We are not affiliated with local, state, or federal governing bodies or agencies in any capacity, and does not act as a regulatory body. Rather we are a group of mental health and business professionals and consumer rights activists, whose goals are to empower, educate, and connect service providers and consumers with the tools, knowledge, insights, and resources necessary to engage in ethical, client-centered practices. Our goal is not to create a new governing body for the coaching industry, but \ to advance the idea that the more we as professionals can regulate the industry ourselves and keep each other accountable as peers, the less need there is for bureaucratic restrictions, red tape, and government interventions.

It is a reasonable concern for small business owners to worry that any kind of regulation may create additional considerations and obstacles to navigate in providing their services. However, ECF is not intended to function as a supervisory entity for coaches, nor is it our goal to impose specific modalities of practice on any service providers. ECF is intended as a resource to assist small businesses in operating within an ethical framework while still functioning in ways that are congruent with their own values and occupational style or modality.

We recognize that very few small businesses are, in fact, entirely free from governmental regulations. No business is exempt from federal, state, and local policies such as tax code regulations, employment and labor laws, antitrust regulations, marketing/advertising, privacy laws, etc. Moreover, the government is not obliged to notify small business owners of these regulations; it is up to each individual to ensure that their business is not violating them. On that front, we are also here to work with coaches and service providers to ensure that their businesses are protected from incurring potential penalties and lawsuits.

Making a small business work is no easy feat, and we recognize that changes and adjustments to any work structure are unlikely to occur overnight or in sweeping changes. We understand that service providers will often need to incorporate ethical standards and practices into their work gradually in ways that are authentic and sustainable to them and with consideration for the type of work they do.

Ethics is about the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. This means that our perception of what is fair and just is fluid, flexible, and changing. This is what makes ethics as creative as it is practical. Because ethical practice is grounded in real-world application, it is not as clear cut as simply adhering to rigid rules and restrictions; it is about fully participating in business in new, engaging, and innovative ways, and embracing that ethical practice involves ongoing self-reflection and review of one’s work.

Ethical standards exist to protect both consumers and practitioners, which is why professional industries such as marketing, law, and mental health have ethical codes of conduct that were laid out and standardized by independent agencies. It is our stance that the coaching industry is not exempt from this.

Ethical standards function like seatbelts, minimizing harm and reducing the severity of damage done when accidents or crashes do occur. While adhering to such standards will not eliminate all instances of harm or damage on its own, we can still encourage everyone to buckle up!

A core component of ethical practice is informed consent. When consumers seek coaching services, it is the coach who is the expert on the work they do, and as such they hold the responsibility to provide information about the nature, scope, strength, limitations, and potential outcomes of the services being rendered.

We are unequivocally pro-coaching. Coaching is a valuable form of support and guidance for many people that we have no interest in dismantling or eliminating. We are aiming to introduce standards of care and ethical practice rooted in empirical evidence that we feel are in the best interest of both coaches and clients. We are pro-coaches, pro-education, pro-safety, and pro-awareness.

As one coach put it, “Nothing is perfect, but the Wild Wild West approach to the coaching industry serves a few but hurts many.”

One of EFC’s biggest goals is to support any and all coaches who are invested in learning how to improve their implementation of and knowledge concerning ethical practices in a safe and constructive manner. We want to offer a safe space in which to be inspired and integrate a more conscientious way of operating in business.

Our approach to consumer rights advocacy is inspired by restorative and transformative justice. We believe in making reparations, not punishment. It is for this reason that one of our long-term goals is to act as a neutral party that can facilitate discussions between hurt parties to negotiate or resolve a conflict. We do not believe in ‘cancel culture’ as ethics is a non-partisan issue with no political affiliation, and we understand that ethics is an ever-evolving thing that grows, adapts, and changes as our culture and wider world does.

Legal ramifications do not exist to punish people. They exist to improve credibility and trust within the industry. By holding ‘bad’ coaches accountable for doing harm and operating unethically, ‘good’ coaches can protect their business and strengthen the industry as a whole.

We want to encourage coaches to give themselves plenty of compassion if they have unknowingly or unintentionally violated ethical guidelines. No human is perfect and everyone will make mistakes in their practice. Ethics is not about being perfect, it is about minimizing harm.

