Can anyone call themselves a coach?

Can anyone call themselves a coach? Sadly yes as it’s such a generic term.

Can anyone call themselves an ICF Coach? Absolutely not!

So I'm delighted to share that I am now one of the people who can call myself an International Coaching Federation certified coach. I passed my final evaluation exam so I'm now a fully certified Associate Certified Coach (ACC) 😀

This was the result of 16 months of studying:

• 124 hours of specific Coaching education as part of my initial Certified ADHD Life Coach qualification with the International ADHD Coach Training Center
• 10 hours of mentor coaching
• 130 hours of coaching experience
• Final coaching evaluation assessing that my skills meet the ICF ACC standard
• ICF Ethics course
• Final evaluation exam - a three-hour exam consisting of 81 different coaching scenarios where I had to choose both the best and worst option for the Coach.

While there's no overall regulation for the coaching profession, the ICF is the is the leading global coaching organization. With over 35,000 professional coaches, the ICF offers the only independent and internationally recognised coach credentialing programme. 

ICF-Credentialed coaches meet the highest professional standards and adhere to a strong code of ethics and I'm proud to be a part of this organisation.

Thanks to

This has been a journey that wasn't walked alone. Huge thanks to everyone who supported me and a special mention to:

• The iACT Center instructors: Laurie Dupar Trained Nurse Practitioner, ADHD Coach Training★, Farah Jamil, MHA, CEC, CALC, ACC and Heidi Fishbein, PCC, CALC, CMC
• My iACT Center mentors: Sue Trace, PCC, CALC, CPQC and Tracy Winter, PhD, PCC
• All of my training cohort for the support and friendship
• My ADHD Coach - the awesome nerd coach (Tracy Winter again)
• Neurodiversity Coaching Academy Kate Arms and Tracy Winter, for fabulous ND-inclusive ongoing training
• Clare Norman MCC - The Transformational Coach book is a regular reference for me
• Alis Anagnostakis, PhD for introducing the concept of Vertical Development through your podcasts and Substack articles

This is only the beginning because coaching is a continual development journey and I'm excited to continue to learn new things each day.

Find out more about coaching with me here.