I’m Letting my ICF Accreditation Expire
I feel amused at myself for getting caught up in the idea that an enormous institution (the International Coaching Federation) could certify me as effective & ethical in an intimate, organic, relational practice (and for desiring that kind of endorsement). And. I can make complete sense of it.
(If you're mulling over getting or maintaining accreditation or membership, or whether this matters to you when choosing a coach, I'd love to know what you're thinking- drop me an email hey@kerijarvis.com).
I love to learn- my appetite for discovery and revelation is rumbling at all times.
Perhaps I could easily rack up the 40 credits of CCEs (continuing coaching education units) to support my renewal (of which 24 must be related to their core competencies and 3 must be ethics!!)
My Continuing Coaching Education includes, and is not limited to:
starting an initiative called Food Out Front with my local climate group and sharing seedlings, pots and cake with friends and strangers
watching a tub where a mystery seedling takes shape each day and wondering what it will become, only for the badger I (begrudgingly) share a garden with to tip it out
reading critical theory by bell hooks, Lola Olufemi and my most recent find- Relationality: An Emergent Politics of Life Beyond the Human (Escobar, Osterweil, Sharma)
getting into a more agile relationship with Long Covid through an agonisingly slow process of acceptance and re-imagination
accompanying my children through shifting social norms and the prospect of a very different future than the one I imagined when I decided to get pregnant
grieving the life I imagined for all of us
reading science fiction by Octavia Butler & Ursula LeGuin & George Orwell
facilitating community care banks with my mates
baking seed packed loaves that only come out how I prefer half the time
returning to Irish Dancing classes 25 years after retiring
going out leafletting for my local Greens
helping my friends and clients navigate their relationships with people living through a genocide in Palestine
listening to birdsong
training with Nora Bateson in Warm Data
I'm not sure how much (if any) of this the ICF might accept. I received an email the other day informing me that any Mentor Coaching hours I want to log (I would have to do 10) must be with someone who has earned their Mentor Coach qualification with them.
It's the final straw on this camel's back. I've been meandering around with this poor camel for months, feeling weird about the sunk cost of my investment- ironically, refusing to learn that this was a mistake. It's not just the money, it's the hours and the headspace I devoted to it that I regret. What could dozens of hours tending my garden or reading more fiction or caring for someone beloved or raising mutual aid or dancing or leafletting or writing have generated?
At the same time, there's a sense that this was an itch I needed to scratch, and that I might still be wondering about it if I hadn't.
When I decided to get ICF Professional Certified Coach level trained a few years ago, I was responding to
a demand for rigour in the coaching space, emergent from a load of crackpot 'coaching'/ pyramid scheme/ cult adjacent/ money worship neoliberal nonsense that really went up a notch at the start of the pandemic
a desire to learn- to broaden and deepen my toolkit, to be intellectually stretched (just before this, I did a course with London School of Economics on Inclusive Leadership Through Behavioural Science- this really hit the spot. I'm not saying all institutional learning is the same)
renewed confidence in my approach. I'd been in those destabilising coaching spaces, and wanted to feel certain (red flag) that I could distinguish myself from them- that my coaching was robust and worthy of people's trust
I know it began in October 2023 because it was the same week that Israel's genocide in Palestine started- not that this was mentioned, even once, over the 9 months of training. When needing to reference 'world events', trainers would refer only to the (very real) suffering in Ukraine. Steadfastly naming and opposing imperial genocides not up there on the ticksheet for ethics it seems.
I resented needing to 'meet their ethical standards' when they couldn't meet mine. I disliked the rigidity, the idea that there is one best way to coach and that this could be captured by any number of bullet pointed competencies. The reductionism to mechanics inside this framework is intense. I (vaguely) recall instructions about specific words we should not use (I think maybe 'why' was one of them?), with so little space in comparison to consider what it takes to weave creative coherence in the conversation. It's no wonder, really.
Perhaps controversial to state: I believe that there is a soulful attunement in coaching (sometimes). A relational vitality that cannot easily be described, never mind measured. An embodiment of how our social lives might be in post- Capitalist futures, where belonging is inevitable and therefore the relationship with the self may be characterised by agility and levity.
It turns out I did not need more 'coaching tools/ models' to support my capacity to co-create this- the fertility is in the sorts of experiences I listed at the top.
Another contentious notion: I believe coaching is about the past, present and future. You will often see people say "therapy is for looking back, coaching is for looking forwards". I'm sorry, what? Can we please be serious about how we come to see the world and ourselves the way we do?
“What if the past is here now, muddying the present?”
~ Lola Olufemi, Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
It's like I don't even know how to expand on that because it's so obviously true. Linear, fragmented notions of time are colonial conditioning. My coaching conversations dance among and between temporalities because to cordon off parts of our lives is to cordon off parts of ourselves.
Anyway, the funniest thing about the whole process was sitting an exam where you had to identify both the 'best' AND the 'worst' response you could give to a client in a particular situation. I believe these marks are equally weighted. How TF does distinguishing correctly between the worst and the second worst thing you could do make you a great coach? It feels like an example of institutional power madness.
Oh, and I never actually got my PCC accreditation- I wasn't allowed to count the hundreds of hours of coaching or the (ICF accredited) training I'd done over the previous years, only the ones that had taken place since the PCC training started, so I had to settle for the lower level of ACC. When I went back to top up my recorded hours, I realised that because I hadn’t done it within a year- even though the ACC lasts 3 years- I'd have to pay the accreditation fee again, so I didn't bother.
Whilst I didn't get most of what I hoped for, I did discover that confidence I was seeking- and an important learning- (eventually) a commitment to 'not this'.
If you’re interested in coaching that lives outside of this containment, you can find out how to work with me here.
Love and solidarity,
Keri x
