Coaching? It's in danger of becoming a “dirty word”

For Immediate Release: October 15, 2019

Coaching in danger of becoming a “dirty word” warns COACH Magazine founder

The growth of untrained coaches is undermining standards, ethics and the service clients receive warns the Editor of a new magazine dedicated to upholding professionalism and ethics in the UK’s unregulated business and performance coaching industry.

Teresa Brooks, a professionally trained coach and award-winning Bedfordshire businesswoman, founded COACH magazine in June 2019 because she was “shocked” at what she saw when she entered the coaching industry.

Ms Brooks said: “Unfortunately there are plenty who market themselves as coaches, but who have not been trained by a professional organisation offering accredited coach training and are likely to be working with clients without a proper framework and not adhering to a code of ethics or understanding the responsibility that comes with being a coach.”

She continued: “The modern working world desperately needs more coaching, but the word ‘coach’ seems to have become an umbrella term which also shelters scammers. Good coaches are suffering at the hands of untrained who rely on slick digital marketing and powerful online sales funnels leading to offerings of varying qualities - but often not true ‘coaching’. It is turning ‘coaching’ into a dirty word.”

The UK coaching sector has seen rapid growth over the past 10 years with celebrities and top executives extolling the benefits of business and performance coaching as well as mentoring. Corporates have heavily invested in the process for their employees. However, it remains an unregulated sector, meaning anyone can market themselves as a coach. According to LinkedIn, there are over 200,000 individuals in the UK who call themselves some form of ‘coach’

COACH magazine aims to showcase the best professional business coaches across the world, supports online global working opportunities for the industry, helps people find accredited professional training and educates consumers on the power of coaching.

The magazine, which is available free online and as a glossy hard copy (£4.75), has already reached 35,000 readers globally with its features, advice, a directory of accredited coaches and its tagline ‘Educate, Empower, Inspire’.

Ms Brooks, who is also an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practitioner, a MHFA (England) (Mental Health First Aid) and part-trained counsellor said:

“I trained as a coach to serve and continue my career professionally but when I went into the unregulated coaching industry, I was shocked at what I saw. There were unethical promises, spurious training, preaching, lots of noise. I was disillusioned by it and began to question it. It made me angry for consumers and I felt compelled to take a stand against this and to support other trained coaches.”

Steve Payne, the founder of ACT, one of the UK’s well established Coach training organisations welcomed the new magazine.

He said: “As the CEO of an training organisation delivering accredited coach training and an Organisational Member of the Association for Coaching, I am delighted that Teresa has taken this to task, has launched COACH Magazine and is out there supporting coaches in the industry. It’s high-time more was done to stand up for coaching professionalism and make clear the difference between high and low standards and promote ethics and good practice.”

The third edition of COACH which is free to read online and also available to order as a glossy A4 copy (priced at £4.75) will be out in Jan 2020.

Notes to Editors:

Teresa Brooks - images below - is available for further comment, filming and interview. Please contact Ruth Elkins Media & Communications mail@ruthelkins.com or Teresa Brooks directly on hello@teresabrookscoaching.com

COACH (all capitals) soft launched in June with its first issue and is a quarterly publication available online and as a hard glossy magazine. (£4.75). The second edition is out now.

http://www.teresabrookscoaching.com/coach/

Professional coach training is offered by various organisations including the ACT and means the course adheres to certain standards and must be upheld regularly.

Teresa Books - pictured below – is a former winner of Bedfordshire Businesswoman of the Year and is also a trustee of The Phoenix Trust - a new coaching charity set up in memory of leadership coach David Jessop who tragically died this year. The Phoenix Trust aims to provide coaching programmes to young people and to offer a coach in every school in the country.