Advanced Certification in Mentor Coaching

This module establishes the foundation for the entire programme. Before you can mentor coaches, you need to understand what mentor coaching is, what it is not, and what it asks of you as a practitioner.

• ICF definition and framework: Explore what the ICF means by mentor coaching.
• Key distinctions: Understand the differences between mentor coaching, coaching supervision, coaching, and skills training, and why those distinctions matter in practice.
• The six ICF Mentor Coaching Competencies: Get an overview of the full competency framework that anchors this programme.
• The identity shift to mentor coach: Examine what it means to hold a developmental stance rather than an expert one, and how your own coaching background will shape what you notice.

Ethics in mentor coaching is present in every aspect of the work: how you hold the relationship, how you handle recordings and data, how you manage boundaries, and how you respond when what you observe raises professional or legal concerns.

• Role clarity and professional boundaries: Understand the distinctions between mentor coaching, supervision, and coaching, and when and how to refer when a mentee’s needs fall outside your scope.
• Data privacy and legal responsibilities: Learn what the ICF Code of Ethics requires around consent, recording, and data retention, and how local data protection regulations apply to your practice.
• Cultural sensitivity and bias in feedback: Explore how identity and cultural context shape both sides of the mentor coaching relationship, and develop strategies for giving effective feedback.

This section covers how to establish the mentor coaching engagement and then manage the developmental process with the same level of care and partnership throughout.

• What a mentor coaching agreement should contain: Cover the full scope of the engagement.
• Credential-level contracting: Learn what it means to contract specifically for ACC, PCC, or MCC level work.
• Co-creating the developmental plan: Partner with your mentee to build a plan that reflects their goals and growth areas, not your framework for what development should look like.
• Managing the process across the engagement: Apply adult learning principles to how you hold the developmental relationship, check in on what is working, and adjust when the plan stops serving the mentee.

This part of the programme also includes your first mentoring on mentoring session, where you reflect on your practice so far with your trainer.

These three modules form the technical core of the programme.

• Critical listening: Develop an ear for competency demonstration. Examine how your own coaching experience shapes what you notice and what you may filter out, and use the ACC Minimum Skills Requirements, PCC Markers and MCC BARS as anchors for observation.
• Formative appraisal documentation: Learn to complete the Session Observation Form and Competency Review Form so your observations stay useful across a full engagement.
• Facilitating skill development: Move from observation into developmental conversations your mentee will engage in, and support them to integrate new learning within their own coaching style.
• Integration Day: Bring it all together in an observed fishbowl practice with written feedback from your trainer, followed by your second mentoring on mentoring session.

The final module of the programme focuses on group mentor coaching and how to apply everything you have built across the programme in a multi-person environment.

• Structure and facilitation: Understand how group sessions differ from individual work, how to set up live coaching demonstrations safely, and how to structure the observation and feedback process for the whole group.
• Managing group dynamics: Learn to handle dominant participants, disengaged learners, and energy within the group, and to draw in quieter voices without putting anyone on the spot.
• Simulated group practicum: Practise facilitating a live group mentor coaching segment with peer feedback, so you are ready to step into group work.

The final class turns your learning into a practice. You will look at how to position and price your mentor coaching, how to contract with coaches, and how to keep developing as a mentor coach.

• Positioning and pricing: Decide who you want to work with and how to present and price your offer.
• Contracting in practice: Set up clear agreements for individual and group mentor coaching.
• Your next steps: Plan your practicum and your ongoing development as a mentor coach.

After the final class, you will record three 30-minute mentor coaching sessions and complete a self-assessment for each. Each recording will be discussed in a one-to-one mentoring on mentoring session, where you will review your work with an experienced mentor coach. You will finish with a short reflective assignment on one mentor coaching engagement and your own growth as a mentor coach.