Certification as a Compassionate Inquiry® Practitioner

The requirements, payment and application for certification as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner must be received within one year of the completion date of the Mentorship Program that the applicant participated in – this would be either Feb 15 or Aug 15 annually.

For the August Mentorship Program:

• Program Ends: February 15th of the following year
• Application for certification must be completed within one year of the last day of the Mentorship Program, i.e. by Feb 15 the next year
• If the mentee accepted and paid for the 6-month extension, then program completion requirements are due August 15; but application for certification would be due by Feb 15 of the following year.

For the February Mentorship Program:

• Program Ends: August 15th of the same year
• Application for certification must be completed within one year, by August 15 the next year
• If the mentee accepted and paid for the 6-month extension, then program requirements are due February 15; but application for certification would be due by August 15 of the same year.

Certification as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner:

To apply for certification as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner, the candidate must:

1. Receive a certificate of completion for the Professional Online Training
2. Complete at least one 6-month block of the Mentorship Program
3. Be advised that they are ready to apply for certification by their designated personal mentor
4. You are required to have 50 hours of clinical practice during the Mentorship Program and another 50 hours before applying for a Certification Review, totalling 100 hours. 
5. You are required to see at least 10 different clients to make up the clinical practice hours during the Mentorship Program; and 10 new clients for the clinical practice hours required before the Certification Review, totalling 20 different clients.
6. Pay a certification fee of $280 CAD and you will be directed to fill out the certification form. This is required within a one year period of the completion date of the Mentorship Program, once your Personal or Private Mentor has said that you are ready.
7. Complete 10 case study forms for clients seen during the extra 50 hours of clinical practice required for certification
8. Submit one video (20 – 50 minutes) to the Certification Team for review. The video must be in Gallery View and the client must be someone who has not participated in the Compassionate Inquiry training
9. Submit liability insurance

To document your submission requirements, please use the Compassionate Inquiry Certification Clinical Hours Tracking Sheet and the following Case Study Template:

This page lists approved Compassionate Inquiry Private Mentors, whom you may contact for individual or group mentoring for additional mentoring sessions. They can provide guidance and feedback whether you are in the Professional Training, are preparing for a Certification Review, or for the mentoring or supervision sessions required during your first two years of practice as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner. Please discuss the rate for mentoring directly with your chosen mentor.

You are invited to apply for certification once you have completed the Mentorship Program and submitted all the requirements for mentorship completion, as well as the requirements for certification. In addition you must receive the approval of your Personal Mentor to pursue certification. The time frame for applying for a Certification Review must be within one year of the completion date of the Mentorship Program you attended.

There are a number of requirements in place for submitting your certification application including:

1. A certificate of completion for the Professional Online Training
2. The completion of at least one 6-month block of the Mentorship Program
3. You have been advised that you are ready to apply for certification by your designated Personal Mentor
4. You are required to have 50 hours of clinical practice during the Mentorship Program and another 50 hours before applying for a Certification Review, totalling 100 hours. You are required to see at least 10 different clients to make up the clinical practice hours during the Mentorship Program; and 10 new clients for the clinical practice hours required before the Certification Review, totalling 20 different clients.
5. Apply for certification within a one-year period after the end date of the Mentorship Program
6. Completion of 10 case study forms for clients seen during the extra 50 hours of clinical practice are required for certification 
7. Submission of one video (up to 50 minutes – Please write exactly how many minutes your video is.) to the Certification Team for review. The video must be in Gallery View and the client must be someone who has not participated in the Compassionate Inquiry training
8. Submission of Professional Liability Insurance that covers Compassionate Inquiry, unless it is unavailable in your country.
9. Be registered with a professional regulatory body that includes counselling within its scope of practice and that provides you with a membership number and a Code of Ethics to abide by.
10. Be legally able to practice Compassionate Inquiry within your professional scope of practice and within your jurisdiction.
11. Payment of a certification fee of $280 CAD

What can I do if I am not certified based on the video I submitted?

