Navigating a complex landscape: duty of care for dual-qualified coaches
Coaching Today, April 2026

Duty of care’ as a concept sits differently in therapy and coaching, yet it touches the heart of both professions. In therapy, it is bound to safeguarding, risk management and protection, embedded in ethical codes and daily practice. In coaching, it is more ambiguous, guided by contracts, codes of ethics and the coach’s professional judgment. For dual-qualified practitioners, the space between these frameworks can feel complex and, at times, uncomfortable.

How do we navigate the tension between the instinct to protect and the coaching mandate to facilitate growth? And how do we define, together with our clients, what ‘responsible care’ looks like in each coaching relationship? In this article, we explore these questions together, reflecting on research, supervision and lived experience to illuminate the nuances of duty of care for coaches who carry multiple professional identities. 

Trish Turner (TT): Defining duty of care in therapy and coaching 

In therapy, duty of care is closely bound to notions of assessing, understanding and monitoring clinical risk, safeguarding and protection. Therapists routinely hold key information such as a client’s GP or next-of-kin, and they work within clear frameworks for what to do if a client’s wellbeing deteriorates. This infrastructure of care is assumed, part of the ethical scaffolding that supports therapy work. 

In coaching, the landscape looks different. A coach may not have a client’s personal contact details beyond a work email or mobile number. There is no expectation to hold emergency information or to respond outside the agreed boundaries of the coaching relationship. The assumption is that clients are functioning, autonomous adults who can access support if needed. 

For coaching-focused therapists, therapeutic duty of care takes precedence when therapy and coaching are delivered to the same client.¹ However, I am particularly interested in how this disparity manifests for dual-qualified coaches working within a coaching-only contract. For those practising separately as professional coaches, the contrast can be unsettling. 

There is a legal duty of care in workplaces and healthcare, which is a fairly standard human (and organisational) responsibility to take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable harm to others. Then there are the ethical codes of practice, which might expand on that expectation regarding harm. Although most therapists are not legally regarded as ‘healthcare providers’, BACP’s Ethical Framework talks about ‘alleviating symptoms of personal distress and suffering’ and ‘enhancing people’s wellbeing and capabilities.’ (p.8).² The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and Association for Coaching (AC) Global Code of Ethics does not refer to wellbeing, distress or suffering, beyond the expected guidelines of safeguarding children and/or vulnerable adults.³ 

Ethically, the duty of care for coaches may seem clear: competence, contracting, supervision. Yet the human responsibility often feels more complex. When a client shows distress, where does the coach’s legal and ethical duty end, and the human one begin? For those coaches who are also therapists, does that deeper ethical responsibility remain present, even when the work is framed as coaching? And if so, how do we navigate the space where professional codes, human concern and contractual boundaries do not quite align? What, in practice, do we mean by duty of care as dual-qualified practitioners? 

Benita Mayhead (BM): The importance of ethical frameworks 

Indeed, in the legal sense, duty of care may seem clearer, and interrogation of literature does give confidence that largely, legal principles that form the foundation of negligence are generally consistent across most common law jurisdictions.^4,5 But coaches have a responsibility to understand for themselves what applies to them legally, and they have a responsibility to work accordingly within the law. 

Duty of care encompasses both the legal and the ethical dimensions in a coach’s practice, and it forms part of the ethical framework of conduct. It is a legal obligation requiring the coach’s adherence to a standard of reasonable care. We don’t have specific laws related to coaching, but coaches are required to adhere to the general law of civil liability, the common law of tort.^4,6 

We can focus purely on the law, yet as Bond reminds us, duty of care is rarely clearly defined.⁷ As you say, we have codes of ethics such as the Global Code of Ethics signed by multiple coaching bodies across the world,³ and the International Coaching Federation (ICF) have their own code of ethics.⁸ But the law and codes of ethics give us just some of the scaffolding needed in practice. 

The rest of the scaffolding needs to be built by the coach, and their supervisor can play an integral part in this. In practice, it’s for the coach to navigate the complexity of the enactment of their duty of care, for them to explore and understand how they demonstrate it. As an example, earlier, you raised the point of the coach not necessarily having their client’s personal contact details. From my experience as a coaching supervisor, there has been more than one occasion when the coach has needed to break confidentiality, as they have been concerned about their client’s wellbeing. This brings to the fore the need for coaches – not just dual-qualified coaches – to have escalation procedures in place. It’s not until it’s needed, that it’s needed. This is just one example of how a coach can introduce processes to assist them, and their clients. 

Alongside introducing process, being aware of, and familiar with, codes of ethics, having contracts or agreements for assignments in place and engaging in regular supervision, it is for the coach to understand their own level of capability, their standard, and to recognise when they are at a boundary. Most often, it is just the coach and the client in the coaching space together, and the coach has a duty to recognise when they are at the boundary of their practice and navigate accordingly. Is this clearer for dual-qualified practitioners, I wonder? 

