COACHING ACCREDITATION

We have become a society that is increasingly placing greater value on the idea of external verification. Mind you, it’s a great concept and when executed and understood properly adds significant value to everyone concerned. We have noticed a very interesting trend amongst our students of late. When choosing the school for their studies there seems to be a heightened awareness of accreditation or affiliations of the school. The interesting bit is that less than 10% of them actually join any external boards.

Every regulatory board, affiliation, association or federation provides value in the area of either ethics or standards or both. In other words, the value to you, if your training provider places itself under the authority of any of these types of institutions, is that you have recourse via a higher authority. It provides some sense of security from an ethics perspective.

When it comes to standards the landscape becomes slightly more complex to navigate. The best way to approach this is to gain a better understanding of how regulation in the industry works. I have bulleted some key points below that should improve your understanding and help you make good choices:

• The Life Coaching, NLP and Hypnosis, pretty much the entire self help industry is completely self regulated. What this means is that there are no universal standards that everyone is measured against. Each schools approach, with its own techniques, has somehow created its own self regulating authority for these purposes. The bottom line is that there is no single authority that stands out above the rest. Your choice of school should not mainly be based on what self regulating authority they belong to. You should be evaluating the content, the philosophy and approach to equipping you to help others, as well as the people behind the institution.

• International recognition is a very interesting concept. I would suggest to you that every single “regulating authority” in this industry is in fact internationally recognised unless they decide to restrict themselves. The value behind the concept of international recognition is in your ability to pursue further studies and to legally practice your skills internationally.

Let’s ask these questions.

• Can I pursue further studies in another country?

The answer to this question is the same for every single self regulating authority. Of course you can, provided that we have an affiliated school in that country. If you are planning on travelling the globe and studying in many different countries then you would need to find out if there are schools available in those countries. If you plan to equip yourself to build your dream life in your current location then this question would naturally not even be worth asking. Unlike traditional higher education there currently is no system in place to transfer credits to another course or certification.

• Can I practice in any other country?

I am not aware of any self regulating authority placing a restriction on practicing in any country at this point. The real answer to that question cannot really be answered by any self regulating authority or training institute, as it is entirely dependent on the law of every country. So belonging to any self regulating body is not an automatic passage to practicing anywhere. The good news is that currently there is no country that regulates the coaching industry.

What accreditation or self regulating body has Evolved Coaching placed itself under?

• COMENSA -  Coaches and Mentors of South Africa

 We find great value in COMENSA’s approach to ethics and have chosen COMENSA to hold us accountable in that regard.

• FNLPCP -  Federation of NLP Coaching Professionals

As NLP practitioner and Master Practitioner certification forms part of becoming a certified Evolved Coach we looked for a self regulating authority that is dedicated to standards of competency. Before any coach can become affiliated to this board they need to display competency in the form of a written assessment. (Completed assessments of actual training can also be submitted.)

• ECCEP    - Evolved Coaching Continuous Education Program

Our Continuous Education Program is designed to provide much more than ongoing quality assurance. It’s also a community, and marketing platform and an ongoing education program. Membership is exclusively available only to the graduates of the Evolved Coaching Institute.