Nurse coaching is a professional, purposeful, results-oriented, and structured client interaction that Registered Nurses provide to promote the achievement of client goals.
Nurse coaches promote and facilitate the whole person’s growth, healing, and wellbeing by using coaching principles and healing modalities that integrate
body-mind-emotion-spirit-environment. Nurse coaches are required to have several years of nursing education and experience as a foundation for developing their coaching skills.
Nurse coaches integrate coaching competencies into any setting and specialty area of nursing practice to facilitate a process of change or development that assists individuals and groups in actualizing their potential.
Nurse coaches work with the whole person using principles and modalities that integrate body-mind-emotion-spirit-environment to promote health, wellness, and wellbeing. At the same time, they facilitate their clients’ growth and healing. Nurse coaches are supportive and encouraging, building on the client’s strengths rather than attempting to correct weaknesses. Nurse coaches provide guidance and resources to the client who is the expert on their own needs and choices.
Some nurse coaches work in private practice; some collaborate with other health professionals in a group practice, and others are employees. According to surveys, nurse coaches can earn similar or more income than those working in hospitals. Contact Nurse Coach Collective to get nurse coaching guidance.
Nurse Coaching Certification
Aware of the need to empower the health and wellness aspects of nursing practice, the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation (AHNCC) developed the Nurse Coach (NC-BC) and Health and Wellness Nurse Coach (HWNC-BC) certifications in 2012. The American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation (AHNCC) provides the only nationally accredited holistic nurse certification and nurse coaching certification credentials in the USA. Since the AHNCC established the nurse coach certification process, there has been a surge of interest in nurse coaching.
The AHNCC’s Nurse Coach (NC-BC) and Health and Wellness Nurse Coach (HWNC-BC) certifications use the same examination. The difference between the two certifications is:
- Nurses who also hold one of the holistic nurse certification are awarded the Health and Wellness Nurse Coach (HWNC-BC) credential
- Nurses who do not hold a holistic nursing certification are awarded the Nurse Coach (NC-BC) credential
Reasons for seeking holistic nurse Certification are:
- Establishes minimum competency standards for the nurse coach practice
- Assures the public that the nurse coach has completed all eligibility requirements
- Recognizes nurses who have met peer-reviewed professional standards
- Provides the certified nurse coach with a network of colleagues
- Validates the knowledge and skills necessary for practice as a nurse coach
- Establishes credible identity with consumers, employers, colleagues, and surveyors
- Encourages continued personal and professional growth consistent with nurse coaching
- Provides a certificate and validation that documents knowledge and competence in nurse coaching
With a board-certified nurse coach credential (as compared to a plain couch or health coach credential), nurses clearly identify themselves as registered nurses. They are recognized as nurse specialists by many programs that are working to integrate holistic and complementary approaches into mainstream healthcare, such as the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet and Pathways to Excellence programs in hospitals.
