Edited by Dr Trish Turner
Chapter 3: Becoming a dual-qualified coach: core competences, training pathways and professional standards
By Dr Trish Turner
This chapter provides a detailed examination of the essential competences required for professional coaching, with a focus on their relevance and application for qualified therapists. It outlines the expectations set by major coaching professional bodies and explores how these competences support ethical, effective, and credible practice. Each competence area – from reflective practice and relational skill to contracting, facilitating insight, enabling change, and ethical integration – is explored in depth, alongside guidance on how therapists can translate existing skills into a coaching context. The chapter also reviews professional pathways into coaching, including accredited training and portfolio routes, and demystifies the role of coaching standards bodies. Through practical insights, case vignettes, and critical reflections, this chapter equips readers to assess their readiness, choose appropriate development routes, and commit to high standards of competence and professionalism as they establish themselves in the coaching field.
Biography
Dr Trish Turner is a qualified and accredited EMCC Global Master Coach, coach supervisor and coach trainer, with over two decades of coaching experience and 15 years in psychotherapeutic counselling. She holds a PhD in health policy research, a BA (Hons) in Management and Leadership, and a BSc (Hons) in Integrative Psychotherapeutic Counselling (UKCP). She is BACP registered.
Trish brings a distinctive combination of academic rigour, coaching expertise, clinical insight and senior leadership. Her career spans journalism, NHS board-level communications, and over 25 years as a senior leader across sectors. She is a highly experienced supervisor of both coaches and therapists, working with individuals and groups.
As founder and Managing Director of Therapist to Coach Ltd, Trish has led the pioneering Therapist to Coach Senior Practitioner in Coaching programme for over a decade. This bespoke accredited training, designed specifically for qualified counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists moving into professional coaching, has been consistently fully subscribed and remains unique in its field.
Trish is deeply committed to raising professional coaching standards. She served for six years as an EMCC Global Accreditation Assessor, assessing coaches, supervisors and training providers internationally. She also contributed to the BACP Coaching Executive, founded the UKCP therapy network in Norfolk, and established the EMCC UK regional coaching network.