Terms of Service
As a professional coach, you agree and commit to following the highest standards for ethics and conduct, as agreed upon within the life coaching industry, including and as follows:
01. Coaching Roles
Below is a segment of a sample coaching agreement, in which the coach is identifying the roles of coach and client, in order to gain agreement. Consider including such a clause in your own.
As a client, your role is to:
Make our coaching sessions a priority. You have chosen to invest in yourself. Please take time before each session to review what we have been working on. Please ensure any action steps or homework you decided on has been accomplished to the best of your ability. The most crucial part is for you to have an idea of what you’d like to take away from the session. Coaching is strongly based on the client’s agenda.
Please arrive to every session on time.
Come to your session centered and be open-minded. Be willing to change your beliefs and patterns if they do not serve you anymore.
Give me feedback in the moment about your coaching experience –what works as well as what doesn’t. Do not ever worry about hurting my feelings or fear what I might think. I am here to support you not judge you or make decisions for you. If something I say does not resonate with you, I want to know about it.
My Role:
I will listen closely to you, respond to what I hear and ask questions. If I hear something in your voice or body language that sparks an intuitive idea, thought or image, I’m likely to share it and ask you questions about it. Often it is these small nuances that create the bigger shifts for clients. Remember, if it doesn’t resonate, tell me. I’m not attached to being right.
At the end of the session, if you do not mention what actions you are ready to take, I will make a coach request. I ask clients to stretch themselves, deepen the work done in the sessions by either journaling at home, taking a defined action, resolving relationships or tackling things that feel incomplete. You are free to negotiate, accept or decline. Most of the work will be in regards to self- awareness and powerful choice.
Extra Time:
Between sessions, if you have questions, a brief update, or want to bounce some ideas around, please contact me by email. Please keep these contacts succinct. If it seems like it will be better served as session material, I’ll suggest that.
Schedule Changes:
Please give our session high priority and arrange your schedule to honor our agreed upon time. If you must reschedule, I ask you to give me 24 hours notice or as soon as you are able. I will not reschedule no-shows. Because I am holding an appointment for you and will be unable to fit another client in with less than 24 hours notice, a €50 session fee will be charged for sessions canceled at the last minute. Emergencies are an exception.
02. Disclaimer
All coaching services and communication, email or otherwise, delivered by Luis Carvalho, (your “Coach”), as well as information set forth on this website (oaklift.com) are meant to help you identify the areas in your life and in your thinking that may be standing in your way. However, coaching is not professional mental health care or medical care. If you feel psychologically stressed to the point that it is interfering with your ability to function, please have the courage to seek the help you need in the form of a professional counselor. Coaching may augment your therapy, but the work of coaching is meant to be done when major emotional and psychological wounds are already healing or healed.
In that spirit, by purchasing coaching services from your Coach, you confirm that you have read and agree to each statement and that you wish to proceed:
I understand that the coaching services I will be receiving from my Coach are not offered as a substitute for professional mental health care or medical care and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any mental health or medical conditions. I also understand that my Coach is not acting as a mental health counselor or a medical professional.
I understand that coaching is, at present, an unregulated industry and that my Coach is not licensed in Ireland. I also understand that for all legal purposes, the services provided by me will be considered to be provided in Ireland.
I understand and agree that I am fully responsible for my well-being during my coaching sessions, and subsequently, including my choices and decisions.
I understand that coaching is not a substitute for counseling, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, mental health care or substance abuse treatment, and I will not use it in place of any form of therapy.
I understand that all comments and ideas offered by my Coach are solely for the purpose of aiding me in achieving my defined goals. I have the ability to give my informed consent, and hereby give such consent to my coach to assist me in achieving such goals.
I understand that to the extent our work together involves career or business, my Coach is not promising outcomes included but not limited to increased clients, profitability and or business success.
I understand that my Coach will protect my information as confidential unless I state otherwise in writing. If I report child, elder abuse or neglect or threaten to harm myself or someone else, I understand that necessary actions will be taken and my confidentiality agreement limited in this capacity. Furthermore, if my Coach is ordered by a court to provide information or to testify, she will do so to the extent the law requires.
I understand that the use of technology is not always secure and I accept the risks of confidentiality in the use of email, text, phone, Skype and other technology.
I hereby release, waive, acquit and forever discharge my Coach, any agents, successors, assigns, personal representatives, executors, heirs and employees from every claim, suit action, demand or right to compensation for damages I may claim to have or that I may have arising out of acts or omissions by myself or by my Coach as a result of the advice given by my Coach or otherwise resulting from the coaching relationship contemplated by this agreement. I further declare and represent that no promise, inducement or agreement not expressed in this agreement has been made to me to sign this agreement. This agreement shall bind my heirs, executors, personal representatives, successors, assigns, and agents.