We are not interested in imposing puritanical or perfectionistic standards on anyone. With that in mind, the reviews are being addressed to people who know the industry well (that’s us!), and there will be a thorough investigation of a review before moving forward with the decision to publish a negative review or file a lawsuit.

It is extremely difficult and costly to file a frivolous lawsuit in the U.S. Most people will not go through with a lawsuit unless they have enough solid evidence to support claims of emotional and financial damage. Additionally, lawyers who knowingly file frivolous lawsuits can be fined, sanctioned, or have their license revoked or suspended. Filing a lawsuit comes with great responsibility, and is not to be undertaken lightly.

We use legal criteria based on state and US federal guidelines to define what we consider to be an online scam. Key elements that may indicate online scams include guaranteed outcomes, promises of large returns via ‘proven systems,’ vague and non-specific answers to questions, frequent use of complex or esoteric jargon without explanation, or claims of expertise without backing or evidence. You can find a more complete list of this criteria on the FTC website.

We also recognize that practices that are not scams can also be unethical. This can include practices such as charging unethical prices, violations of confidentiality or professional boundaries, or requiring clients to sign away their right to redress in the case of grievances.

As we continue with our efforts, we will be further honing this kind of information. Check back often!

EFC will be launching a blog soon that will host information and resources for identifying all of these things along with discussions of scope of practice and other ethical gray areas. You can find links on the website currently under our Education section!

The EFC Handbook (downloadable from the homepage) provides some foundational and basic guidelines developed by mental health professionals on how to differentiate a coaching situation from a mental health situation. A major responsibility for all those who work in or adjacent to the mental health field is recognizing the strengths and limitations of the skills we have and modalities we use, and referring clients out should their needs exceed our scope of practice or expertise.

We aim to continue refining this document as we gather feedback from the community.

As with any industry, what constitutes ethical practices is ultimately decided through discourse and discussion by representatives from the industry itself. In fact, that is why we have hosted and are interested in hosting future town hall meetings and asking for your feedback!

Our existing ethical guidelines are based on ethics and harm reduction frameworks used broadly across healthcare, social work, and higher education like trauma-informed approaches and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion frameworks, which are typically missing or less thorough in many industry ethics handbooks.

That being said, some ethical principles are common-sense:

• Not lying or exaggerating in your marketing

• Being considerate with your clients and not pushing them to do things they don’t want to do

• Not engaging in sexual relationships with clients

• Not sexually harassing clients

While EFC wants to facilitate community discussions about ethical gray areas, we already know that there are some ethics which are non-negotiable, and these types of guidelines are standards across industries. We recognize that despite the coaching industry having normalized some behaviors that violate the above principles, there is substantial empirical evidence highlighting the dangers of continuing to excuse or perpetuate such practices.

We recommend figuring out how much money you need to make to meet your needs, then doing some market research around what the going market rate is for your years of experience and expertise, then comparing that to the cost of living of your client and deciding if the cost feels aligned with your values. But ultimately, the going market rate is a good measure, which for most coaches offline is $75 - $300/hr.

We believe that a strong awareness of scope of practice and informed consent are more conducive to harm prevention than certification. A certification does not inherently confer its owner with ethical or professional behavior, and is instead just one possible indicator that said person is invested in learning and practicing their job effectively.

We recognize that certifications alone do not determine a provider’s expertise and skill as a coach. Depth and breadth of knowledge and mastery of skills and techniques can be accrued in a variety of ways, and provided clients are informed as to how a coach established themselves as an expert on a given topic, we see no reason to disenfranchise such coaches. A coach who is transparent about their background and adheres to their scope of practice is already applying many of the core ethical values we believe in and promote.

An additional point along these topics that we are exploring and continuing to discuss is the lack of consensus as to what constitutes a coach as opposed to mentors, teachers, educators, or consultants.

Ultimately EFC is not a legal regulatory or supervisory body, so we do not have the systemic power to prevent individual bad actors from doing this. If we maintain momentum long enough to eventually become an official professional association, it would be our intention to offer a membership, at which point an ethics board would conduct an internal review of reported members and decide whether or not to revoke that person’s membership, much the same way that other professional organizations operate. But that initiative is a very long way down the road (see the timeline on our About page with our long term goals).

As our more immediate priority, we opted to focus on connecting people with resources and educational content to help them evaluate whether or not a coach ultimately embodies the values they claim to hold and find information about what they can do if they’ve been scammed, such as reporting and filing legal claims.