Continuing Education
Coaching Skills, Business Acumen, Exam Preparation, 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
August 8, 2024
November 14, 2024
All sessions run from 1:00 - 5:30 pm Central Time
ICF Written Exam Prep
Starting this year, we decided to pull the Exam Preparation module out of the intensive training week. At a minimum, graduates are not permitted to submit their certification application to the ICF until they have completed all 10 hours of their mentor coaching. And the mentor coaching is required to span a minimum of three months. So even if a student has successfully logged 100 experience hours quickly, the three-month mentor coaching requirement plus a few weeks of ICF administrative time automatically delays the written exam by probably 4 months after the completion of the formal training.
As a result, we decided to offer the ICF Exam Preparation Workshop quarterly to anyone who planning to take the exam within the few following months. Having the exam prep closer 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 18 months after the end of the program. A coupon code will be issued for each cohort. The critical path for most graduates is compiling 100 experience hours. So it would probably make sense wait to register for an exam prep module until experience hours exceed about 80.
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 anyone who is submitting an ICF certification application at any level. It reflects all the current competencies and code of ethics. 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 new 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 the 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.
To provide BCC candidates as much assistance we can, we created this workshop to dive deep into the BCC competencies and Code of Ethics, as well as to understand the structure and nature of the exam. We offer the BCC Exam Prep twice a year for $295.
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 BCC is relatively new, created in 2011 by the Center for Credentialing and Education (CCE), an organization that has its roots in the certifying and recertifying counseling professionals. CCE's parent company is the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). The current exam is a 100-question, 2-hour, multiple choice proctored exam based on "work behaviors" considered most relevant for the field of coaching based on a national job analysis in 2019. Unfortunately, CCE has given training providers and certification candidates minimal additional guidance for exam preparation.
There is a BCCE Candidate Handbook that provides information about the exam--mainly logistics, definitions, and listing of the work behaviors within the four identified domains. The "competencies" (work behaviors) and the exam have a decidedly "counseling flavor" and emphasizes instruments, assessments, and other content that a non-therapist, non-counselor coach would have limited to no experience with.
Upcoming Sessions: Register Now
November 21, 2024
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. Our Certified Career Management Coach (CCMC) program (39 CCEUs) was launched in December 2022. We've had two cohorts so far and plan another one later this year.
We have several more Continuing Education programs on the drawing board and in the pipeline. Here are some examples:
- Business of Coaching and Entrepreneurship (3 half-day sessions on August 1, 15, 29) in collaboration with Susan Schoning with Coach Automator.
- 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.