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We are dedicated to one thing and one thing only: Creating exceptional coaching supervisors.
Founded by Nick Bolton, the International Centre for Coaching Supervision (ICCS) is a sister school to the world renown Animas Centre for Coaching.
Nick established ICCS to meet what he feels is a pressing need to develop coaching supervisors across the world through accessible, high-quality training using the latest in virtual learning.
Our mission at ICCS is to open up coaching supervision training for coaches all around the world.
We embody a truly integrative approach to coaching supervision and to the learning process believing that there is never just one way and that, as coaches, we are always integrating what we learn with who we are, how we practise and what we already know.
Our aim is to facilitate participants through the new concepts and skills whilst enabling each to develop their unique strengths and to realise their passions in how they make a difference to coaches and the coaching profession.
We are dedicated to one thing and one thing only: Creating exceptional coaching supervisors.
Founded by Nick Bolton, the International Centre for Coaching Supervision (ICCS) is a sister school to the world renown Animas Centre for Coaching.
Nick established ICCS to meet what he feels is a pressing need to develop coaching supervisors across the world through accessible, high-quality training using the latest in virtual learning.
Our mission at ICCS is to open up coaching supervision training for coaches all around the world.
We embody a truly integrative approach to coaching supervision and to the learning process believing that there is never just one way and that, as coaches, we are always integrating what we learn with who we are, how we practise and what we already know.
Our aim is to facilitate participants through the new concepts and skills whilst enabling each to develop their unique strengths and to realise their passions in how they make a difference to coaches and the coaching profession.
We believe that supervision is critical to the wellbeing, effectiveness and professionalism of coaches the world over.
Supervision is an increasingly valued and, in some cases, expected approach to developmental support within coaching that sits alongside training and mentoring.
Yet it is still largely confined to particular coaching populations, primarily in the UK and parts of Europe, with the vast majority of qualifying supervisors coming from these locations.
We are proud to be part of the movement that is creating the slow but steady adoption of coaching supervision beyond these narrow confines. Outside of the UK, we have alumni in New Zealand, China, Japan, the US, Indonesia, Finland, Kenya, Singapore, Turkey, Hungary, Vietnam and more.
Yet we believe there is more for us to do.
It is not enough to have just one or two coaching supervisors per country as we see in some coaching communities. We want coaches all across the world to be supported, challenged and enriched by a diverse set of coaching supervisors, both locally and remotely.
Our vision is for every country in which coaching has a serious presence to be served by a vibrant supervision community and for coaches to understand the power of supervision in helping their growth and development.
This means that not only are we seeking to develop supervisors across the world, but we are also looking to be part of the education and advocacy process for supervision in the profession as a whole.
We want to see chapters of the ICCS in every country connected through our powerful community yet also establishing support groups to make a local impact.
We also want to ensure that major coaching projects and internal coaching teams build supervision into their approach from day one to ensure the integrity of coaching and the wellbeing of their coaches.
We seek to work both with global leaders in coaching and with individual coaches to expand and promote the use of supervision internationally throughout the profession.
In 2020, as the world was gripped by the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, something new was born—a vision that had been years in the making finally found its moment to come to life.
The International Centre for Coaching Supervision (ICCS) was launched as a virtual school, but its roots ran deep into the fertile ground of coaching practice.
For Nick Bolton, the founder and CEO of Animas Centre for Coaching and now ICCS, the journey had been long, driven by a passion for coaching supervision that he could never quite set aside.
Nick’s journey into the world of coaching began in the early 2000s and by 2008, he had founded Animas Centre for Coaching, a school that quickly gained a reputation for excellence in coach training.
Over the years, Nick mentored and supervised hundreds of new coaches, guiding them as they honed their craft. It was through this experience that he came to a powerful realisation—coaching supervision wasn’t just beneficial; it was essential. The role of a coaching supervisor is not just to oversee; it’s to support, to challenge, and to help coaches develop their practice in ways that are ethically sound, effective, and deeply reflective.
This understanding led Nick to introduce accredited courses in coaching supervision in 2016 as part of Animas. These courses were a success, but something was missing. The world of coaching supervision training was, at that time, bound by geography—only available to those who could attend in person at select locations. For many coaches around the world, the opportunity to become an accredited coaching supervisor remained an elusive dream.
Nick wanted to change that. He envisioned a global community of coaching supervisors—a melting pot of skills, cultures, and practices. But it wasn’t until 2020, with the advent of technology like Zoom, that the possibility of making this vision a reality truly emerged. The world had changed, and so had the way we could connect, learn, and grow together.
