Alison Whybrow

It is a great honour to step in to the role of Chair of the Special Group in Coaching Psychology following the successful development of the group in previous years and the bright future ahead for the profession of Coaching Psychology. With responses to the Government consultations on the imminent statutory regulation of psychologists under the Health Professions Council, it has certainly been a busy start.

Behind the success of the SGCP is quite an extensive team of committed people who share a vision about the importance of developing the profession of coaching psychology and are prepared to put in substantial effort to enable that to be achieved. 2007 was a year for regrouping and focusing on strategy. As a result of that three interlinked objectives emerged:

• Clarify the identity of the SGCP and the domain of coaching psychology.
• Develop the SGCP and coaching psychology brands.
• Develop the community of coaching psychologists.
  

Having identified what we need to focus on, we have consolidated a number of projects recently including:

• Finalising the standards framework for coaching psychology. These should be on our website soon (www.sgcp.org.uk).
• Launching our online list of chartered members of the special group of coaching psychology. This will make it easy to find a chartered psychologist who is in practice as a coaching psychologist and/or coach. If you are a chartered psychologist then you can download and complete the form to join the register from our website.
• The increased profile of our publications.
  - The Coaching Psychologist and the International Coaching Psychology Review are now successfully registered with psycINFO. This is a milestone, significantly raising the profile and gravitas of our publications.
  - The Coaching Psychologist and the International Coaching Psychology Review are to be included in the 2009 Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Educational Psychology and Administration and Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Educational Curriculum and Methods.
  - The International Coaching Psychology Review is also abstracted and linked in Google Scholar.
• Strengthening our relationships with European professional psychology bodies, many of whom attend our recent conference.

Once again, we have hosted a very successful conference, the 3rd National Coaching Psychology Conference. Dr Tony Grant was presented with an award in recognition of outstanding professional and scientific contribution to coaching psychology. Sir John Whitmore was presented with a conference award for outstanding contribution to the field of coaching. The conference was a confident and warm event leaving us inspired for 2008.

We have a great events programme laid out this year to support the professional development of our coaching psychology community, with the first event held in March, positioning Family Systems theory within the arena of Business Coaching. With further events in April, May and September, we are now starting to shape our events programme for 2009. For more details about our events and submitting a workshop proposal of your own, please do visit our website.

This year will also see a consolidation of the work we have been doing to strengthen the growth of coaching psychology across Europe. The SGCP are hosting the first European Coaching Psychology Conference on the 17 and 18 of December, 2008. We have a new conference venue in central London, namely the University of Westminster, Regent Street Campus. For details about attending or submitting a paper, please visit the conference page of our website. The deadline for submissions has been brought forward this year to the 15 June, 2008.

We have had a number of significant consultations to input into this year already. First, we have had three consultation documents from the Department of Health regarding the proposed statutory regulation. These have received a significant amount of coverage elsewhere. Second, we have responded to a consultation from ENTO regarding the scope of the domain of coaching and mentoring and the essential skills for coaching and mentoring. We are pleased that ENTO have asked for funding to clarify the psychological underpinnings of coaching and mentoring and will be partnering with them to assist in steering that project should the funding be forthcoming. The SGCP responses to all the recent consultations are available on our website. I would like to thank all those that have taken the time to respond and add their comments.

This year we are pressing forward on a number of fronts. First and foremost is the push to clarifying a route to accreditation for SGCP full members working as coaching psychologists. We are aware that our online list of chartered psychologists only accommodates some of our members. We have consistently stated that our aim is to define a route to accreditation to meet all our members’ needs, such that individual practitioners holding GBR can work towards accreditation in the field of coaching psychology.

Back in 2005 the SGCP pursued the option of creating a practitioner level of membership within the SGCP that would be open to all full members of the SGCP. This was firmly rejected by the Board of Trustees. In 2006, the SGCP committee voted to explore the option of progressing towards Division status. The Society put a moratorium on the development of new subsystems for a period of at least three years.

Against the fast pace of the development of the profession of Coaching Psychology, we are now going to put forward once again the proposal for a practitioner level of membership within the SGCP to the Board of Trustees.

Forthcoming developments planned to start this year include:

• Creating a European editorial advisory board for The Coaching Psychologist.
• The development of an improved website. We will create a members only section on the website to enhance member benefits. To support this we are in the process of creating a new website officer role.
• Conducting surveys to update our understanding of your needs and of those who are potential buyers of coaching psychology services.
• Greater support for members at a local level. The first informal coaching psychology peer support group was set up this year for members in the Devon and Cornwall area.
• Steering and contributing to the development of a unit clarifying the ‘psychological underpinnings of coaching and mentoring’ in partnership with ENTO.

The work of the SGCP is carried out through committed volunteers. Newcomers to our committees and teams comment on the warmth and inclusive feel of the SGCP. I would like to encourage you to get in touch if you would be interested in becoming more involved in any area of SGCP work. Please e-mail Helen Barnett at the Society’s subsystems office for an expression of interest form (Helen.Barnett@bps.org.uk).

I would also like to extend a particular thank you to all those individuals who have made the SGCP and the profession of coaching psychology what it is today.

Finally, I would welcome you getting in touch with me if you have any thoughts, comments or feedback about the SGCP or would like any information about areas of SGCP work you might be interested in getting involved in during 2008 and beyond.

Alison Whybrow
E-mail: sgcpchair@bps.org.uk