The KIT Certification Requirements

Preamble

Certification as a KIT Coach is not a qualification you accumulate. It is a commitment you demonstrate.

The requirements below are designed to answer one question: has this person done the inner and outer work that makes it safe and ethical for them to accompany others through change?

No amount of training hours, accumulated credits, or examination scores can answer that question. What can answer it is evidence. Evidence of practice, of self-knowledge, of ethical seriousness, and of the courage to be seen doing the work.

All seven requirements are obligatory. An application that does not meet all seven will not be assessed.

Certification proceeds in two stages. First, a committee reviews the submitted materials. An applicant who passes the committee review is invited to the certification event: two days in which the assessment takes place in person.

The Seven Requirements

1. Educational Foundation

The applicant must hold one of two educational foundations.

Path A. Coaching Leadership (DCL) plus four additional modules with holmberg & friends.

Path B. An equivalent coaching education from another provider, plus the module Communication and Influence with holmberg & friends. This module is mandatory and cannot be replaced by other training.

Both paths lead to the same certification. Same requirements. No difference in status.

2. Active Supervision — Supervisor Attestation

The applicant must be in active supervision at the time of application and must have maintained regular supervision throughout their practice.

The supervisor attests digitally that the supervision is real, that the applicant brings genuine client material and ethical questions to it — not only administrative concerns — and that the supervisor is not aware of any unresolved ethical issues regarding the applicant’s practice.

The choice of supervisor is the applicant’s own. KIT does not maintain an approved list. A supervisor with a background in psychotherapy, organisational psychology, or another coaching tradition is equally valid. What matters is that the supervision is real.

The applicant also commits to informing their own clients of who the supervisor is.

3. Three Transcribed Coaching Conversations

The applicant submits transcripts of three complete coaching conversations, with all identifying information about the client removed.

The transcripts must represent three different clients and include at least one conversation the applicant found difficult or uncertain. Each transcript is accompanied by a brief reflective note of one page describing what the applicant notices about their own practice in reading it now.

The supervisor confirms, in the attestation, that the transcripts are representative of the applicant’s actual work — not exceptional performances prepared for the application.

4. One Filmed Coaching Conversation

The applicant submits a film of one complete coaching conversation with a client from their own practice. The client’s back is to the camera throughout. The client’s face is never visible.

Before filming, the client gives written informed consent. The consent form is submitted with the application and confirms that the client understands the film will be viewed by a certification committee, has agreed to be filmed from behind, and has been offered the option to withdraw consent after viewing the film.

The film is uploaded securely, is accessible only to the committee, and is deleted after the assessment is complete.

This conversation should not be confused with the practical examination at the certification event. They are two different conversations with two different clients.

5. A Filmed Personal Statement

The applicant records a personal statement of no more than five minutes, directly to camera, with no slides and no script.

The statement addresses three questions:

1. Why do you want to be part of the KIT Coaching Network?
2. What has coaching cost you personally — what have you had to face in yourself in order to do this work?
3. What do you not yet know about yourself as a coach?

The third question is the most important. An applicant who answers it with certainty has not understood it.

6. Forty Hours of Personal Work

The applicant documents a minimum of forty hours of personal therapy or equivalent personal work, in which the applicant has been the client.

Forty hours represents approximately one year of fortnightly sessions. It is enough to have experienced what it means to be accompanied through genuine personal difficulty, and to have felt the difference between a practitioner who is present and one who is not. It is not enough to have resolved everything — nor is that the point.

The documentation is a self-report, supported by a letter from the practitioner confirming the approximate duration of the work.

A coach who has never sat in the client’s chair does not know what they are asking of the people they work with. An uninspected self is a dangerous instrument.

7. A Reflective Document

The applicant writes a reflective document of no more than three pages addressing three questions.

Question 1. Describe a coaching conversation in which all three KIT dimensions were present: the client’s actual thinking, integration into everyday life, and a moment of genuine transformation. What made it a KIT process?

Question 2. Describe a coaching conversation that was difficult — one where you were uncertain, uncomfortable, or aware that something was happening you could not fully account for. What did you bring to supervision? What did you learn?

Question 3. Where is your boundary between coaching and therapy, and how do you know when you are approaching it? Describe a specific moment in your practice when you became aware of this boundary.

Meriting Factors

The following are not required but weigh positively in the assessment:

• Written contributions to the coaching field — published or unpublished. The quality of thought matters more than the platform.
• Contribution to the coaching community — supervision of other coaches, teaching, research, or participation in professional discourse.
• Additional transcribed conversations — beyond the required three.
• Long documented practice.

The Committee Review

Applications are reviewed by a certification committee of at least two senior KIT coaches. At least one committee member has no prior relationship with the applicant.

The committee reviews the supervisor attestation, the three transcripts with reflective notes, the filmed conversation, the filmed personal statement, the reflective document, and the documentation of personal work.

The committee does not score. It determines whether the submitted materials are sufficient for the applicant to be invited to the certification event. The decision is recorded in writing. An applicant who is not invited receives a written explanation and, where appropriate, guidance on what would strengthen a future application. A new application may be submitted after twelve months.

The Certification Event

Two days. Three moments.

Written examination.

Practical examination. The applicant conducts a coaching conversation with a client. The client is provided by holmberg & friends as the training body — not by the applicant. The client is informed before the session about the certification context, who is present, and what happens with what is said. The client may withdraw at any time.

Supervisor conversation. A conversation about the applicant’s practice, supervision, and personal development.

What Is Assessed

Four things determine the outcome.

Ethical awareness of projection and transference. Does the coach see what belongs to them and what belongs to the client? Do they notice when something is being transferred in the room, and can they handle it without acting from it?

Shadow work willingness. Is the coach prepared to challenge themselves in their own development? This is a question with two answers. Yes or no.

Skill in the coaching competencies. Contact, presence, curiosity, flexibility, perspective, and development — in actual work, not in description of work.

Experience. Depth and breadth in the practice the applicant carries.

The Decision

The decision rests on three voices beyond the committee’s review of the submitted materials.

The supervisor, who assesses the applicant’s ethical maturity and relationship to their own development.

The client in the practical examination, who assesses their own experience of being coached. The client does not assess methodology or technical competence — they answer whether they felt seen, heard, and safely accompanied.

The other participants at the certification event, who have seen the applicant work over two days.

The outcome is one of three.

Certified. The applicant is admitted to the KIT Coaching Network as a certified KIT Coach.

Certified with recommendations. The applicant is admitted, and receives written feedback on areas for continued development.

Not certified. The applicant is not admitted at this time, receives a written explanation, and may reapply after twelve months.

All applicants receive written feedback regardless of outcome.

After Certification

A certified KIT Coach maintains their active status through one annual requirement.

Registering their current supervisor.

Each year, certified KIT Coaches confirm who their supervisor is. That is all. No reports. No accumulated hours. No refresher courses. No renewal examination.

The annual registration serves two purposes. It confirms that the coach remains in active supervision — the ethical anchor of KIT practice. And it keeps the public registry accurate, so that clients and organisations can trust that every listed coach has current supervision.

A coach who does not register their supervisor by the annual deadline moves to inactive status in the registry. Reactivation requires registering a current supervisor and confirming that supervision has continued.