The International Centre for Coaching Supervision was set up to make coaching supervision training accessible to coaches all over the world.
From Australia to Belgium, China to Kenya, ICCS has trained supervisors in over 20 countries, bringing a fresh, vibrant international practice to the profession. Nick recalls with pride when he learned that ICCS had trained only the second coaching supervisor in the whole of East Africa—moments like this reinforce the importance of the work being done.
ICCS stands as a beacon for those who believe in the power of coaching supervision. It’s a place where coaches from around the globe can come together, not just to learn new skills, but to integrate those skills with their own unique strengths and passions.
At ICCS, the belief is that there is never just one way—coaches are always learning, always evolving, and always bringing something of themselves to their practice.
Nick Bolton’s vision for ICCS is simple yet profound: to create exceptional coaching supervisors who are equipped to make a difference, not just in their own practice, but in the lives of the coaches they support and the profession as a whole.
This is a mission that resonates across borders, cultures, and practices—a mission that is, at its heart, about making coaching supervision accessible, inclusive, and impactful.
The integrative approach for us means two things. It means what we learn and how we learn.
As adult learners we are always integrating. We integrate what we’re learning with who we are, what we already know and how we’re experiencing the new learning in practice.
We believe that this reality is often forgotten even in the most progressive schools where slide decks and didactic presentations are relied upon.
Our approach is genuinely integrative. We based our course on dialogue and exploration rather than teaching. We want you to make sense of supervision your way and to construct what it means to you and how you practise it.
But this course is also integrative in that we aim to create conversations and experimentation around multiple lenses for working.
As a coaching supervisor, you will work with coaches from diverse schools of thought and professional contexts. Having both the understanding of their way of working and the adaptability for share the lens with them whether that’s existential, systemic, gestalt, positive psychology or something different, will enable you to be a truly responsive and flexible supervisor.
Our aim is to help you integrate both multiple schools of thought and practice into your work and, at the same time, to integrate supervision into you as a person and a professional helper.
We are raving fans of the virtual way of learning! We believe in its power to connect people across boundaries, time-zones, cultures and localised practices.
For too long, training courses have been the preserve of those who have the finances, time and, often, permission to spend multiple days on an in-person course.
Yes, learning and skills should know no boundaries. Technology now allows us to create virtual learning experiences that nearly perfectly match, and often exceed, the in-person experience. The days of virtual learning being on-way information transmission with little to no interaction are long gone.
The virtual experience at the International Centre for Coaching Supervision offers untold benefits to learners, from broadening the cohort of coaches in training from mainly local participants to a truly global melting pot through to the more obvious benefits of not needing to travel or stay away from home and work.
But there are so many more advantages!
Learning sessions are shorter allowing a greater focus on a few key themes explored in depth. Sessions finish early meaning you still have a large part of your day to engage in other work or just to kick back and relax! Styles of learning can be more clearly differentiated enabling greater focus on discussion, practice, presentation or analysis without the fading energy of a long day stuck in a classroom.
For us virtual is not the future. It is the now! And whilst we still value the power of in-person courses, as a school we have chosen to fully embrace the possibilities offered by the new ways of learning.
We are raving fans of the virtual way of learning! We believe in its power to connect people across boundaries, time-zones, cultures and localised practices.
For too long, training courses have been the preserve of those who have the finances, time and, often, permission to spend multiple days on an in-person course.
Yes, learning and skills should know no boundaries. Technology now allows us to create virtual learning experiences that nearly perfectly match, and often exceed, the in-person experience. The days of virtual learning being on-way information transmission with little to no interaction are long gone.
The virtual experience at the International Centre for Coaching Supervision offers untold benefits to learners, from broadening the cohort of coaches in training from mainly local participants to a truly global melting pot through to the more obvious benefits of not needing to travel or stay away from home and work.
But there are so many more advantages!
Learning sessions are shorter allowing a greater focus on a few key themes explored in depth. Sessions finish early meaning you still have a large part of your day to engage in other work or just to kick back and relax! Styles of learning can be more clearly differentiated enabling greater focus on discussion, practice, presentation or analysis without the fading energy of a long day stuck in a classroom.
For us virtual is not the future. It is the now! And whilst we still value the power of in-person courses, as a school we have chosen to fully embrace the possibilities offered by the new ways of learning.
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