FOR REFERRAL PARTNERS
Referring Someone to a Grief Coach
For hospices, funeral homes, employee assistance programs, clinicians, employers, and faith communities deciding whether a grief coach is a safe referral.
Before you send a grieving person to a coach, you need to know what that coach will and will not do, what happens if the person needs more than coaching, and whether the credential can be checked. This page answers all three.
The credential
What is a Board Certified Grief Coach?
A non-clinical professional who has documented grief-specific education and 25 verified practice hours, passed a proctored examination against a published standard, and agreed to an enforceable code of ethics with a defined scope of practice. The credential is issued by an independent board, not by the program that trained them, and it must be renewed annually.
The Independent National Board for Grief Coaching sets and publishes the standard, examines candidates against it, and holds certificants accountable to it. INBGC does not train grief coaches, and the board has no financial interest in which program a certificant attended.
The designation is Board Certified Grief Coach, written as BCGC.
Scope
What a BCGC coach does, and does not do
Grief coaching is non-clinical. A Board Certified Grief Coach provides structured, forward-focused support with adjustment, meaning, and life after loss. They do not diagnose, treat, prescribe, or provide psychotherapy, and they must refer to licensed care at published indicators.
What they provide
- A structured, confidential space to process loss and transition
- Education about grief responses and adaptive coping
- Goal-setting and support with adjustment and life after loss
- Referral to licensed professionals when a client's needs call for clinical care
What they do not do
- Diagnose mental health conditions
- Provide psychotherapy, clinical counseling, or trauma treatment
- Treat complicated grief disorder or other clinical presentations
- Prescribe medication, or offer medical, legal, or financial advice
Licensed clinicians may certify and do so as coaches operating in a non-clinical frame, distinct from their clinical role. The credential does not confer clinical authority on anyone.
Referral fit
When is grief coaching appropriate?
For people who are functioning and grieving, who want structure and forward movement rather than treatment, and who often would not pursue therapy. Grief coaching also covers non-death losses that clinical services rarely address directly, including divorce, job loss, estrangement, illness, and caregiving transitions.
Many of the people you encounter are not looking for therapy and would not accept a referral to it. They are managing, they are grieving, and what they want is somewhere structured to put it. That is a real need and it is the one grief coaching serves.
Coaching also complements clinical care rather than replacing it. A person in therapy may work with a coach on the practical dimensions of life after a loss, with appropriate coordination between the two.
Medicare's Conditions of Participation require an organized bereavement program with services addressed for at least thirteen months after a death, and referral-based models are permitted where they are intentional, appropriate, and documented. A verifiable credential is what makes a referral resource defensible rather than a generic list.
Safety
What happens if a client needs clinical care?
The coach must refer. INBGC publishes the indicators at which referral to licensed care is required, and adherence is a condition of certification. Referral does not end the coaching relationship, so a client is not left choosing between the two.
This is usually the question underneath every other question, so it is worth stating plainly. A Board Certified Grief Coach is required to refer a client to an appropriate licensed professional when the client presents with:
- Suicidal ideation or self-harm
- Active substance use related to grief
- Symptoms consistent with complicated or prolonged grief disorder
- Trauma requiring clinical intervention
- Acute psychiatric symptoms
- Any presentation the coach is not qualified to address
Referral is not termination
Referring a client to licensed care does not require ending the coaching relationship. Coaches may continue to provide coaching support alongside clinical treatment, with appropriate coordination.
This matters for a referring clinician, because it means sending someone to a coach does not put them beyond your reach, and a coach who identifies a clinical need will send them back rather than hold on.
Recognizing these indicators is not incidental to the credential. Risk recognition and referral is one of the six topic areas the Board Examination covers, weighted equally with the rest.
Verification
How do you verify a coach's credential?
Contact INBGC with the coach's name or credential number. You will receive their current status directly from the board, at no cost to you. Institutions that maintain credentialing files receive formal written verification on request.
Verification comes from INBGC rather than from the coach. A certificate image, a website claim, or a logo confirms nothing about current standing, because credentials lapse and can be revoked.
What you can confirm
Active means the coach has met all eligibility, examination, and renewal requirements and the designation may be used.
Expired means the certification has lapsed and the designation may not be used until it is reinstated.
Revoked means the certification was withdrawn following an ethics review and may not be used at all.
How to request it
Write to [email protected] with the coach's name or credential number.
Organizations that keep credentialing files can request formal written verification in a form they can file. There is no charge to the requesting party, and INBGC does not notify the coach that a verification was requested.
Accountability
What happens if something goes wrong?
Anyone may submit a concern about a certified coach's conduct. Reports are reviewed confidentially by Program Administration. Where a violation is found, INBGC may issue guidance, a warning, probation, suspension, or revocation of certification. Coaches have a right of appeal.
This is the part a certificate cannot offer. A training program that issued a certificate has no ongoing relationship with the person who holds it and no mechanism to act if their conduct raises a concern. A board does.
- Anyone may report. Clients, referral partners, employers, colleagues, and members of the public, in writing to Program Administration
- Reports are confidential and reviewed by Program Administration, which may request additional information
- Outcomes are real. Guidance, warning, probation, suspension, or revocation, in accordance with the published enforcement process
- Status changes are verifiable. A suspended or revoked credential is reflected in verification immediately
To raise a concern, write to [email protected].
Context
Why does this credential exist?
Because the grief coach title is unprotected. Anyone may use it with no training, no scope, and no accountability, which makes referring to one a risk a professional has no way to assess. An independent, published standard gives you one reference point to check.
This is not a criticism of training programs, several of which prepare grief coaches well. It describes a market that referral partners have to navigate. A hospice, an EAP, or a clinician cannot tell from a title alone whether someone has any grief-specific preparation or any defined limits on their practice.
INBGC exists to be that reference point. It publishes the standard, examines candidates against it, and enforces a scope and an ethics code, so that a referral partner can check rather than guess.
You are not evaluating a coach. You are deciding whether it is safe to send someone. Those are different questions, and only the second one is yours to answer.
Frequently asked questions
Program Administration
Questions about referring
INBGC will answer any question about scope, referral, or verification, and will provide the published scope of practice and referral indicators for your team. There is no cost and nothing to sign up for.
See also the Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice, the certification standards, and Grief Coach vs. Therapist.