I recently attended the inaugural conference of the new BACP Coaching Division, and was delighted to present on Online Coaching: Applications, Ethics and Practice on behalf of the Online Coach Institute and within my role as Executive Specialist for Online Coaching for BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy). The conference was an enormous success, particularly for such a new BACP Division, and was sold out by the day itself with over 180 delegates. I also took the opportunity to tweet the conference live throughout the day using the hashtag #BACPCoachconf, which I hope was useful to my followers and retweeters.
The Keynote Speaker, Nancy Kline of Time To Think, gave a wonderful talk on the value of keeping silence in order create a thinking space in order to allow clients to create their own solutions and complete their own thoughts without the intrusion of the practitioner coach, who uses close attention to help the client elucidate their thoughts.
I chaired the session with Becky Wright of New Leaf Counselling & Coaching (@newleafonline), as she posed the question “Where does counselling end and coaching begin?” and explored some of the internal psychological shifts and processes which need to happen to make the transition from counsellor to coach, including how to develop a counselling practice to encompass coaching. Becky’s personal presentation style in taking us on her journey via a slideshow of photographs of her life was very enjoyable, and I am very pleased to have met her and heard her talk.
Lunch in the very nice Holiday Inn Regents Park Conference Centre provided a valuable break for delegates to network and discuss the day thus far, before I took the stage to explain the concept of coaching online, gave some pointers as to how to communicate using technological methods, and ran through the essential elements of the OCI Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Coaching. It was also an opportunity to launch the Online Coach Institute’s new 5 hour training modules online on the topic, giving an Introduction to Cyberspace, Relationships in Cyberspace, and the all new Introduction to Online Coaching, the first two of which are already Endorsed by BACP with the third in process.
In the final workshop session of the afternoon, I tweeted Margaret Adams of the Adams Consultancy (@BMargaretAdams)’s workshop on “How to get more people to buy your coaching practice’s services”. Margaret helped delegates understand the importance of Web 2.0 marketing strategies and how best to implement them.
The day ended with a session for reflection on the day, before we all headed into the lobby for a well-deserved glass of wine, courtesy of the conference organisers. My thanks to all delegates and BACP/BACP Coaching Division staff for an enjoyable conference which truly was a resounding success!
Kate
