Self-regulation skills are the skills needed to finish tasks, stay organized, and control emotions. They are sometimes called soft skills, social and emotional skills, life management skills, executive skills, or executive functioning skills. These skills are important for succeeding in work, school, and other aspects of life. But recent research suggests that the stresses and uncertainty of poverty can be overwhelming, leaving less mental bandwidth for effective development and use of self-regulation skills. For this reason, some Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other employment programs that serve adults with low incomes have begun to work on strengthening self-regulation skills by implementing employment coaching. Employment coaching involves trained staff working collaboratively with participants to help them set individualized goals—directly or indirectly related to employment—and providing motivation, support, and feedback as participants work toward those goals.
Purpose
The purpose of the brief is to share promising strategies and lessons learned that human services agency leaders and staff might adopt to help program participants use and strengthen self-regulation skills.
Key Findings and Highlights
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Training coaches about self-regulation skills in general is likely beneficial and not a large investment. Training coaches to talk with participants about their specific self-regulation skills may also be beneficial but requires a larger investment in training.
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Although the employment coaching programs differed in whether they explicitly focused on self-regulation skills, the coaches in all four programs used strategies that could help participants practice and strengthen self-regulation skills. These included:
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Guiding participants to set goals that are meaningful to them.
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Being nondirective as participants work toward goals. This means guiding the participants but not specifying goals for them, developing plans for them to achieve those goals, or telling them what to do next.
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Chunking longer-term goals into shorter-term goals or action steps.
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Asking participants to consider obstacles and workarounds to completing tasks before they begin.
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Regularly discussing with participants their progress toward reaching goals, celebrate successes, and diagnose lack of progress.
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Helping participants become aware of their strengths and weaknesses in self-regulation skills.
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Suggesting or modelling strategies to accommodate weaknesses in self-regulation skills.
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Addressing participants’ stress.
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Building strong, trusting, and supportive relationships with participants.
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A randomized controlled trial found that coaching can improve self-regulation skills, even when the coaches do not explicitly focus on self-regulation skills.
Methods
This brief presents findings from data collected as part of OPRE’s Evaluation of Employment Coaching for TANF and Related Populations. The findings are based on evidence collected from surveys and interviews with participants and with coaches and other program staff at four employment coaching programs: Family Development and Self-Sufficiency, Goal4 It!™, LIFT, and MyGoals for Employment Success.
Citation
Michelle Derr, Sheena McConnell, Andrew Kratz, and Correne Saunders (2023). “Strengthening Self-Regulation Skills Through Employment Coaching: Strategies and Lessons from Four Programs.” OPRE Report #2023-278. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.