For hiring managers and program leaders
Hiring for grief and bereavement roles
There is no license to check. Here is what regulation requires, what board certification verifies, and language you can put straight into a posting.
If you are staffing a bereavement program, creating an aftercare role, contracting grief support for your employees, or adding a non-clinical affiliate to a provider network, you face the same problem: there is no license to check.
This page sets out what regulation requires, what board certification verifies, and language you can put straight into a posting or a vendor requirement.
Deciding who to refer someone to rather than who to hire? See referral criteria.
The problem
What you are actually deciding
There is no license for grief coaching. Anyone can use the title, with any amount of training or none, and no state board reviews who claims it. When you hire or contract for grief support, you are making a qualification judgment that no licensing body has made for you.
Every other role in your organization comes with a check. A nurse has a license. A social worker has a license. A chaplain has board certification through a chaplaincy body. You can verify all of it in minutes.
Grief and bereavement roles have no equivalent. A candidate arrives holding a certificate from a program you have never heard of, and there is no way to evaluate what that program required, whether anyone independent assessed the person, whether they understand where their scope ends, or what happens if something goes wrong with a family you sent them.
The certificate tells you a course was completed. It does not tell you the course was adequate, or that the person absorbed it.
Most hiring managers respond by falling back on a clinical license, which narrows the pool to people the role does not require and the budget may not support. Others hire on instinct. Neither is a defensible criterion if the decision is ever questioned.
The rules
What is required, and what is left to you
Requirements vary sharply by sector. One has a federal regulation, several have authoritative guidance, and most have nothing at all. In every case the qualification judgment is yours.
Where regulation requires the service. Under the Medicare Conditions of Participation at 42 CFR 418.64(d)(1), a hospice must have an organized bereavement program furnished under the supervision of a qualified professional with experience or education in grief or loss counseling, available up to one year following the death of the patient, with a written bereavement plan of care.
Read that closely. It requires a qualified professional with experience or education in grief or loss counseling. It does not define qualified, name a degree, or name a license. That is deliberate: in the same section, medical social services must be provided by a qualified social worker, and nursing care by or under the supervision of a registered nurse. The regulation names a license precisely where it wants one.
Worth noting alongside it: bereavement services are required and are not separately reimbursed. In most programs the full year of follow-up falls to one coordinator carrying it alongside everything else, which is why the qualification question and the capacity question usually arrive together.
Where authoritative guidance exists but names no qualification. Schools and workplaces have both. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center publish a postvention toolkit for schools setting out a coordinated response after a student dies by suicide, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention publishes a workplace postvention toolkit for organizational leaders and human resources professionals. Both describe in detail what the response should involve. Neither states who is qualified to deliver it.
Where nothing requires the service and organizations provide it anyway. Funeral homes, senior living operators, veterinary practices, faith communities, and community organizations mostly operate with no regulatory obligation to provide grief support at all. Many do it because families need it, staff carry it, or a loss has already forced the question.
Where nothing forces your hand, staffing grief support is a quality decision. Quality decisions need defensible criteria more than compliance decisions do.
The bereavement period is often quoted as 13 months, including by the National Alliance for Care at Home. That reflects common hospice practice. The regulation says up to one year.
The standard
What board certification verifies
An active BCGC credential means an independent body reviewed the person's grief-specific education, verified their practice, examined their knowledge, and holds them to enforceable ethics with annual renewal.
The Board Certified Grief Coach credential is issued by the Independent National Board for Grief Coaching, which publishes the professional standard for non-clinical grief coaching and measures individuals against it. The board provides no foundational training, which is what allows it to review education from any provider on the same terms.
- Documented grief-specific education from an outside provider, reviewed against six published topic areas: foundations of grief and loss, the non-clinical grief coaching frame, grief coaching skills and techniques, scope of practice and referral, ethics and professional conduct, and diverse and disenfranchised grief.
- Twenty-five verified practice hours with clients, documented through a signed attestation plus a supporting record.
