The professional standard
The INBGC certification standard
The six topic areas, the education and verified practice requirements, the ethics obligations, and the passing threshold every Board Certified Grief Coach is measured against.
Governance
How is the standard set?
Authority over the standard rests with the Advisory Board. It sets the topic areas and their weightings, the scope of practice, the Code of Ethics, the continuing education requirements, and the passing threshold. It does not review individual candidate files or decide whether any specific person is certified.
Three functions are kept apart, and no person or group does more than one. The Advisory Board sets the standard. Program Administration applies it to individual candidates and organizations. Referral partners reference it, never set it, and are never charged for anything.
Nobody with a commercial interest in candidate flow helps define the bar. INBGC provides no foundational grief coach training, so it holds no stake in where a candidate trained. A credential is only as strong as the independence of whoever issues it, and that independence is a structure rather than a claim.
The Advisory Board
Holds authority over the standard candidates are measured against, drawn from the disciplines grief work touches: clinical mental health, hospice and palliative care, chaplaincy and spiritual care, grief and bereavement, and coaching standards and ethics. It does not review individual applications.
Program Administration
Applies the standard. Application intake, eligibility review, education review, examination administration, verified practice review, credentialing, renewals, and records. It does not author the rules it enforces.
Published policies
The standard, the eligibility requirements, the topic areas, the Code of Ethics, and the passing threshold are published in full and free to read, cite, or write into a referral policy at no cost.
Independent of training
INBGC sells no foundational grief coach training, so the body that sets the standard has no financial interest in where any candidate studied and no student rate to protect.
The full separation of functions, including how ethics complaints are handled and what a referral partner may and may not do, is set out on the governance and accountability page. The seated Advisory Board roster is published at advisory board.
The examination
What does the Board Examination cover?
Six topic areas, weighted equally: 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. Every candidate is examined against the same standard, on both paths.
The six areas are weighted equally, so no area counts for more than another. The same six areas form the blueprint for the education review. Both paths are examined against them.
The examination
What does the Board Examination measure?
Applied judgment, not memorized definitions. The examination presents standardized scenario-based items that ask the candidate to reason through real practice situations: scope judgment, referral decisions, ethical reasoning, applied grief knowledge, and professional decision-making across the six topic areas.
The Board Examination does not test recall. It presents scenario-based items that ask the candidate to apply judgment in situations a grief coach meets in practice: recognizing the limits of scope, deciding when to refer to licensed care, reasoning through an ethical question, applying grief knowledge to a client's situation, and making a sound professional decision.
Board certification independently verifies that the practitioner has met published standards for grief-specific education, applied knowledge, verified practice hours, ethics, scope, and professional judgment.
Requirement
What education is required?
Documented grief-specific education covering the six topic areas, completed through any qualified provider. INBGC does not provide foundational grief coach training, so every candidate brings that education from elsewhere and Program Administration reviews it.
Topic areas of grief-specific education
Education must cover all six topic areas. That establishes a candidate has studied grief and loss in particular rather than coaching in general. See the full requirements.
How education is reviewed
Program Administration reviews the education a candidate brings against the six published topic areas. Education from more than one provider may be combined, and what is assessed is coverage.
Live, cohort-based, and self-paced programs, graduate coursework, clinical training in grief and bereavement, and continuing education from associations and universities
Certificates of completion, transcripts, official course records, or letters of completion on provider letterhead
Education from every qualified provider is reviewed on the same terms, which is what keeps the credential independent of any training program.
Providers may apply to have their curriculum reviewed against the published qualifying training criteria and be listed as INBGC Recognized Education Providers. That review speeds a candidate's education review, because the curriculum has already been assessed. It is never required, a candidate whose provider never applied is reviewed on the merits, recognition is revocable, and no fee a provider pays touches whether an individual passes. See provider review.
Requirement
How are practice hours verified?
A minimum of 50 verified practice hours with clients, documented through the candidate's signed attestation plus one supporting record. No client session is ever recorded, submitted, or reviewed, and no client participates at any point.
