Vantaa Wellness Mentoring – What Is It?

Vantaa Wellness Mentoring – What Is It?

Enablers of Change: Jan-Erik Jäske, Hanna Okkonen (seated), Niina Heikkurinen, Noora Smolander, Inka Sipilä (seated), Jarna Hakkarainen, and Iisa Telford (in the top corner).

Background of the blog post

This is the second part of a two-part series about the wellness mentoring service offered by the city of Vantaa. The first part discussed why Vantaa provides this service. In this second part, we explain what wellness mentoring involves. The post is based on an interview with Noora Smolander, a wellness mentor with extensive experience in both the public and private sectors, along with a master’s degree in nutritional sciences.

Who is it for and how long does it last?

“This service is intended for adult citizens of Vantaa, typically those who already have health risk factors such as overweight or high blood pressure, and who also have sufficient motivation to make lifestyle changes. Clients are mostly referred via health centers and antenatal clinics. The duration of mentoring varies, but for those needing longer support, we offer a year-long service.”

How many clients are involved?

“Currently, around 300 people are in the year-long mentoring program.”

Who provides the mentoring?

“We have six mentors here in Vantaa. Additionally, the program began last year in Kerava, where there is one full-time and two part-time mentors.”

How is the work divided among mentors?

“Each mentor has their own clients. We use a hybrid model: in-person sessions at health centers and remote mentoring via the Coach4Pro platform. A mentor typically manages around 60–80 clients at a time.”

How much of the mentor’s time is spent remotely?

“Remote mentoring accounts for about one-third of the mentoring time. We also develop the lifestyle guidance content and hold in-person meetings. Two days per week are reserved for face-to-face meetings, which help build a trusting relationship between client and mentor. Then, in remote sessions, the client knows exactly who they are communicating with.”

What do the programs consist of?

“The main themes are exercise, nutrition, sleep, and recovery. We also address goal-setting and broader mental well-being aspects.”

How do you ensure clients are motivated and able to succeed?

“At the initial meeting, we conduct an interview to assess their readiness for change. We also use a questionnaire measuring readiness. If we find they lack readiness or resources, we recommend they take a pause and possibly return later.”

How do you balance rest, exercise, and nutrition?

“It’s based on the client’s preferences. If a client doesn’t feel the need to include, say, rest, we omit it. We use a values- and acceptance-based approach, taking into account what is meaningful for each client.”

Main challenges?

“Recognizing clients’ available resources. Early enthusiasm may fade; real-life demands commitment and practice. Successes motivate, but failures shouldn’t be dwelled upon.”
“Clients’ backgrounds vary greatly, so individualization is key; knowing the client better makes this easier.”
“Commitment can wane—people sometimes drop out or the timing isn’t ideal.”

Transition to the Coach4Pro platform

“We planned the switch in May, and in June the first clients were using Coach4Pro. We phased it in, always meeting the client in person before the transition. By August, all clients were using the new platform. A gradual transition worked well.”

Mentors’ experience with the app

“All mentors find the app easy and clear. Installation was smooth, though password rules caused minor issues. The built-in publishing system is appreciated: a mentor can draft or edit a program and have other mentors check it before publishing. Clients have praised the ability to comment and receive mentor responses. All key features are accessible from the home screen.”

Challenges in using the app

“Getting clients engaged is the challenge. The most active users are those who connect a fitness watch; their step counts and other data are automatically visible to mentors, which naturally sparks conversation.”

How do you gather client feedback?

“Through clinic visits and end-of-program surveys. Especially the feedback from those meetings is valuable.”

Summary

“The platform works well, is flexible, offers many features, and clients are satisfied.”

Expand Coaching to Learning with Coach4Pro’s New Tools

Expand Coaching to Learning with Coach4Pro’s New Tools

Coach4Pro is excited to announce a new feature that allows service providers to create comprehensive learning courses for their clients. Our platform now supports course functions that clients can access and complete independently.

The new tools include an intuitive planning interface and a streamlined publishing function, making course creation straightforward. A shared material bank is available for both calendar-based programs and the new courses, enabling seamless utilization of resources across different service types.

Our course functions offer flexible execution options, including free flow, defined order, and timed execution windows, catering to various learning styles and preferences.

We look forward to seeing how these new tools enhance your coaching services.

Enhanced branding features

Enhanced branding features

We’ve updated the Coach4Pro platform to include a white label product that you can customize to fit your brand’s unique style. Our new skin settings offer two layout options and a variety of customization features for a personalized user interface.

Adjust the shape, color, and design of UI components like cards and buttons to match your brand identity. These customization options help make the platform truly yours, improving user experience and reinforcing your brand’s visual presence.

With these new features, Coach4Pro provides the flexibility to tailor and enhance your brand. Use our platform to reflect your brand’s unique personality.

Challenge-feature released on Coach4Pro

Challenge-feature released on Coach4Pro

The latest software update provides a new home view and brings us the Challenge-feature.

People are increasingly returning to their work places this autumn. Together with our customers we have developed a new feature called Challenge.

Challenge enables anyone with the given rights to create a challenge. The challenge can be personal or team-based.
After defining the challenge, you can invite participants. Participants receive a notification about the challenge invite, and after accepting, the challenge can be followed on the Home page. You can have multiple challenges ongoing at the same time.

– This feature is created as a way for companies to help motivate workers by making it more fun and desirable to exercise. Working towards a common goal creates a feeling of coherence, which is much wanted after a long period of remote and hybrid-work, says the CEO of Coach4Pro, Mikko Koskela.

