“Supervision” has been a hot topic for the Coaching Profession here in the UK for a few years. There’s been confusion as some organisations eg global ICF (International Coach Federation) often talks about “mentor” coaching—being coached on your coaching skills whilst the coaching market in the UK often speaks about “supervision” — reflective practise. Coaches are confused! Do they need a mentor or a supervisor? Do they need both? Are the two the same? Which coaches do both?
In 2008 there was a major collaborative effort around the whole topic, sponsored by global ICF and the UK Professional Coaching Bodies—Association of Coaching (AC), Association of Professional Executive Coaches and Supervisors (APECS) and European Mentoring and Coaching Consortium (EMCC). I was the ICF representative on the project and was joined by 14 coaches from across the UK who worked in the cross-professional body stakeholder groups.
Coaching and Mentoring Supervision Project 2008 – background
The project was sponsored by the UK Professional Coaching Bodies; Association of Coaching (AC), Association of Professional Executive Coaches and Supervisors (APECS), European Mentoring and Coaching Consortium (EMCC) and International Coach Federation (ICF), and completed in 2008. The purpose of the project was to:
- Make recommendations which support standards and ethics in “coaching and mentoring supervision”;
- Produce outcomes of benefit to the coaching industry on the topic of supervision; and
- Show real intent to collaborate on first joint project.
There was a collective agreement that individual coaching bodies were likely to have different internal application of the material produced.
The Steering Group for the project was made up of Benita Treanor (AC), Jeremy Ridge (APECS), Lise Lewis (EMCC) and myself (ICF). The objectives of the project were:
- Define the meaning and benefits of “supervision” in relation to CPD;
- Consider alternative “titles” for the process;
- Consider levels of practice in the discipline;
- Define the competencies for “coach supervision.”
Five stakeholder groups (providers of coach and mentoring training, purchasers, independent supervisors, coaches/mentors, ethics) with members drawn from each of the coaching bodies, met to answer the above questions and form responses.
These groups, of varying sizes, consisted of approximately 50 people in total and did an amazing amount of work which enabled the project to be the success it has been and the output of such value to the profession.
The group produced three final documents; themes from stakeholder groups, complete responses from the groups and an audit trail of conference calls for project.
The first document is available here Collaborative Coaching ‘Supervision’ Project and should also be available on the UK ICF Web site www.coachfederation.org.uk with the other documents which are worth reading if you want more detail and background.
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