The certificate is the document each student receives from the body that minister ICF's accredited program.

The credential is ICF's acknowledgement that a specific person gathers the necessary requirements to be a professional Coach, according to ICF's framework.

The certificate may be ACSTH or ACTP and it's given to the student when all the criteria for the certification process has been gathered. These are informed at the begining of the training program.

ICF has 3 credential levels:

• ACC (Associated Certified Coach)
• PCC (Professional Certified Coach)
• MCC (Master Certified Coach).

Accredited coaches that belong to a self-regulated professional association, guided by the high quality of the accredited coaches professional skills, in correspondance with the defined standards for each credential level, and the most rigorous ethical standards and conduct.

The accreditation process for ACC, PCC or MCC may be achieved in different ways, to which corresponde different requirements. Find out more on ICF's website.

One must have the ACSTH certificate or 60 hours of specific training. Have 100 hours of experience (minimum 75% payed and 8 different coaches); to conduct the CKA (Coach Knowledge Assessment) on ICF's international website and 10 hours of mentorship, of which 3 must be individual.

One must have an ACSTH certificate or 125 hours of specific ACTP training. Have 500 hours of experience (minimum 450 payed hours and 25 different coaches), to conduct the CKA (Coach Knowledge Assessment) on ICF's international website and 10 hours of mentorship, of which 3 must be individual.

If you conduct your accreditation via ACSTH or portfolio, you'll have to submit to ICF, a recording of 2 coaching sessions (min. 30 minutos) with transcript for juri assessment.

One must have an ACTP training or 200 hours of specific training. Have 2.500 hours of experience (minimum 2.250 payed hours and 35 different coaches), to conduct the CKA (Coach Knowledge Assessment) on ICF's international website if not having done so already for the ACC or PCC accreditation and 10 hours of mentorship, of which 3 must be individual.

You'll have to submit to ICF, a recording of 2 coaching sessions (min. 30 minutos) with transcript for juri assessment. It's mandatory to have a PCC accreditation before applying for MCC.

• To belong to a Body that assumes the commitment of promoting the quality and professionalism in the coaching activity, locally and internationally.
• To have the opportunity to build a contact network with coaching professionals that guide themselves by rigor, ethic and quality while exercising the profession.
• To access information (e.g. studies on coaching) and training (conferences, webinars)
• To benefit from discounts to some events and credentiation fees.

Credibility in the development of the coaching activity

To have a credential is the best way to demonstrate knowledge, skills and commitment with high professional and ethics standards.

The hours conducted for the internship may be accounted for credentiation process. The observed live coaching sessions (either when done in training or during group work) are exercises and as such should not be added.

The hours obtained before obtaining the ACTP may be counted if conducted after obtaining a specific ACSTH training.

Yes, the coaching hours conducted during an ACTP or ACSTH training program may be counted.

That is a personal decision, therefore ICF does not comment on this issue

ICF does not comment regarding the minimum price from which the hours are considered as payed. As such, discounted prices or services exchanges are accepted.

You should announce yourself as a ACSTH or ACTP certificate coach by (name of the training body), programm accredited by ICF.

Note:
The certificates are issued by the training bodies. ICF does not issue certificates, it assigns certificates to coaches and acreditations to programs/courses.

The word Coach is not liable to appropriation.

Therefore, any one can use the word Coach, what they can not say or induce 3rd parties to believe is they have a relationship with ICF, when they don't. (by relationship we mean, being an ICF member, have an ICF credential ou ICF accredited training).

ICF advises it's coaches to be supervised but it's not mandatory.

Learn more on ICF's website.

Credential renovation implies CCE's (continuous learning units) obtained with courses, conferences and other ICF accredited events.
To highlight, that the received supervision and mentorship hours are counted as CCE's.

Learn more on ICF's website.

Mentorship is a coaching and feedback process basead on colaboration, apreciation and dialogue, based on the orbservation or listening of coaching sessions, with the goal of developing the coachs skills in agreement with ICF's Core Competencies. Learn more on ICF's website.

Supervision is a learning collaborative practice to continously develop the coaches skills, through a reflexive dialogue regarding the successes and non successes and by accessing new perspectives and approaches over the situations, the clients and himself as a professional coach. Learn more on ICF's website.