COMENSAnews February 2012: Research in Coaching & Mentoring

Feb. 16, 2012 - PRLog -- We start 2012 with a packed issue of COMENSAnews, with contributions from some really exciting local and international contributors. I am proud to welcome back Dr Sunny Stout-Rostron with an article on the Scientist-Practitioner, as well as Karolyne Beets (National Chair of the COMENSA Research & Definitions Portfolio Committee) in partnership with Jonelle Naude. All three of these long-serving COMENSA stalwarts were part of the team (along with Penny Abbott, Janet Chadwick and Emma Sexton) who worked tirelessly to bring our ground-breaking COMENSA National Survey of Coaching in South Africa to fruition – something of which we can be extremely proud as members. Please watch your local Chapter events calendars to see when the "Results Show" will be coming to your neck of the woods. Gauteng has already had a bite at the apple and it is being rolled out nationally.

There is global debate within the international coaching community about whether coaching needs to become a profession, or whether it is an industry / occupation that is professionalising itself. Add to this the growing recognition that the existing professions (medical, psychological, HR, legal) can no longer claim a monopoly on their bodies of knowledge, plus an increasing collaboration between a wide range of disciplines, and clearly the professional landscape is changing.

"Coaching, as an occupation, is a unique synthesis of a range of disciplines and – in particular - of 3 mental models: psychological, systemic and organisational," (Dr Sunny Stout Rostron, COMENSA Gauteng Provincial Chapter Event, 2nd September 2009). In recognition of this, Harvard University facilitated a number of conferences during 2009 with representatives from their Medical, Leadership and Coaching Faculties and Institutes. Globally, we are seeing the emergence of multi-skilled, multi-disciplinary coaches almost akin to the Renaissance Man.

Certainly, coaching Education & Development is acknowledged as multidisciplinary, multi-modal, multi-dimensional and based on the individual coach's needs, purpose and scope of practise. Certified degree or diploma programmes are in their infancy in SA, with the majority of coach training institutions in this country offering certificate courses or skills programmes.

A profession is characterised by the following:

Members must have formal qualifications
There is adherence to an enforceable Code of Ethics
Practice is restricted only to licenced, qualified members
Regulations are state-sanctioned.
A common body of knowledge / skills has been built up through research.
Some of the points listed above can be recognised in the COMENSA that you belong to today. It is appropriate to remind you of the Executive Committee's "High Five" Strategy, identified in July 2011 (read Harry Welby-Cooke, COMENSA National President's original introductory article on the strategy by following this link). The strategy and plans are defined by a five pronged approach that make up the five fingers of a human hand. This five pronged approach is defined by:

1. Thumb - Ethics
2. Index Finger - Member Criteria and Standards of Competence (MCSC)
3. Middle Finger - Our market
4. Ring Finger - You, the Members
5. Little Finger - Diversity

We are excited to bring you two HUGE steps forward in the implementation of the Member Criteria and Standards of Competence framework, namely the call for participants in the pilot for coach credentialing that went out on 2nd February 2012 to all COMENSA members of good standing, and John Paisley and his Project Team's call for participation in compiling the means and methods of accrediting training providers included in this newsletter and also to go out to all members as a separate bulletin during the course of this month. We ask for your positive and well-intentioned participation in continuing to help build a meaningful professional community.
There are options facing coaching:

• To become a legislated profession worldwide;
• To remain an unlegislated occupation / industry / discipline, that is becoming increasingly professionalised.

Regardless of what happens in the future, I personally would like to think of myself as part of a profession that adheres to recognised standards of competence and rigour in its practice, where there is a code of conduct and whose training institutions develop responsible, competent practitioners who do no harm.

Read more at www.comensa.org.za/NEWSLETTERS/COMENSAnews_2012_(Jan_-_Dec)/COMENSAnews_February_2012.aspx

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Coaches and Mentors of South Africa - COMENSA - is the national professional body for Coaching and Mentoring in South Africa. Members include individual and corporate providers, buyers and trainers of coaching and mentoring services