All of Pointerway’s staff and partners agree to:

• Always conduct themselves to the highest levels of ethics, integrity, accountability, and responsibility.

• Treat all clients and potential clients with absolute dignity, confidentiality and respect as free and equal individuals.

• Be aware of and actively manage any power or status difference between the client and coach that may be caused by cultural, relational, psychological, or contextual issues.

• Make no claims or implications of outcomes that cannot be demonstrated or guaranteed.

• Assure consistent quality of coaching regardless of the amount or form of agreed compensation in any relationship.

• Monitor the quality of work through feedback from clients and other appropriate professionals.

• Avoid all conflicts of interest and give notice of such potential conflicts.

• Obtain written permission from any client or potential client before releasing their names as referees.

• Continually develop professionally in both the theory and practice of coaching.

• Represent true levels of status, title, competence, and experience in order not to mislead, misrepresent, or defraud.

• Refrain from offering professional information or advice that is known to be confidential, misleading, or where the accuracy is beyond our competence to assess.

• Have qualifications, skills, and experience appropriate to the client’s needs. If not, we will refer the client to those who do, such as other coaches, therapists, mentors, or other specialist services.

• Hold responsibility for being aware of and setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries that govern interactions, physical or otherwise.

• Be mindful of the level of intimacy appropriate for the relationship and take appropriate action to address the issue or cancel the engagement.

• Keep appropriate and accurate records of work with clients and ensure they will remain confidential and are stored securely.

• Respect all copyrights, agreements, work, intellectual property and trademarks and comply with all laws covering such areas.

• Create an agreement regarding roles, responsibilities, and rights of all parties involved with clients prior to the commencement of any services.

• Comply with both the spirit and the letter of any agreements made with clients, potential clients, and professional colleagues.

• Only barter for services, goods, or other non-monetary remuneration when it will not impair the coaching relationship.

• Not knowingly take any personal, professional, or monetary advantage or benefit of the coach-client relationship, except by a form of compensation as agreed in the agreement or contract.

• Respect the client’s right to terminate the coaching relationship at any point during the process, subject to the provisions of the agreement, and be alert to indications that the client is no longer benefiting from our coaching relationship.

• Have professional indemnity insurance adequate to cover coaching practice.

• Disclose to clients the potential receipt of compensation and any other benefits that Pointerway may receive for referring clients to third parties.

• Ensure that all advertisements and promotional materials, whether verbal or written, are legal, decent, truthful, honest and in compliance with legislation.

• Comply with all laws and by-laws of the USA and the State of Illinois.

• Make a copy of this Code freely available to clients if they request it.

The challenge with working ethically means that coaches will inevitably encounter situations that require responses to unexpected issues, resolution of dilemmas, and solutions to problems. This Code of Ethics is intended to assist our staff and partners by directing them to the variety of ethical factors that may need to be taken into consideration and helping to identify alternative ways of approaching ethical behavior.

Adapted from The Coaching Academy’s Codes of Ethics