Contributing to coaching supervision

I was really pleased and honoured to receive an award at the annual Coaching at Work awards earlier this month, in the category, Contributions to Coaching Supervision.

I feel very encouraged that there is now an award for supervision work. It’s great to see that the value and relevance of coaching supervision is being recognised in a way that wasn’t the case even 10 years ago, and that it is being integrated into the wider system of coaching.

The award is a statement of where we are as we seek increasingly to professionalise coaching. We can’t quite call our work a profession yet, but we’re building a body of knowledge, developing professional standards in our work, and acknowledging that ongoing reflection and learning is vital for everything we do.

I’ve been passionate about coaching supervision from a personal point of view because it’s been so valuable in my own practice. I constantly see how it enables coaches to do their very best work. So who wouldn’t be passionate about it?

One of the biggest challenges for the acceptance of supervision as an essential aspect of coaching has been to dissolve the fear of it as some kind of ‘big brother’, checking-up phenomenon. In the UK, there’s now a groundswell of acknowledgement that sitting down and reflecting on our practice with another person, or with a group, keeps us fresh, recharges our batteries and enables us to do our work safely, ethically and well.

I’d like to thank Coaching at Work for the award, and the judges for their especially kind comments:

‘She has championed supervision for coaches for two decades. She’s a major player in developing coaching supervision in the UK.’

‘Her passion for coaching ethics and supervision is boundless and she campaigns tirelessly for better practice in ethical coaching and supervision at every opportunity.’

‘She has huge amounts of integrity, in addition to being creative and passionate about coaching supervision.’