Continuing Education
Exam Preparation, Career Coaching Certification, Group Coaching and More
Professional trained and certified coaches are required to continuously reinforce their capabilities with meaningful coach training and development of business resources. The ICF requires 40 hours of continuing education (CCEUs) with recertification every 3 years. The BCC requires 70 hours CCEUs over a 5-year recertification cycle. Certified SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP HR professionals are required to achieve 60 Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for recertification every three years.
With the talent depth and breadth of our faculty and graduates, we are focused on expanding our line up of approved continuing education programs that serve to deliver stronger coaching skills, better business resources and solutions, and support our community in their quest for continuing education credits that truly make a difference. Listed below are a collection of standalone workshops that fill in particular gaps and needs for professional coaches in various stages of the credentialing process and business growth. And we have more planned that are in the pipeline, so stay tuned!
Upcoming Sessions: Register Now
February 13, 2025
May 8, 2025
August 14, 2025
November 13, 2025
All sessions run from 1:00 - 5:30 pm Central Time
ICF Written Exam Prep
Starting in January 2024 and based on our amazing students' recommendations, we decided to pull the ICF Exam Preparation module out of the intensive training (bootcamp) week. We now offer the ICF Exam Preparation Workshop quarterly. This just makes more sense and serves our graduates more effectively. Since graduates are not permitted to submit their certification application until they have completed all 10 hours of their mentor coaching and have accumulated all 100 hours of coaching experience, we believe providing the Exam Preparation more contemporaneously will produce. The critical path for most graduates is compiling 100 experience hours. So it would probably make sense to register for an exam prep module when experience hours exceed about 80.
Having the exam prep close to the exam date ensures the competencies are refreshed, the code of conduct has a renewed focus, and any announced evolutions in the exam can be adequately communicated. Starting in January 2024, all of our graduates may take any exam prep module for FREE for 12 months after the end of the program. A unique coupon code for each cohort can be found on the corresponding Student Materials Webpage.
A note about the new ACC Exam: Effective November 18, 2024, ICF will off a new, shorter, (easier) exam for ACC candidates. We have decided to maintain our focus in the workshop on the PCC exam format and questions. Because it is a more difficult exam, we believe the more robust learning experience is beneficial for coaches at any level. We have incorporated a new section of the training, however, to specifically cover the new ACC exam and complete a selection of those sample questions.
And the good news for all our graduates, no matter when they graduated, and anyone else in the coaching community is that this exam prep is available for certification candidates at any level. It reflects all the current competencies and code of ethics as well as any structural or administrative changes that ICF may implement. Importantly, some coaches graduated from programs prior to 2020 when the original competencies were in place. And every candidate for a higher level certification has to take the written exam again, even if they have taken the original CKA or the newer Certification Exam. Time to tune up your test-taking for just $395!
BCC Written Exam Prep
We are a Registered Coach Training Provider (RCTP) for the Board Certified Coach (BCC) credential. We have a number of students who decide the BCC credential is an important or preferred step in their coach credentialing. For one thing, it is quicker to obtain because it does not require three-months of mentor coaching. For people with advanced degrees, it also requires far fewer experience hours than ICF--just 30 hours compared to 100 hours for ICF. And honestly, the title "Board Certified Coach" has perceived value and marketing cache in particular professional industries, such as health care, law, and medical services.
Training and coaching experience hours required for the BCC vary by education level and counseling license held. The most common set of requirements is at the Masters Degree level which requires 60 hours of BCC-approved training and 30 hours of coaching experience. For now, they allow candidates to go backward in time and include "coaching" hours before they received professional coach training. In theory, at least, a candidate could be ready to submit their BCC application within days after the end of a coach training program.
The current exam is a 100-question, 2-hour, multiple choice exam based on "work behaviors" derived from a national job analysis in 2019. These work behaviors were updated in 2024, and a new set of Core Competencies have been published. (See BCCE Content Outline.) The new exam based on these new competencies won't be available until April 2025.
We believe these updated Core Competencies are vastly more in line with professional coaching best practices today. Over the years, we have offered a BCC Exam Prep to provide BCC candidates as much assistance as we can. Because of the CCE's delay in publishing the new exam, we decided to suspend our workshop until February 20, 2025 in order to focus on the new competencies and incorporate as much guidance and content knowledge we can glean. We will continue to offer the BCC Exam Prep twice a year for $295.
Upcoming Sessions: Register Now
February 20, 2025
August 21, 2025
All sessions run from 1:30 - 5:00 pm Central Time
More Exciting Programs to Come!
We are committed to providing high-value, game-changing professional development opportunties that will make real differences in the lives and businesses of our cherished coaching community. We have several new or improved Continuing Education programs on the drawing board and in the pipeline. Here are some examples:
- Certified Career Management Coach (CCMC) is being revised and updated to include important new content, incuding the use of AI in career development and job search.
- Certified Group Coaching Program that will equip coaches to expand their service offerings in a business model that produces more net income.
- Stand up to Conflict with Coaching Skills adds broadly relevant coaching capabilities for coaches to work with difficult relationships and incompatible needs or values.
We believe in collaborative partnerships and the creative benefits of working with other passionate professionals. Good things just happen. Stay tuned for more to come.