Accreditation: should I bother?
A reflection on why I bother and how the key components of the process of the coach accreditation application serve your coaching practice.
The relief when that Accreditation Application was submitted…
As anyone knows who has gone through the process, it’s a chunky piece of effort - pulling together all of your hours (I’m at 3000+ at the moment), compiling and reflecting on your CPD over the last three three years, looking back on your supervision, engaging in a critical reflection of your practice and how you have evolved as a coach, considering ethical dilemmas and considering your body’s competency framework.
Lots of coaches ask ‘why bother?’ And I kind of get it. But let me tell you why I have bothered in the past and why I continue to bother.
There are the practical considerations
Clients and organisations are increasingly looking for accredited coaches.
Maybe it helps me to stand out in the marketplace
It forms an important part of standards and professionalisation of the coaching industry
It drives good behaviour in terms of continued engagement with CPD and Supervision.
But for me it goes beyond that. It is a critical piece of learning and development. It brings structure to reflective practice. And it’s important for me to model what I’m advocating with clients.
It is an opportunity to step back from the coaching practice and look from the balcony on my practice of coaching. And anyone who knows me, knows that I enjoy any opportunity for good deep reflective practice!
For me, it’s not a tick the box exercise, but a deep inquiry, looking at where I have come from, where I have got to and these feed into how I want to continue to evolve as a coach.
I am a member of the Association for Coaching and these are the main components of the accreditation application. Other bodies are similar and different and include a version of these:-
Logging hours of experience:
A little painful and time consuming but I enjoy the process of calling to mind clients that I have coached in the past, perhaps remembering the impact they coaching had both on them and on me.
It is a privilege to walk beside our clients in their developmental journey.
It also reminds me where I have come from - securing those early clients to where I am now and where current clients come from.
Coaching Philosophy
Reflective inquiry at it’s best - looking at what has informed your practice, considering how this has evolved, how you show up with clients, what the cornerstones of your practice are. This exercise always produces clarity for direction, the business, the work that I want to lean further into.
CPD
Each coaching body has its own requirements. With the Association for Coaching, again it’s a valuable opportunity to sit back and look at the investment that I have made, what threads can be drawn and what CPD I have actively leveraged into my coaching approach, through the critical reflection process.
Ethical dilemmas
Ah, a good old ethical dilemma.
A reminder to go back and read the Global Code of Ethics. An opportunity to reflect on some challenging ethical dilemmas and how I have handled them, including bringing it to supervision. Perhaps an opportunity to read further into ethics while deepening the maturity of your coaching engagement,
Coach Supervision
As an advocate of supervision, long before I became a Coach Supervisor, I appreciate that engaging in Supervision is a requirement for accreditation. Sometimes we need a metric to drive a behaviour. For me, supervision is a fundamental part of being a coach, even now as a Master Executive Coach. Taking that opportunity to reflect deeply on patterns, dilemmas, how I show up, self-care as coach and so much more.
Personally, I like a blend of 1:1 and Group Supervision - each bring different perspectives which allow me to see further than I might have done before.
Each body has differing requirements but a minimum or 4-6 supervision sessions per year is a good benchmark, more if you are engaged in a lot of coaching.
Competency Framework
Each body also has it’s own Coach and Supervisor Competency Framework reflecting the different levels of Coach Competence.
Again, accreditation provides that opportunity to dust it off and benchmark yourself. Chances are that you are performing well but it typically brings awareness to some area of your practice that iw worth re-visiting.
If you are not sure and would like to talk it through, get in touch. I clearly have a bias towards accreditation but happy to support you in your thinking of what is right for you and your practice.
And if you are looking for a coach supervisor in support of your growth as coach and your coaching practice, whether you are applying for accreditation or not, get in touch. I’d love to chat and tell you more about how we work together and co-craft that supervision space together.
