CSA Presence at ICF Global Conference- Rio de Janeiro Karyn Prentice
Senior Programme Trainer: USA, France and UK
In the middle of November under a royal blue canopy of a seemingly endless spring sky in the southern hemisphere the ICF Global Conference for Latin and South America held its two day conference in Rio de Janeiro. I was delighted to be invited to represent CSA and offer a workshop on coaching supervision and the Full Spectrum Model.
The conference theme was called ‘Connect, Transform, Build’ and it attracted over 500 coaches not just from the Americas but as far afield as Singapore, Korea and Australia.
The energy and vitality of the hosting country, Brasil ICF, was extraordinary no less so for its superlative organisation staffed entirely by volunteers from inception to a finishing flourish- for those of us there at the very end the Conference – of a Carnival band and an array of ladies in astounding feather outfits and headdresses to send us off. There was an international range of workshops offered by people like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Robert Kegan, Paul Brown as well some key speakers from Brazil notably storyteller Robert Carlos whose keynote talk was on the ‘Pedagogy of Love’ resonated fundamentally with a lot of what CSA had always talked about.
CSA had a dual presence in the line up of workshops and speakers. Eva Hirsch Pontes (graduate 2013) offered a workshop about the importance of supervision bringing in, amongst other things, aspects of the Case Study she submitted when she was in London doing the Diploma, her learning as a Supervisee and as a Supervisor. Her Supervisee in the case study was also present and spoke about the value of receiving supervision as a very experienced coach.
Coaching Supervision as a concept and a practice is still very new for most coaches in Brazil and other Latin and South American countries. The recent modification by ICF in their thinking and published on their website about what Supervision consists of, as distinct and different from coach mentoring, has been part of the awakening to engaging with the opportunities supervision can offer. Damion Goldvarg (CSA graduate 2014 in Seattle, USA) is the current Global President of ICF (also present at the Conference) is a very strong advocate for the benefits of regular supervision.
Perhaps in the UK we sometimes underestimate how there, comparatively, a relatively higher (though a ways to go yet) awareness, language and understanding around the whole field of supervision as a practice and resource than in some other countries, to date anyway.
I was delighted that so many people attended my workshop and that a delightful Peruvian Coach stepped up bravely to be my Supervisee for a small demonstration in front of the whole group. Before that I shared with them some aspects of what supervision can bring and how the Full Spectrum Model encompasses all terrains and levels of exploration that might be visited by a supervisor and supervisee, holding the client very much centrally in heart and mind and illustrating this with the metaphor of a walk in the garden.
In respect of the Theme of the Conference I offered that coaching supervision builds a bridge to connect us even more to who we are and who we can be, transforming practice and practitioner at the same time.
I concluded my workshop with some words of Edna Murdoch’s from the introduction of ‘Full Spectrum Supervision’ which always resonates with me and I think it did so for them:
““My experience is that operating alongside all of our professional trainings, our thinking, the tools and models, is the personhood of the practitioner- our humanity matters, as does our maturity, our open-heartedness and our generosity of spirit.
All of these are of crucial importance in the learning environment of supervision. They serve to build a quality of relationship that enables transparency from both parties and thus has the potential to create a real shift in the supervisee’s practice.”
“Supervision is essentially a conversation about other conversations. …The challenge to every professional is: Who am I in this conversation?”
Karyn Prentice is Senior Programme Trainer USA, France and UK . She works in a wide range of organisational settings including music, accountancy partnerships, food and wine, and extensively in universities. She is also a linguist.
Karyn founded Fletcher-Prentice & Associates in 1995, and is a UKCP accredited transpersonal psychotherapist and Director of the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology.
Contact:
Karyn.f@virgin.net
Tel: 01480 896290
Mobile: 07721 312377