- Agreement to a published Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice, reaffirmed at every renewal, with a complaint process and published outcomes ranging from guidance through revocation.
- A passing result on a proctored Board Examination at 80 percent across six equally weighted topic areas, under live remote proctoring with identity verification.
- Ongoing maintenance through annual renewal and 30 hours of continuing education across a rolling three-year cycle.
A credential that cannot be lost describes the year someone finished a course. This one describes their standing today.
All of it can be confirmed in the INBGC registry using the candidate's credential number. The standard itself is published in full and free to read, so you are welcome to evaluate it yourself rather than taking the board's word for it, and to write any part of it into your own criteria at no cost.
Practical language
Language for your posting or vendor requirement
Not sure how to word a grief support role in a job posting? Here are suggestions you can use for a qualifications line, a role description, or a contractor requirement.
For a qualifications line, preferred
Board certification as a Board Certified Grief Coach (BCGC) through the Independent National Board for Grief Coaching, or equivalent documented grief-specific education and documented practice experience, preferred.
For a qualifications line, required
Active board certification as a Board Certified Grief Coach (BCGC) through the Independent National Board for Grief Coaching, or an active clinical license with documented grief-specific training.
For a role description, describing the standard
The successful candidate will demonstrate grief-specific education across foundations of grief and loss, non-clinical coaching practice, scope of practice and referral, professional ethics, and diverse and disenfranchised grief, together with documented practice experience and adherence to a published code of ethics.
For a contractor, affiliate, or vendor requirement
Grief support services must be delivered by practitioners holding an active clinical license or active board certification through a body that publishes its standard, verifies education and practice, examines candidates, and maintains an enforceable code of ethics with a complaint process.
That last one names no organization. It describes the structure rather than the brand, which is usually the right choice for procurement language and which INBGC would rather you use than a requirement naming only the board.
Most organizations start with preferred rather than required, particularly where the candidate pool in their region is thin. Preferred still does the work: it tells candidates what you value and gives you a documented basis for a decision. If you are building criteria for outside practitioners you refer to rather than staff you hire, see our referral criteria.
By sector
Where this fits in your organization
The roles a certificant can fill differ by setting. These are the ones where a non-clinical credential is the relevant check.
Hospice, home health, and palliative care. Bereavement coordination, family follow-up, group facilitation, volunteer coordination, community outreach, and bereavement education. Clinical counseling and social work roles require their own qualifications.
Senior living, memory care, and long-term care. Resident and family support, grief groups, memorial programming, caregiver loss support, and staff education. Bereavement coordinator roles already appear in this sector without any federal requirement behind them, which makes the qualification judgment entirely the operator's.
Funeral homes, crematories, and cemeteries. Aftercare coordination, family follow-up, remembrance events, resource packets, community education, and support groups.
Hospitals and health systems. Contracted family education, remembrance programming, discharge resource support, perinatal and infant loss support, and staff grief training. Most staff clinical titles require licensure.
Employers, employee assistance programs, and outplacement. Grief-informed manager training, return-to-work education, workshop delivery, bereavement resource consulting, and follow-up after a workplace loss. EAP clinical counseling panels require state licensure, so a non-clinical credential applies to work-life and educational services rather than to network counseling roles. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's workplace postvention toolkit sets out what that response involves and is aimed squarely at organizational leaders and human resources teams.
Schools, colleges, and universities. Contracted grief education, staff and parent training, postvention support, group programming, and resource navigation. The SAMHSA and Suicide Prevention Resource Center school toolkit describes a coordinated response in detail without naming who should deliver it. Direct counseling posts require state credentials.
Faith communities and denominational bodies. Bereavement ministry coordination, volunteer training, group facilitation, and referral partnerships.
Community grief centers and children's bereavement programs. Group facilitation, children's programming, curriculum, volunteer training, outreach, and program coordination.
Organ and tissue donation organizations. Donor family follow-up, remembrance events, and contracted support programming, in an employment ecosystem spanning procurement organizations, transplant centers, and hospital partners.
