GRIEF COACHING
How to become a grief coach
Grief coaching is one form of non-clinical grief support, and there is no license for grief coaching. The path has three parts: grief-specific education, practice with grieving people, and a board credential that verifies both, whether you work inside an organization or on your own.
Grief coaching is one form of non-clinical grief support, and there is no license for grief coaching. A credible path has three parts: grief-specific education, a board credential that verifies it, and building your work, inside an organization or on your own.
This page covers what the work is, each step, where the jobs are, and whether you need a degree or certification.
The work
What does a grief coach do?
Grief coaching is one form of non-clinical grief support for people moving through loss. That includes death and bereavement, and it also includes divorce, job loss, illness, estrangement, identity change, and career transition. The work is about presence, structure, and forward movement rather than diagnosis or treatment.
A grief coach does not diagnose, treat, prescribe, or provide psychotherapy, and refers to a licensed professional when a person's needs call for it. Many people who provide non-clinical grief support never use the title grief coach, such as bereavement coordinators, chaplains, and funeral aftercare staff.
For the full definition, see what is a grief coach. For the wider practice, see what is non-clinical grief support.
Step one
How do you get grief-specific education?
Through any qualified provider. There is no single required program. What matters is that your education covers grief theory, the non-clinical frame and its skills, scope of practice and referral, ethics, and working with diverse and disenfranchised grief.
There is no license for grief coaching, and the work does not call for a clinical degree. It does call for real skill: understanding how grief moves, holding space without steering, recognizing when someone needs clinical care, and staying inside a clear scope of practice.
INBGC does not provide foundational grief support training at any price, which is what allows the board to review education from any provider without a stake in the outcome. If you already hold general coaching training, grief-specific education is the piece that addresses loss in particular.
Step two
How do you get board certified?
Through board certification in grief care, which is non-clinical grief support. Document grief-specific education and 50 verified practice hours, attest to a Code of Ethics, and pass a proctored Board Examination at 80 percent. The credential is Board Certified in Grief Care (BCGC).
Education teaches you the work. Certification lets people who have never met you verify it. No license or training is required to use the grief coach title, so the title alone tells a person or an organization little about a practitioner's preparation. Board certification addresses that gap, whatever your title.
The full path
Requirements, cost, and a page for each background, from licensed clinicians to people new to the field, are on one page.
Step three
How do you build your work?
Inside an organization, on your own, or both. Building a practice takes relationships, a clear focus, and time. Certification does not place clients with you. It makes your preparation something others can confirm.
People in acute loss often ask someone they already trust who can help, rather than searching on their own. Becoming known in your community, and being independently verifiable when someone checks, is part of building your work.
Building a practice also means choosing your focus, setting your rates, and deciding whether you work with individuals, groups, or organizations. The board's Public Resource Center is free to everyone and covers how referrals work, how to explain your scope and referral thresholds, and how to represent grief services honestly. See the resource centers. The resources are not business training, and they make no claim about what a practice will earn.
Employment
Where does this work happen?
Independently, and inside organizations that meet grieving people as a matter of course: hospices, funeral homes, senior living communities, employers, schools, faith communities, and community grief programs. Many of those roles are posted under titles other than grief coach.
Search for bereavement coordinator, family support specialist, aftercare coordinator, grief support facilitator, program coordinator, and peer support specialist as well as grief coach.
Hospice social work, clinical bereavement counseling, therapy, and school counseling all require their own qualifications. Roles such as bereavement coordination, aftercare, group facilitation, family support, and grief education may not, depending on the employer.
What federal hospice regulation says
Under the Medicare Conditions of Participation at 42 CFR 418.64, a hospice must provide medical social services through a qualified social worker. In the same section, it must have a bereavement program furnished under the supervision of a qualified professional with experience or education in grief or loss counseling. For bereavement, the regulation names experience or education rather than a specific license or degree.
Outside hospice, each employer decides what qualified means, and a candidate has to demonstrate it. A verifiable credential is one way to do that.
For the full picture of settings, titles, and requirements, see where grief support practitioners work.
The question
Do you need certification to be a grief coach?
No law requires it. A credential gives employers, organizations, and the people you support something they can confirm independently.
Without a credential, a practitioner can describe their training and experience, but no one else has an independent way to check it. With one, you can point to a published standard. Anyone you give your credential number to can confirm your standing as Active, Expired, or Revoked in the INBGC registry, free and without involving you.
A title is something you claim. A credential is something others can check.
Requirements
Do you need a degree to become a grief coach?
No. There is no license for grief coaching, and board certification has no degree or licensure requirement. What you need is grief-specific education and, to be easily verified, a credential.
Licensure applies to clinical roles such as counselor, social worker, and psychologist, and it carries the authority to diagnose and treat. Grief coaching does neither. Individual employers may still set their own requirements, and some bereavement postings ask for a degree in a helping field, so read each posting closely.
How to become a grief coach without a degree covers this in full.
Common questions
Next step
See the full path to board certification
Requirements, cost, and a page for your background, whatever your title.