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Can Coaching Impact Societal Change? By Stephen Hinds, ICF Vancouver Vice President
July 2026
President's Message
What Makes a Chapter successful? You Do.
New credentialing support, real community, and a roadmap built around you.
In June, I invited you to consider, “strong chapters don’t happen by chance; they develop from members investing in the profession.” Your responses filled my inbox. They reminded me that our members possess all of the talent, wisdom, strategies and energy to uplift the profession!
The energy from International Coaching Week did not fade when the week closed. It grew. So this month I want to ask a harder question. What actually makes a chapter successful?
Here is my honest answer.
“A chapter succeeds when its members do.”
Not just when our events fill up, or our balance sheet looks healthy, though both matter. A chapter succeeds when a coach who felt alone finds her people, when a coach shares their new credential that felt out of reach, and when someone quietly wondering whether they belong discovers they always did.
That is the standard I want us all to hold. Here is what we are building to meet it.
Three Realities of Coaching Today
Coaching asks more of us than skill. It asks for entrepreneurship and resilience. We have heard about these realities in our membership right now, and ICF BC is shaping its support around each one.
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Aspiring Coaches. You are learning the craft of coaching and the craft of building a practice at the same time. Your path to ACC deserves a clear map, and your business strategy deserves real attention. How can we help you get established?
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Internal and Corporate Coaches. Some of you coach off the side of your desk, often without the title or recognition to match the value you create. How can we help you gain that recognition, connect with peers who get it, and support your professional profile that reflects your real work?
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Freelancers and Solopreneurs. Budgets have tightened, and economic uncertainty lands hardest on those who coach alone. This is exactly when a professional home earns its keep. Where can we work together to strengthen your impact and extend your reach?
What We Are Building for You
A belief without a plan is just a wish. Here is what is coming.
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A new Director of Credentialing to support your ACC, PCC, and MCC attainment and renewal.
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Early, clear readiness for the 2027 ICF credentialing requirement changes, with no last-minute scramble.
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Coaching Supervision with Jocelyne Hamel and Heather Turnbull, plus ongoing webinars that provide CCEs and credentialing support.
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Communities for reciprocal coaching hours, because coaches need coaching too.
Our Roadmap: Three Strategic Focus Areas
We are renewing our strategic foci around one conviction. Members are the heart of ICF BC. Three focus areas guide where we go next.
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Sustainable Growth and Impact. More awareness, more access, more trust in coaching across British Columbia.
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Coaching Excellence and Value. High-quality education, real credentialing support, and a genuine sense of belonging for every coach, whatever your background or niche.
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Organizational Development and Excellence. Strong governance, sound finances, and volunteer pathways so the chapter serves you for years to come.
Your Next Step
The people inside build a successful chapter. Tell us where you can leverage your strengths to support coaches and uplift the profession. Join a community, volunteer, run for the board or share your story with a coach who needs to hear it. Sign up for Coaches and Coffee, and let’s connect the world with the power of coaching!
Co-operatively yours,
Jonathan Evans
President, ICF BC
P.S. What would make ICF BC feel like a true professional home for you? Reply and tell me. I read every message!
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UBC Extended Learning Launches the Centre for Organizational Coaching
The University of British Columbia (UBC) Extended Learning is pleased to announce the launch of the Centre for Organizational Coaching in July 2026. The Centre launches with a portfolio of International Coaching Federation (ICF) and European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC) accredited programs, including the new Leader as Coach, Mentor Coaching Practitioner, and Coaching Neurodiversity at Work offerings, alongside the established Certificate in Organizational Coaching and Career Coaching Practitioner programs.
To learn more, visit: UBC Centre for Organizational Coaching
Since its beginnings with UBC Coaching Services in 2003, UBC's coaching ecosystem has grown into a globally recognized leader in coach education. Expanded through a partnership with UBC Extended Learning in 2013, the portfolio has earned both the ICF Prism Award and EMCC Global Coaching Award while advancing a vision of coaching as a catalyst for resilience, systemic thinking, leadership development, and stronger relationships across organizations and communities. What began as a Certificate in Organizational Coaching cohort of just 12 learners now graduates more than 90 coaches annually and connects a thriving network of over 700 alumni worldwide.
The Centre’s vision is to support individuals, teams, and systems to employ coaching as a learning methodology, co-creating learning communities at work, in community and at home. Leaders, professionals, and practitioners from across sectors are invited to engage in our evidence-based, experientially-designed curriculum to bring adaptability and thriving to themselves and others in a rapidly changing world.
Spotlight Event
By Popular Demand: Group Coaching Supervision Registration is Open
Many of you have reached out asking for the registration link for our Fall 2026 Group Coaching Supervision Pilot. Following the 1-hour Coaching Supervision Showcase, offered to members in May, a few spots remain open! Click the link below to book a space.
As a recap, this is a unique, one-time pilot opportunity for ICF BC members who are curious about coaching supervision and want to experience its value in a small, supportive group setting. With coaching supervision becoming increasingly recognized across the profession, there has never been a better time to build your reflective practice.
A few spaces remain and registration is first-come, first-served.
Join a confidential group of peers to explore real coaching cases, ethical dilemmas, coaching challenges, patterns, and the "being" of the coach alongside experienced coaching supervisors.
Unlike mentor coaching, which focuses on coaching skills and competencies, supervision supports your overall development as a coach, strengthening awareness, presence, resilience and client impact.
