Advanced coach training in Ireland
Advanced Management Diploma in Executive Coaching
Validated by UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business
The Advanced Management Diploma in Executive Coaching is run by Peter Bluckert Coaching in association with UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business.
Our next intake is due to commence in March 2009 and will be held at the Michael Smurfit School of Business, in Dublin.
Irish companies already represented on earlier programmes include: Bord Bia, C&C, Dell, Eircom, Enterprise Ireland, IT Alliance Group, United Drug, Symantic and Royal Sun Alliance. A number of independent coaches and consultants have also attended the programme.
Context
Selecting the right coach training is a difficult decision. We appreciate that. There are several offerings on the market and, at present, no industry-wide validating body to set standards and guarantee consistency of product and quality. With this offering we are committed to addressing the situation.
As a founder member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) Peter Bluckert is playing an active role alongside other senior practitioners in developing the coaching profession.
An ethical code is now available and standards for both coach practitioners and training course providers will emerge in the coming months which should give greater peace of mind to those people looking to hire a coach or invest in their own coach training. Until then you have my personal assurance that we have taken these issues very seriously indeed in the design and delivery of our own coaching courses. We are confident that our postgraduate programmes contain all the key elements which in future will be seen as industry-wide good practice:
- Breadth and depth of theoretical input
- Intensive coach practice sessions with high quality feedback from course tutors
- 100 face-to-face training hours
- Requirement to build up supervised hours of coaching practice in between workshops
- Group supervision at workshops
- Demonstration sessions from course tutors
- Postgraduate level award
- Course design reflects the three higher level competency categories of business executive coaching namely: business-mindedness, coaching skill and psychological-mindedness
- A coaching approach based on the development of emotional intelligence
Our Philosophy of Coach Education
The theoretical aspects of coach education are a vital aspect of learning to coach effectively but theory of itself does not produce an excellent coach. Coaching, after all, is a practical activity and any coach training worth its salt must be grounded in sound professional practice. This is why we devote so much attention to our practice/feedback model of coach development. At each workshop you work in trios rotating around the roles of coach, coachee and observer. The feedback and learning from these sessions is often the most significant part of the programme for many.
However there is yet another fundamental dimension to advanced coach training and that is the personal development of the coach. We strongly believe that the coach needs a place to address and work through their own issues if they are to operate with the emotional intelligence required of an effective coach. Our coaching certificate pays special attention to this and is a hall-mark of our approach. Finally, we are firm advocates of coaching supervision as essential to good professional practice and build this into our workshop structure.
Key considerations if you are researching the coach training market
There are three categories of coach training on the market:
Non-validated coach training courses
Courses validated by the provider organisation
Courses designed and delivered by a specialist coaching consultancy and validated, typically at postgraduate level, by a partnering University.
Warning!
Some courses in the second category can look as if they are in category three so be careful to check that out in your research. Find out how many University CAT points it delivers [the standard University currency]. Secondly, if you are looking for an award which has validity now and will remain so in the future the obvious choice is a programme with a proper University qualification.
The key point is that the only genuinely credible accreditation that exists, and is likely to exist going forward, is a postgraduate award. Awards provided by a coaching company delivering its own programmes do not hold the same credibility.
