ICF Core Competency Course
Eight competency modules plus the ICF Code of Ethics. Built around the ICF Core Competencies.
ICF approved this course as a Continuing Coach Education (CCE) program on September 25, 2026. It carries 10 CCE hours, all in the Core Competency category. Included with the Complete Plan. Finish every lesson and pass every quiz to earn them.
Sign up to see the full course, C2 through C8 plus the Code of Ethics, all free to browse.
Sign up to see the full courseWhat this program is
CredentialPrep's Core Course is self-paced continuing education built around the eight ICF Core Competencies. Each module is a set of short lessons, one per ICF sub-behavior, teaching what the sub-behavior looks like in a real coaching session, the language a coach uses to show it, and the mistakes that look right but aren't. It's built for coaches who've already completed foundational training and want to sharpen competency-level judgment, not learn to coach for the first time.
What you can do after each module
Every module ends with the participant able to do something specific in a real coaching scenario, not just recall a definition.
- Tell the difference between coaching, consulting, and therapy in a specific scenario, and know when to refer a client elsewhere.
- Identify which ICF Code of Ethics obligation applies when confidentiality, conflict of interest, or scope is in question.
- Recognize language and behavior that shows real integrity and respect for who the client is, not just good intentions.
- Recognize when a coach's response reflects an agenda, an assumption, or an urge to fix, rather than genuine curiosity.
- Select the response that treats the client as capable of running their own life, even when a mistake looks obvious.
- Identify what it looks like for a coach to prepare for a session and regulate their own emotions so their state doesn't leak into the work.
- Identify whether an exchange is establishing or reconfirming a session agreement, and catch when it defaults to advice instead.
- Tell the difference between goals the client owns and goals a stakeholder set for them.
- Recognize what success for a session looks like when it's defined with the client, not assumed by the coach.
- Select the response that acknowledges and supports what the client is feeling, without minimizing it or rushing past it.
- Recognize when a coach is adapting to the client's world instead of imposing their own frame on it.
- Identify what real openness and transparency from a coach looks like, not warmth as a performance.
- Recognize when silence is doing work for the client's thinking, and choose to hold it instead of filling it.
- Tell the difference between a coach staying present with strong emotion and a coach managing their own discomfort.
- Spot genuine curiosity in a coach's question versus a question that's really a lead-in to the coach's own idea.
- Identify cross-session patterns and themes in what a client says and does.
- Distinguish reflecting the client's own meaning back to them from importing the coach's interpretation.
- Recognize when a coach is picking up on tone, energy, or what's unsaid, not just the words on the page.
- Choose the response that invites the client to make their own meaning of a pattern or insight.
- Recognize when a question opens new thinking versus one that's steering the client toward the coach's answer.
- Identify a challenge that serves the client's awareness, not the coach's point to prove.
- Select the response that partners with the client to design actions and accountability they own.
- Distinguish a coach supporting the client's autonomy in a plan from a coach prescribing the next step.
- Recognize what it looks like to help a client think through resources, support, and likely barriers before committing to an action.
- Locate the specific Code of Ethics section that governs a given scenario.
- Apply the Code in plain English, not the source document's legal phrasing, to a real coaching situation.
How learning gets verified
Each competency module ends with a graded quiz, and a participant needs 80% to move on. Every lesson also enforces a minimum amount of time on each slide and requires every slide to be viewed, so clicking through fast doesn't count as finishing it. Finishing all 69 lessons across all nine modules and passing every module quiz, in the timed version on the Complete Plan, is what earns the 10 CCE hours. Your certificate is emailed to you the moment you finish, and you can download it any time from your account.
Who this is for
Coaches preparing for the ICF credentialing exam, or coaches at any credential level who are renewing and need continuing education hours. The Course is built around the ICF Core Competencies themselves, not general business or personal-development topics that happen to carry CE credit elsewhere.
Time and CCE hours
ICF has approved this Course as a Continuing Coach Education program for 10 CCE hours, all in the Core Competency category, included with the Complete Plan. Pick the timed version at the start of the course: finish every lesson and pass all nine module quizzes in that mode, and those 10 hours count toward your renewal. Study mode does not earn CCE hours.
Your certificate is emailed to you the moment you finish, and you can download it any time from your account. The Exam Prep plan includes full access to the course itself, just not the CCE hours or certificate.
Who built this
Danny Ghitis is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), and he designed and built every lesson in this course himself. He submitted his MCC performance evaluation recordings in April 2026 and is continuing to work toward his MCC. He is also in an MCS program, becoming a mentor coach himself. Before coaching, he spent over a decade as a photojournalist, most of it shooting for The New York Times, which is where he first learned to watch closely for what a person does, not just what they say they're doing.
How to enroll
All nine modules are included with the Exam Prep plan and the Complete Plan. The 10 CCE hours are on the Complete Plan only. Sign up free to try Module 1, then upgrade when you're ready for the rest. See pricing →