Two small groups. Three x 90-min sessions. Limited seats. 4.5 CCEUs total.
Low-cost pilot pricing for members - $90 CAD (package)
* Non-members pay $120 CAD (package)
Please note that comparable market rates for group supervision typically range from $600 to 1100+ per 4.5-hour package.
If you've been curious about coaching supervision, this is an accessible way to get started.
Register before the remaining spaces are gone.
Click Here
Calendar of Events
Coaches & Coffee Meet-Up
July 12, 2026
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM PT
The Listening Edge
July 23, 2026
12pm - 1:30pm Eastern (New York Time)
Zoom Meeting
Coaches & Coffee Meet-Up
July 28, 2026
4:30 PM - 6:30 PM PT
View more upcoming events here!
Chapter News
ICF British Columbia is seeking members to step into leadership
| Vice-President
| Secretary
| Treasurer
| Regional Director
| Director of Volunteer Engagement
| Director of Credentialling (non-voting)
VIEW Full Job Description
2026 Board of Directors Candidate Application Form
Creating Space for Growth
As an internal coach and leadership development professional, Kristy is passionate about helping people discover their own capacity for growth, resilience, and meaningful change. Through coaching, leadership development, and organizational transformation within the healthcare sector, she creates spaces where individuals can pause, reflect, and lead with greater intention.
What inspired you to begin your journey in coaching?
I stumbled across coaching in my twenties while exploring personal development for myself, drawn in by my natural gifts for listening and encouragement. But once I enrolled in ICF-accredited coach training, my perspective shifted completely. I learned that coaching isn't about giving advice, but about trusting clients as the experts in their own lives.
What is the most meaningful impact you've seen from your work in coaching and organizational development?
I work in a large health care organization, coaching people across many roles - physicians, nurses, clinical managers, and directors, in an environment that demands urgency and constant service to others. Watching people reconnect with their agency, regulate through challenging moments, and lead with greater alignment has been especially meaningful.
How do you integrate coaching into your work with senior executives and organizational transformation?
Coaching is truly at the centre of my work. I lead the Coaching Services program, serve as an Internal Coach, and facilitate leadership development training. Beyond one-to-one and group coaching for staff at all levels, my colleagues and I run workshops building practical skills like deep listening and non-directive questioning, which I see as essential to effective, engaged leadership.
How has coaching influenced your life and work, both professionally and personally?
I've always been a natural "helper," quick to step in and problem-solve before it was even asked for. Coach education has softened that impulse to rescue or fix, teaching me instead to pause, stay curious, and trust others' capacity to navigate their own challenges, a shift that continues to influence how I show up in every part of my life.
What do you hope to see as our coaching profession grows and develops?
I'd love to see coaching become more accessible, recognized within health care benefits, much like counselling or physiotherapy. I have no doubt we'll get there as the profession continues to grow in research, rigour, and professional standards, thanks in large part to the ICF's role in advancing it.
July Reflection
What July Asks Us to Notice
Two observances shape this month’s reflection, and both invite us to reflect upon what belonging actually means.
The first is Canada Day. For many, this is a day of genuine pride and celebration. For others, particularly Indigenous peoples, it may also hold the weight of displacement and a history still being reckoned with. As coaches, our role is not focused on resolving that tension. Our practice is built on the ability to stay present while a person holds two things that seem to contradict - pride and grief, gratitude and anger, without hurrying our clients toward a tidy conclusion. Canada Day invites us to extend that same steadiness to our own relationship with this country.
Disability Pride Month, running all of July, offers us a second reflection. Its central move is a reframe: disability is not a problem located inside a person, but often the result of environments and expectations built for only one way of moving, thinking, or being. What we read as someone's limitation is frequently a limitation of the space around them. That reframe is deeply familiar coaching territory. So much of our work is helping people see that what they have carried as personal deficiency is often a mismatch between who they are and a system that was never designed with them in mind.
Held side by side, both observances point at the same quiet truth. Belonging is less about helping people fit in, and more about widening what we are willing to make room for.
Reflection question this month: *What have you been treating as someone's shortcoming that might actually be a sign the space around them needs to grow?*
Linda Schmidt,
DEIB Director, ICF BC Chapter
Global Updates
The application for the Mentor Coach Specialization (MCS) is now available.
The MCS recognizes the knowledge you already bring to mentor coaching while establishing a clear standard for the profession and offering a mark of quality and trust to mentor coaching clients.
To remain eligible to support applicants and be listed in the Mentor Coach Registry, you will need to earn this Specialization. As shared in ICF Global's April 13 update, beginning January 1, 2027, credential applicants must complete any new mentor coaching hours with a mentor coach who holds the MCS.
Lead the Future of Coaching: Apply for the 2027 ICF Professional Coaches Board
The future of coaching is shaped by leaders who are willing to step forward, bring diverse perspectives, and help turn possibility into progress.
If you are an ICF member and ICF credential-holder with a passion for service and a vision for advancing the global coaching profession, your voice, experience, and perspective are needed on the ICF Professional Coaches Board of Directors.
Board service is an opportunity to contribute your voice, influence the direction of our profession, and help ensure coaching continues to thrive around the world.
Applications open July 7 and close August 7 at 11:59 p.m. (New York).
Please share this opportunity with your members. Your encouragement could be the reason an exceptional coach takes the next step into leadership.
Questions? Contact ICF Professional Coaches Executive Assistant Wore Giotta at [email protected]