Verified practice hours
Practice hours confirm that a candidate has applied grief coaching skills in real client relationships rather than only completing coursework. Hours may be paid or unpaid, in private practice, an organizational setting, or a volunteer capacity.
Calendar exports, booking reports, or invoicing records that demonstrate grief coaching sessions with clients
A signed confirmation from a supervisor, employer, mentor, or colleague with direct knowledge of the candidate's grief coaching work, or a professional reference letter
One supporting record accompanies the candidate's own attestation. Client confidentiality holds throughout, no client is contacted, and identifying details in a supporting record may be redacted.
Maintaining the credential
What is required to keep the credential active?
Certification renews annually at $495, with an ethics attestation confirming continued compliance. Continuing education runs on a rolling three-year cycle, 30 hours in total, completed through any qualified provider.
The credential is maintained rather than owned outright. It answers to the standard continuously, which is what keeps an active BCGC a statement about a coach's practice now.
Ethics obligations
Every Board Certified Grief Coach operates under the INBGC Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice. Agreement is a condition of certification, and annual renewal includes an ethics attestation confirming continued compliance. Conduct that raises a concern is reviewed under the published complaint process, with outcomes up to revocation.
Renewal and continuing education
Certification renews annually at $495. Continuing education runs on a rolling three-year cycle: 30 hours in total, including at least 6 hours in ethics, scope of practice, and risk and referral, and at least 4 hours in grief across diverse and disenfranchised populations. It may be completed through any qualified provider, and INBGC does not require certificants to buy it from the board.
The standard
What score is required to pass?
80 percent, across six equally weighted topic areas. The standard is applied identically to every candidate, on both paths.
The passing standard is criterion-referenced. It measures competence against the published standard rather than performance relative to other candidates, so no candidate is competing for a limited number of credentials.
The threshold is set by the Advisory Board and reviewed periodically as the field changes. Program Administration applies it and does not adjust it.
Specialty endorsements
How are specialty endorsements examined?
A specialty endorsement is a separate examined credential requiring an active BCGC. It is earned through a proctored Endorsement Examination drawn from its own item bank. Specialty content never appears on the Board Examination.
The separation is deliberate and it holds in both directions. Because the two examinations draw from separate item banks, specialty preparation confers no advantage on the Board Examination, and a coach who prepared for a specialty elsewhere sits the identical Endorsement Examination as one who prepared through INBGC. Equivalent specialty education is accepted from any provider.
The designations are BCGC-AC for ambiguous loss and caregiving, BCGC-RL for divorce and relationship dissolution, BCGC-CL for workplace and career loss, BCGC-AG for illness and anticipatory grief, and BCGC-PL for pet loss.
The BCGC stands alone and is the complete credential. A suffix never appears without an active base credential behind it, and a certificant holding more than one endorsement writes each in full. The BCGC is always issued before an endorsement, and a coach may hold the BCGC and pursue no specialty at all.
Verification
How is a credential verified?
Enter a coach's credential number in the INBGC registry to confirm the name on the credential and whether it is active and in good standing. Verification is free, takes seconds, and does not involve the coach. Institutions that maintain credentialing files can request formal written verification from Program Administration.
Credential status
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 the designation may not be used at all.
Two ways to check
Credential number lookup. Ask the coach for their credential number and enter it in the INBGC registry. It returns the name on the credential and its current status. Lookup is by credential number, and the registry is not searchable by name.
Written verification. Institutions that maintain credentialing files write to [email protected] with the coach's name or credential number and receive formal written verification in a form they can file. Both routes are free, and referral partners are never charged for anything.
A certificate image or a claim on a website confirms nothing about current standing. A credential can lapse, and it can be revoked. Confirming with the issuing board is what a referral relationship actually depends on.
Organizations writing the standard into a referral or vetting policy may cite and link this page at no cost. Sample policy language and criteria for evaluating any non-clinical practitioner are published on our referral criteria page. See also for referral partners.
Common questions
Next step
Meet the standard
This is the standard every Board Certified Grief Coach is held to. If you are considering certification, the next step is confirming you meet the published eligibility requirements.