ICF Certification Process Explained

July 16, 2021 by John Andrew Williams

CTEDU’S Co-founder, John Andrew Williams, CTEDU Trainer, Andrew Dormus, and CTEDU Director of Enrollment, Matt Welch, addressed the most common questions surrounding certification because we know, it’s confusing.

Here are the top 5 questions:

1. Who is the ICF?

The International Coaching Federation founded in 1995 is the current leader in credentialing within the coaching profession. They establish the standards for coaching while also spreading awareness of coaching as a profession with over 30,000 credential holders and about 40,000 members.

2. Is it a requirement to hold an ICF Credential to practice as a professional coach?

No, but it is to your benefit as a coach to align yourself with the ICF.

3. What is the value of having an ICF Credential?

The ICF represents that you understand the fundamentals of coaching concepts and establishes your credibility as a coaching professional.

4. What are the levels of ICF Credentialing?

There are 3 levels: Associate Certified Coach (ACC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Master Certified Coach (MCC).

5. What are the paths to get ICF Credentialed?

• ACC – ACTP Pathway (Approved Coach Training Program)

This program is an ICF trusted program because they’ve met all ICF standards.  To complete this program at CTEDU, you complete the suite of programs CTEDU offers such as the 1.0, Group Mentoring and then the 2.0. The completion of these programs will give you 125 hours of training, 100 hours of coaching experience and a coach knowledge assessment leading to your ACC credential. CTEDU is an ACTP training program that proves the quality of their coach training every few months to the ICF.

• ACC – ACSTH (Approved Coach Specific Training Hours)

This program requires you to complete a 1.0 training program that gives you 60 hours of training, Group Mentoring and 100 hours of coach training. Since this path requires less training hours the ICF will need a recording and transcript of a coaching session for them to do a performance evaluation along with having the participant take the coach knowledge assessment. The burden of quality lies partly with the training organization and the participant.

• ACC – Portfolio Path

This program is not accredited by the ICF. It’s made for areas where geographically training isn’t available, but participants gain some coaching knowledge. It’s longer and more expensive than the other pathways and the burden of quality is completely on the participant.

The major differences between these 3 paths to get credentialed is the burden of proving the quality of coaching to the ICF. Within the ACC – Portfolio Path the burden relies entirely on the participant to map out everything needed to be recognized by the ICF.  For the ACC – ACSTH pathway, some of the burden of proving quality lies with the training organization and some lies with the participant. For the ACC – ACTP Pathway the burden of quality relies entirely on the training program. These training programs include more training hours and prove the quality of their programs themselves to the ICF so the participant doesn’t have to.

These are only the top 5 questions about ICF Certification, we addressed a lot more so watch the video to clarify any doubts!