If the video you submitted was not certified, then you have a three-month window from your one-year initial certification deadline to submit up to two more videos for a Certification Review. For each of these, you would need to pay the $280 review fee. After the three-month window for submitting a second or third video, if you have not been certified, you would need to repeat the Mentorship Program.

Once you have completed all of the requirements for the Mentorship Program and have received the approval from your Personal Mentor to proceed with a certification submission, you will receive a letter from our Mentorship Coordinator and a certificate of completion for the Mentorship Program, along with instructions on how to apply for a certification review. This letter will outline the next steps in the process which includes a link to enter your submissions for certification (i.e. insurance, video for review) and a link to pay your certification fee).

Over the course of the mentorship program, 8 of your videos are reviewed by your personal or group mentors. Your Personal Mentor acts as your first and last reviewer, who will guide and assess your competency in Compassionate Inquiry. In your final personal mentoring session, your Personal Mentor will let you know if you are ready to apply for certification. If they suggest that you are ready, your certification reviewer acts as your second reviewer who assesses your skills and competency as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner. Your certification reviewer is NOT one of your personal or group mentors and is not influenced by their views.

The Certification Review Team determine if someone is ready to certify when the applicant demonstrates proficiency in the Compassionate Inquiry competencies found in the Compassionate Inquiry Competency Form and Compassionate Inquiry Map as well as determining if the applicant is:

1. Competent
2. Attuned
3. Confident
4. Present
5. Spontaneous, rather than adhering to rigid guidelines or a formula
6. Proficient in embodying and applying the Compassionate Inquiry Qualities, Skills and Stepping Stones

There is also criteria used to exclude certification which includes:

1. Did the participant have an agenda during the session, so was not attuned to the client in the present moment?
2. Did the participant repeatedly miss important cues?
3. Did the participant miss picking up on the client’s discomfort?
4. Was the participant unable to process their own triggers internally, preventing them from being fully present with the client?
5. You would not recommend this participant to someone you know to receive therapy.

If the certification team agrees that the candidate is certifiable and skilled in the Compassionate Inquiry competencies, they will be certified as a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner and will be invited to submit a bio and headshot to be added to the Practitioner Directory on the Compassionate Inquiry website.

In the event that the second reviewer is inconclusive of your competency, a third reviewer is invited to review your submission. We have found our review process to be very robust and thus far demonstrates 100% consistency among reviewers.

Once you have submitted the required forms and final video for review, the Certification Coordinator will assign a reviewer to your submission. The reviewer will take up to 30 days to complete your review. Once the review is complete, you will receive a notice regarding your results.

Your submission may have been rejected if one of the certification requirements listed above was missing or incomplete, or if your video was not in gallery view or if your client was someone within Compassionate Inquiry.

In the event that your submission is not approved for certification, the reviewer will make recommendations to you for areas of improvement and will require you to have a certain number of additional personal mentoring sessions with a mentor of your choice. You will have 1 year and three months from the last day of your Mentorship Program to submit up to 2 more videos for a Certification Review. Request your Personal Mentor or Private Mentor to let you know when you are ready to re-apply.

There are no extensions granted for the certification process. Participants who complete the Mentorship Program have one year to apply for certification after the last day of the program. If you are unable to apply for certification in that time frame, you must re-take the Mentorship Program.  

There is currently no financial aid for the certification process. 

Although your Personal Mentor may suggest that you are ready to apply for certification or that a video could be certified, we require a second opinion from a Certification Reviewer to approve your readiness for certification. Your Personal Mentor has invested in you and guided you for five months and may have a positive bias toward your work. Sometimes there are discrepancies between the assessment of the Personal Mentor and the Certification Reviewer. Mentorship is not a guarantee of certification; it is a step towards certification.

The Mentorship Program is a process to preserve the quality and integrity of the CI approach and prepares you to apply for certification as a CI Practitioner. There is no guarantee that you will be ready to apply for certification at the end of the Mentorship Program. It may take additional mentoring sessions or another round of the Mentorship Program for you to be prepared for certification.

Recertification is required every 2 years. Please find more details on recertification here.