TT: How duty of care is interpreted in dual-qualified coaching practice 

Supervisors often joke that it all comes down to the contract – what does it say about our duty of care in the contract we agree with our clients? But I also think identity plays a part here. I have spoken to participants on my Therapist to Coach course who feel that their therapeutic duty of care extends beyond the boundaries of a coaching agreement. For them, it is part of their ethical DNA, not a role-dependent responsibility. But if that is true, what happens to the boundaries of coaching? Can a coach who is also a therapist ever truly leave that part of themselves outside the room – and should they? 

Dual-qualified coaches might be better equipped to manage a situation where a coaching client is showing signs of emotional distress, intrusive suicidal thoughts and the impact of trauma. But equally, they may then find themselves making assumptions, going beyond what is needed. The presence of therapeutic competence can blur the line between what is possible and what is appropriate. The instinct to alleviate suffering can quietly expand the scope of the work, shifting the focus from performance or development to repair or recovery. 

As a supervisor, I have seen how this can lead to an unspoken broadening of duty of care – not because the client has asked for it, but because the coach’s professional identity compels it. Yet, in doing so, we risk over-functioning for the client or stepping into a therapeutic dynamic that neither the contract nor the client’s goals have invited. This raises an uncomfortable question: when does care become over-care, and when does ethical responsibility slip into ethical overreach? 

Perhaps this is where our understanding of duty of care in coaching needs to evolve – beyond the contract, yet still recognisable within the boundaries of coaching itself. 

BM: What this means in practice 

My research shows that coaches draw on their lived experience when making sense of what duty of care means in their roles.⁹ You highlight this in relation to dual-qualified practitioners. I have also found that coaches from regulated professions, such as law or clinical practice, interpret duty of care through the lens of their prior training and professional experience, as well as the law.⁹ Those without regulated backgrounds also draw on lived experience and legal understanding, but their interpretations are shaped more by personal values, beliefs and role models. Notably, practitioners across all groups did not identify their coach training as influential in shaping their understanding of duty of care, suggesting a significant gap in coach education provision. 

The question of when care becomes over-care applies to all of us, not just those of us from clinical backgrounds. My research shows that coaches can experience tension, guilt, worry and a sense of burden in their work.⁴ We work in a helping profession, and coaching has become recognised as a way of helping others. Caring for others, and feeling cared for ourselves, are acts of renewal. When these moments of renewal outweigh moments of stress, wellbeing can improve.¹⁰ Our task as coaches is to notice when helping becomes excessive, and to recognise when we may be moving into the rescuer role. 

Our duty of care is not just an expectation but a legal responsibility, and a breach could result in liability. Practitioners must work within their agreed scope and to a reasonable standard, which brings us back to your point, Trish, about the contract and what has been contracted for. This is a complex area that demands close attention. 

There is the formal agreement outlining practicalities such as timeframe, fees, payment terms, location and duration. Alongside this sit the less explicit agreements between client, coach, and, where relevant, the organisation, covering areas such as confidentiality and feedback. Finally, there is the unspoken psychological contract, which often becomes visible only when it is breached. Exploring these implicit expectations can bring greater clarity to the coaching relationship.¹¹ Perhaps this offers a bridge across the areas you raise? 

TT: ‘An echo from a different room’ 

You’ve captured that beautifully, Benita. I think what your research highlights so powerfully is how those of us with prior professional training bring an internalised sense of duty that can be hard to switch off. For dual-qualified practitioners, it’s often less about misunderstanding the boundary and more about managing the reflex to step in. The therapeutic part of us is trained to anticipate and protect, while the coaching stance calls for trust in the client’s resourcefulness. 

I have worked with dual-qualified supervisees who, when coaching clients that are in distress, have instinctively begun to formulate a risk plan. Though nothing in the sessions warranted that level of intervention, later, in supervision, they have recognised it as a reflex, an ‘echo from a different room’ – a professional muscle memory from their therapeutic background. 

I agree, the gap in coach education around duty of care is striking. For those of us who have worked within regulated professions, we can make our implicit reasoning visible and share how we calibrate ‘enough care’ in a coaching context. 

And perhaps this is also where a pluralistic, adult-to-adult approach becomes vital, one that sees duty of care not as something we hold for the client, but as a shared exploration with the client. Together, we can define what care and responsibility mean within the specific coaching relationship and agree on how those principles are enacted in practice. 

As you say, the contract gives structure, but how we live inside that contract is where our professional histories – and our collaborative ethics – really show. 

Our concluding thoughts 

What emerges from this conversation is that duty of care in coaching is neither fixed nor formulaic. For dual-qualified practitioners, it is a dynamic negotiation between prior professional experience, ethical frameworks, contractual agreements and human responsibility. It is also a collaborative process, worked out in dialogue with clients and supported through supervision. By recognising when our professional instincts may extend beyond the coaching frame, and by engaging clients in a shared understanding of care, we can move towards creating a coaching space that is both safe and empowering. Perhaps the real skill lies not only in knowing the boundaries, but in navigating them consciously, pluralistically, and with integrity – turning duty of care from a static expectation into a lived, relational practice.