The following is taken from David’s interview with Marcia Reynolds in 10 Super Coaches.
Would you advice coaches to pursue certification?
Absolutely!! Certification is what distinguishes you from anyone who just calls themselves a coach with no training or experience. We have to uphold certification to keep our profession strong. It is important to join the International Coach Federation and become certified to help keep the integrity of our profession strong in the eyes of our customers.
The International Coach Federation is the only non-profit professional association that is recognized world-wide as credible and sound. It is not aligned with one school, so it is also seen by regulating organizations as a credibile representative of all coaches, regardless of their schooling and background.
The following is an excerpt from David’s Independent Report on Coaching Training and Certification.
You don’t actually require a certification from your school to get your ICF certification. For example I (David) didn’t. I did 50% of a course, and then resigned so I could build my own training school. I then added up the training hours I had done, and combined those with the hours I had done with Landmark Education (not their normal courses, but actually training to be a coach with them), and submitted it to the ICF accompanied with a barrage of documents. In other words, it’s possible to piece together your training from different schools, as long as it’s coach specific, and you clock up enough hours.
The following is taken from David’s Independent Report on Coaching Training and Certification.
Will your Government subsidize the cost?
Yes – in some countries this actually happens. If you are disadvantaged in some way you may actually get the government to pay for a good portion of your training. In particular, we have heard of this in the UK and Australia.
In the UK, we believe it may be possible for people with disabilities to receive assistance for coaching training – but your training must be with a UK based/approved school.
In Australia, the Life Coaching Academy says its program qualifies for Austudy and Abstudy.
The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
You do not need to be accredited to begin coaching. At the time of this writing I know of no country which requires certification. However, long term, I believe it’s important for your career and for the profession of coaching.
A good reason to get certified is because you believe in the philosophy of the training school you choose. And, because you want to continually improve your coaching skills.
A bad reason to get certified is because you think that will get you more clients or in some way make you ‘worthy’ as a coach. My experience has been that it does neither. It might look good on the wall and it feels good to be able to say it – but in coaching two hundred clients, I think ONE asked me if I was certified. Don’t try and use it as a crutch – you don’t need it.
Ironically, the International Coach Federation requires at least 250 paid coaching hours under your belt before you get to their first certification level (ACC). So you’ll need to become confident coaching without the crutch of certification – which I think is a good thing. Use it to support your coaching; don’t rely on it.