– This release is based on the feedback we get from coaches using the platform. Since we want to continue being the best online platform for health care experts, wellness coaches and personal trainers, we have to challenge ourselves constantly. User feedback is essential for us to improve the platform, Mikko states.

Do you want more information about the Challenge feature or about Coach4Pro? Send us an email

University of Jyväskylä researchers used Coach4Pro to estimate recovery

University of Jyväskylä researchers used Coach4Pro to estimate recovery

The study examined whether individually-adjusted endurance training based on recovery and training status would lead to greater adaptations compared to a predefined program.

To test this, recreational runners were divided into two categories: predefined and individualised training groups. In the latter, the training load was decreased, maintained or increased twice a week based on nocturnal heart rate variability, perceived recovery, and heart rate-running speed index. Both groups performed three-week preparatory, six-week volume and six-week interval periods. Incremental treadmill tests and 10 km running tests were performed.

Subjective recovery was estimated daily. Muscle soreness of the lower limbs, fatigue, sleep quality, and stress were ranked with scale 1-7, with 4 being normal. These items were analysed separately and sum index was calculated which was defined as the “staleness score”. Recovery was estimated in the morning before any exercise via the Coach4Pro mobile application.

The study concluded that both groups induced positive training adaptations, but the individualised training seemed more beneficial in endurance performance. Moreover, individualised training increased the likelihood of high response and decreased the occurrence of low response to endurance training.

Research group: Olli-Pekka, Nuuttila; Ari, Nummela; Elisa, Korhonen; Keijo, Häkkinen; Heikki, Kyröläinen

Link to the article: Individualized Endurance Training Based on Recovery and Training Status in Recreational Runners

How to ensure quality in preventive healthcare programs

How to ensure quality in preventive healthcare programs

Preventive healthcare programs need to be methodically ensured for quality. Why?
Because you want to ensure that your investment pays itself back by avoiding future health issues. Neglecting to ensure quality means you are just hoping that your service works.

One effective framework is the Plan, Do, Check, Act-cycle (PDCA). The PDCA cycle provides a structure for iterative testing of changes for improving quality. We at Coach4Pro recommend PDCA, since it’s widely accepted and used in various industries. However, PDCA needs to be deployed carefully to ensure the results. Something we are happy to help our partners and customers with.

Those responsible for preventive healthcare programs want fit-for-purpose solutions to be developed. But during an active program, you don’t want to do any big changes without risking the outcome. The PDCA cycle promotes the use of a small step, iterative approach to test program interventions. This enables rapid assessment and provides flexibility in adapting the changes based on feedback.

Plan, do, check, act

PDCA in practise

Let’s go through the PDCA-cycle when implementing it to a preventive healthcare or wellbeing service on the Coach4Pro platform. In this case a mentor/coach is available online to follow the progress of the program. Most of the considerations here can also be applied to programs that doesn’t have a coach. But from a quality point-of-view we do not recommend these kinds of “self-services”, simply because it’s not a service!

 

PLAN

In the planning phase we design the program: duration, content, instructions, questionnaires, messages and media. This means you create or upload the material to the Library. Once the material is in the Library, creation of the program (or plan as we call it) is quite as easy as drag and drop. Naming conventions are essential here. Naming should be done in such a way that when you start dragging and dropping, you should know from the name of the object what the content is. This is something you learn along the way, and renaming is sometimes needed.

Before you start doing the above actions, it’s good to have a short manuscript of your program. This serves as the backbone of your plan.

Once the program is ready to be published, you have completed the Plan-phase!

 

DO

Do-phase starts with publishing your program. You can publish the whole program at once, or you can publish it in parts , e.g bi-weekly. You can invite the participants or they can register through a link to your program. Once your clients have signed up and are executing the program, you can start the follow-up. This is where the difference can be made. If you have included questionnaires about the expectations of the clients, you can adjust the level of interaction and feedback according to each client’s expectation.

Giving feedback is easy. Whenever a client is commenting an activity (task/exercise), the mentor will get a push notification. These notifications are stored in a list, from where you have direct access to the comments and you can start a dialogue with your client.

The daily work for the mentor is simplified: just go through the list of notifications, give your responses and your day is done. And from the client point of view: “she/he is really following what I am doing”.

 

CHECK and ACT

Check-phase can be split into two parts: monitoring the progress of your clients during the program, and analysing the outcome of the programs once they are finished.

If you are constantly in dialogue with your client and observing the progress, you can act based on this dialogue. You can correct some things for one client: “this is not working for you, let’s try another thing for you”. If you see that all the clients are passive on certain activity, you could either remove or replace that activity. This means that you can update your program and publish it again. Changes will naturally be made only for coming activities.

The second type of checking happens once the program has finished. You can use activity-reports to find out what kind of activities had high participation/completion and which did not activate clients. Then you either correct, remove, or replace the things that did not work.
You should also go through questionnaires and find out where the improvements could be made.

In the Act-phase you make the corrections and changes to your program so that it is ready to be published. Good job! But don’t stop here. Since PDCA is a cycle, your newly implemented solution now becomes the starting point for the next round of improvements. This way you methodically ensure quality.

 

Things to remember

Small-scale tests provide coaches and mentors with freedom to act and learn; they minimise risk to the clients. Tests provide the opportunity to build evidence for change and engage stakeholders as confidence in the intervention increases.

The PDCA-cycle can be implemented in such a way that data is analysed weekly, biweekly or monthly. This allows you to identify what works and amplify it. Activities that do not work need to be changed or even removed or replaced.

In a previous article we wrote about the importance of collecting data. Without data, we miss out on knowledge about the client and the program — knowledge that would help provide better personalised service. Digital tools allows you to collect the data you want with fairly minimum effort.

 

 

 

 

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