Next cohort: Mondays starting September 28th (time TBD by participants)
Coach Training
The Practice of Story Work
An eight-week online coach training group for story-work-trained practitioners ready to move from Allender Narrative Focused Trauma Care training into a coaching practice.
Course purpose: To help story-work-trained practitioners move from their Allender Narrative Focused Trauma Care training and learn how to engage clients practically, ethically, and relationally.
Framework: Invite → Engage → Story → Witness → Integrate
This small group experience is designed to give you all the tools you need to move from NFTC training into a coaching practice. The Practice of Story Work is organized around a five-part framework, guiding from the client’s initial concern into meaningful story work and then bringing what emerges back into the client’s present life.
By the End of the Training, You Will Be Better Equipped To:
- Establish clear, ethical, and purposeful story-informed coaching relationships.
- Help clients move from the problems they bring toward their stories.
- Have the structure, paperwork, and forms needed to run a coaching practice.
- Engage a client’s present relationships, patterns, emotions, and embodied experience.
- Connect formative stories with current choices, relationships, and possibilities for change.
- Adapt the framework for both individual and relationship coaching.
- Create useful goals with clients.
- Build a coaching practice with appropriate boundaries.
- Recognize concerns that require consultation, referral, reporting, or emergency intervention.
- Apply a framework of Invite → Engage → Story → Witness → Integrate with confidence and discernment.
Your Registration Includes
- 8 live, 2-hour group training sessions
- The complete five-part story-practice framework
- Downloadable sample practice paperwork including intake, consent, release, and policy samples
- Note-taking and documentation examples
- Coaching safety, consultation, and referral guidelines
- Demonstrations and realistic case discussions
- A small cohort of story-informed practitioners
Group Tuition: $795*
*a limited number of need-based grants are available
Meet Your Group Facilitator
Brad Aldrich is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (in PA & ME) with more than 25 years of experience in counseling and narrative family therapy. His professional background includes serving as the executive director of a counseling center and founding a coaching network devoted to story work, emotional healing, and relational growth.
Brad brought this extensive experience to his Narrative Focused Trauma Care training through The Allender Center (NFTC I - 2022, NFTC II - 2026, NFTC III - 2026/27 cohort). His passion for story work has led him not only to engage stories with individuals and couples, but also to support other practitioners as they develop their own coaching practices.
In The Practice of Story Work, Brad brings these two worlds together: the depth and relational care of narrative-focused story work and the practical wisdom required to work with clients safely, ethically, and effectively.
Coach training questions
Who is The Practice of Story Work training for?
It is designed for practitioners who have completed Allender Narrative Focused Trauma Care (NFTC) training and are ready to move from that training into an actual coaching practice — learning to engage clients practically, ethically, and relationally.
How long is the coach training and how does it meet?
The training runs eight weeks, with eight live, two-hour group sessions held online in a small cohort. The next cohort meets on Mondays starting September 28th, with the exact time set by participants.
How much does the coach training cost?
Group tuition is $795. A limited number of need-based grants are available — mention it when you register and we will respond with care.
What does registration include?
Registration includes eight live two-hour sessions, the complete five-part story-practice framework, downloadable sample practice paperwork (intake, consent, release, and policy samples), documentation examples, safety and referral guidelines, demonstrations and case discussions, and a small cohort of story-informed practitioners.
Who leads the training?
The group is facilitated by Brad Aldrich, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (PA & ME) with more than 25 years of experience in counseling and narrative family therapy, and NFTC training through The Allender Center.
Ready to join the group?
Reserve your place in the next cohort of The Practice of Story Work.