Victim services, homicide loss, and suicide loss organizations. Survivor support, group facilitation, resource navigation, and postvention education, alongside clinical partners rather than in place of them.
Veterinary practices, emergency clinics, and pet hospice. Pet loss groups, client follow-up, and staff grief education, in a sector with high exposure and almost no formal support.
Professions with high exposure to death and trauma. First responders, law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, healthcare, funeral service, animal care, and social services all carry cumulative loss, and grief-informed training is usually bought after an event rather than before.
Scope
What a certificant may and may not do
Grief coaching under the INBGC standard is non-clinical support across loss of every kind. It does not include diagnosis, treatment, psychotherapy, or crisis intervention, and the standard names when a certificant must refer.
A standards body willing to state where the work ends is more useful to you than one implying its practitioners can handle anything.
Grief coaching under the INBGC standard is non-clinical support for people moving through loss of every kind: death, divorce, job loss, illness, estrangement, identity change, and career transition. It includes presence, structure, education, group facilitation, and practical non-clinical techniques, and it works alongside clinical care rather than in place of it.
It does not include diagnosis, treatment, psychotherapy, counseling, medication advice, or crisis intervention.
The standard names when a certificant must refer to licensed or emergency care: risk of harm to self or others, clinical conditions beyond coaching scope, complicated or prolonged grief requiring treatment, trauma requiring clinical intervention, and substance use or other conditions requiring licensed care.
That boundary is what makes non-clinical grief support safe to place in your organization, and it tells you exactly which roles a certificant can fill and which require a licensed clinician.
Verification
How to confirm a candidate's standing
Ask the candidate for their credential number, then look it up in the INBGC registry. It takes a few seconds, costs nothing, and does not involve the candidate.
Every certificant is issued a credential number. Enter it in the registry and you will see the certificant's name and whether the credential is active and in good standing. The registry is searchable by credential number rather than by name, so the candidate supplies the number and you confirm it yourself.
Organizations that maintain credentialing files can also request formal written verification for the record from [email protected], at no cost.
A coach who will not give you their credential number has answered your question.
A saved certificate image proves only that someone was certified on the day the file was made. A credential number points back to the board, which knows whether the credential is active today.
Ask separately for proof of professional liability insurance, including the carrier and the coverage amount. Employee assistance networks require it of licensed providers, commonly at one million dollars per claim and three million aggregate, and it is a reasonable requirement for a contracted non-clinical role. INBGC does not require certificants to carry coverage, though board certified coaches qualify for group rates through the board's insurance partners, so confirm it directly rather than assuming the credential covers it.
For a candidate who holds no credential, our referral criteria page publishes six criteria and six questions you can use to evaluate them against the same standard. Many well prepared practitioners hold only a training certificate.
Certificants are bound by a published Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice for as long as they hold the credential. Anyone may raise a concern about a certificant's conduct, including an employer. Complaints go to Program Administration, are reviewed confidentially against the published standard, and are resolved through published outcomes: guidance, warning, probation, suspension, or revocation. A revoked credential may not be used and will not verify in the registry.
Cost
What this costs you
Nothing. The standard is free to read and free to reference, and verification is free.
The published standard is free to read, cite, or write into your hiring criteria, referral criteria, or vendor requirements. Registry verification is free and open to anyone with a credential number. There is no partner program, no listing fee, and no arrangement of any kind for organizations that reference the credential.
INBGC charges the people it measures and the organizations whose training it reviews. It does not charge the organizations that rely on the standard, because independent adoption is the evidence that the standard works, and a fee would make that evidence unusable.
Common questions
Next step
Read the standard before you reference it
The six topic areas, the scope of practice, the Code of Ethics, and the examination threshold are published in full. Questions about referencing any of it in your hiring or referral criteria go to [email protected].
Sources. Hospice requirements are quoted from the Medicare Conditions of Participation at 42 CFR Part 418. School postvention guidance is published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration with the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Workplace postvention guidance is published by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. These sources establish that a recognized need exists and, in each case, do not specify staff qualifications.