How To Become a Divorce Coach | Certification

Divorce coaches guide their clients through the emotional, financial and legal turmoil of divorce without providing legal advice. Getting a divorce coach certification is optional but lends you additional credibility.

How to become a divorce coach

A divorce coach is a type of life coach who provides guidance and advice to people who are considering divorce and those in the divorce process.

There are no set requirements for becoming a divorce coach — you don't even need to become a family lawyer. Certification isn't required, but you'll want to make sure you have the basic tools to fulfill the role.

As a divorce coach you must:

• Listen to your client with empathy.
• Offer your honest opinions about your client's situation.
• Teach your client how to emotionally protect their children during divorce.
• Set your client's focus on what is most important.
• Help your client set goals and make decisions.
• Help your client prepare paperwork, understand the divorce process, and more.

Divorce coaches cannot give legal advice nor should they act as therapists. To avoid overstepping boundaries and perform your role properly, it's highly recommended that you go through divorce coach training before offering services.

Many divorce coaches have gone through divorce themselves, and some have served in related roles, e.g., as a lawyer.

If you're interested in becoming a divorce coach, you might also consider a career as a divorce mediator. Whereas divorce coaches usually work with only one of the spouses involved, mediators work with both spouses.

Divorce coach certification

Divorce coach certification lends credibility to your practice.

You can earn a certification through one of the many online courses. Some programs only allow lawyers, mental health professionals and trained life coaches to enroll.

In a thorough training, you'll gain the knowledge necessary to become a skilled divorce coach, including:

• How to structure sessions with your clients
• Best practices
• Stress-relief techniques to help your client
• How to manage high-conflict and other special cases
• How to build your business

Some courses assign you a mentor to work with and allow you to practice divorce coaching with your peers.

When choosing a program, consider how much time and money you want to spend. You can get certified within a few weeks, while other courses require several months. Courses are either self-paced or on a set schedule. Costs range from $1,000 to $5,000.

Once you become a certified divorce coach, you can enroll in other training programs such as collaborative divorce training which may expand your client base.

Divorce coach salary

Salaries vary based on location, experience and the number of clients you have. Most coaches charge at least $100 an hour. Many successful divorce coaches report making more than $50,000 a year.

High-conflict divorce coach

High-conflict divorces require special attention and care. The high-conflict label can apply to a wide range of relationships, from ones where communicating civilly is a challenge to ones involving domestic abuse.

The role of a high-conflict divorce coach is to help the client navigate their divorce safely. They help clients find ways to communicate with their spouse without jeopardizing their safety. Building confidence and reducing fear are also big parts of the role.

If you enter a divorce coach certification program, you may choose to specialize in high-conflict divorce. Even if you don't brand yourself as a high-conflict divorce coach, be prepare to work with high-conflict cases.

Working with child custody as a divorce coach

When your clients have children under 18, your work as a divorce coach will take on extra complexity.

Many divorce coaches use the Custody X Change online app to keep track of a client's parenting situation and help them plan for the future.

With Custody X Change, divorce coaches can:

• Build thorough parenting plans free of loopholes

  

• Create complete custody schedules in minutes

• Calculate parenting time precisely

  

• Read messages between parents
• Guide clients as they journal, log expenses and track parenting time
• And much more

Custody X Change makes your job as a divorce coach easier and your clients happier.