Once you have made the decision to offer a training course, you will need to commit your ideas to paper. This is not always as easy as it seems, so you need to have a plan to guide you through it.
If you have completed a teaching qualification, this will give you an idea on how to structure your course. You will need to break the course down into different sections and tackle each one individually. These smaller chunks will help with both the writing of the course and how your students learn it.
What To Include In Your Training Course
Your course will need to deal with more than just the hands-on element of the treatment you are tackling. You will need to include the relevant anatomy and physiology, how to perform a consultation, contra-indications, aftercare and patch-testing if necessary. You should also aim to teach the relevant health and safety, hygiene and professionalism. The course will need to be a mixture of theory and practical to give your students a complete learning experience.
The Treatment
The easy bit for most experienced therapists will be addressing the treatment itself. You will need to teach the theory of this, give a demonstration and then teach the students to perform the practical element themselves. You should make sure that this is extremely thorough and should include how to adapt the treatment for different clients. Make sure that each student gets ample opportunity to perform all aspects of the treatment at least once.
Consultation And Aftercare
Consultations and aftercare advice are essential elements of any treatment. They will not only add to the professionalism of the therapist, they will also ensure the client receives the best and safest possible treatment and are able to maintain the effects for as long as possible. You will need to stress the importance of these things not only for the benefit of the client and therapist but also for insurance purposes. Many students will not have seen a record card before so you should try to provide an example and explain how to complete this properly.
Contra-Indications And Contra-Actions
It is vital that all therapists are able to recognise the contra-indications and contra-actions to treatment. You should provide a comprehensive list of all of these and try to show examples so that they are easier to recognise. You should explain how to adapt the treatment to cater for these, or how to tell the client that the treatment cannot go ahead without causing alarm.
Assessments
You will need to test all of your students knowledge, so the assessments will need to be both theory based and practical. You should set a written exam, but also assess the students performing the treatment after they have had chance to practice their skills. It is up to you to set a pass mark, but this usually around 60-70%.
Extra Material
You should try and offer students as many learning resources as possible. These could include textbooks, DVDs or handouts. If you include any images on your handouts, you will need permission from the owner if the image if you have not created it yourself.
You will need to construct the course in an order that will make sense to the students so that it can remain coherent. Some treatments can be taught and assessed in the same time frame whilst others may require the student to go away and practice before their exam.
How you choose to put together your course is entirely up to you. Once you have written it, go through it from the perspective of the student to see if it makes sense and covers everything you need to know. Never assume your students will already know certain things, make sure you have covered every detail.