So what were my initial questions to Judy Santos, founder and director of the Christian Coaches Network? Lots about training and certification.
Before I spoke with Judy, I had researched the ICF accredited programs and was seriously looking at the Hudson Institute, CTI and Coach U. I now know that there are excellent Christian coaches who have trained in these and other ICF accredited programs. I was considering this myself.
In talking with Judy, I learned about the Christian Track of the Institute for Life Coach Training program. At the time we spoke, the Christian Track was just about to be accredited by ICF. This accreditation was important to me (I’ll tell you why in a future post; in the meantime I encourage you to do your research – consider carefully what you believe God has called you to and, light of that, learn all you can about the profession – before you decide what training to invest in).
I was thrilled to learn of the ILCT Christian Track, taught by Judy Santos and Christopher McCluskey. All I had to do to learn more about Chris was to refer back to Christian Coaching by Gary Collins. I signed up, took the classes and have been completely satisfied with my training at ILCT. The classes far exceeded my original hopes for coach training. I received excellent training within a Christian context that gave me what I needed to establish a successful coaching business.
If you go to web page to investigate ILCT’s Christian Track you will discover that the program is designed for counselors. Don’t be deterred if you are not a helping professional and you are interested. Just look for the link to a form you can fill out to see if you qualify.
As I said, check back for a future post on the value of considering accredited training and ICF certification.