Welcome to the future of health coaching!

• Awareness and demonstration of ethical practice within coaching, including integrity and honesty, confidentiality, distinction from consulting or other professional support, appropriate and respectful language, empathy and sensitivity to the coachee.
• Recognising the importance of embodying a client-centred coaching mindset and thriving to become a role model for health/wellness behaviour skills such as prioritising self-care, self-awareness, self-regulation and self-monitoring, while reflecting on and enhancing own coaching practices.
• Maintaining scope of practice within the boundaries of coaching, distinguishing health risk assessment and wellness evaluations from medical diagnosis, treatment or prescription, and mitigating the risk of harmful health choices or practices through pointing out to adequate resources and appropriate referrals to medical and support professionals.
• Understanding and application of the steps and principles surrounding the co-creation of the coaching relationship, including coaching agreement, coaching structure, process, plans and goals, coaching agenda, pre-session preparation, first sessions, ongoing sessions, and termination.
• Maintaining presence, cultivating trust, rapport, safety and self-compassion, listening actively, addressing non-verbal communication, evoking awareness and insight through tools such as powerful enquiry, silence, perceptive reflections, and metaphor.
• Promoting coachee autonomy, self-efficacy and growth by enabling self-determined wellness visions, strengths appreciation, problem solving, S.M.A.R.T. goal design and refinement, challenge-for-thought and challenge-for-action enquiry, and explorative learning.
• Using relevant Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques to support intrinsic motivation in the context of the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM), including decisional balance tools, rulers, questionnaires, creative brainstorming drills, safe behavioural experimentation, and self-discovery exercises.
• Harnessing the A.S.I.T. Method* to enable personalised and meaningful change and ongoing coachee growth, including Assessment Coaching, Strategy Coaching, Implementation Coaching, and Tracking Coaching, while fostering and endeavouring to protect the coachee’s freedom of choice, self-efficacy, and self-monitoring.
• Assisting the coachee to evaluate and integrate health and wellness information through leveraging the C.O.R.D. Framework** and health and wellness assessments (including health risk assessments) navigating aspects of health and wellness that the coachee may want to prioritise, optimise or reduce risk for, or any symptom, diagnosed disease or injury they may aim to manage with guidance from their medical provider.
• Familiarisation with the fundamental principles of research techniques, the pyramid of scientific evidence, quality sources which may be utilised in practice when appropriate and within professional boundaries, mitigation of health harm from controversial dietary approaches and the wrongful use of medical diets, and the importance of continuing education.

* The A.S.I.T. Method is a proprietary coaching model, developed by The Health Sciences Academy, which underpins its core philosophy of personalised and meaningful client growth. A.S.I.T. stands for Assessment, Strategy, Implementation, and Tracking.

** The C.O.R.D. Framework is a proprietary conceptual and practical construct for health and wellness coaching, developed by The Health Sciences Academy, which underpins its core philosophy of personalised and meaningful client growth while mitigating the risk of health harm through appropriate referral to medical professionals.