The European Coaching and Mentoring Council has drawn up new guidelines on supervision for coaches and mentors.

Supervision is one of the requirements of the EMCC's membership's code of ethics.

Julie Hay, a founding member of the EMCC and an internationally accredited supervisor, drew up the guidelines on behalf of the EMCC Standards Committee.

She said that the guidelines were in response to requests by the Council's members.

Unlike supervision in industry, which emphasises control and oversight by a 'boss', coaching and mentoring supervision is aimed to be developmental and is designed to prompt the coach or mentor to review their own work.

Julie said: "This is to ensure their (coaches and mentors) work is professional and ethical, serves as continuous professional development in helping them further develop their skills, and provides support in what can at times be a challenging occupation."

She added: "What we have done here that's truly ground-breaking is to stress - for the first time - to coaches and mentors who don't yet have experience of supervision, that this is a really valuable process for both themselves and their clients, and to encourage them to get started."

The new guidelines can be viewed at the EMCC website.