When I took on the role of editing this journal three years ago, a major part of my remit was to represent the diversity of the coaching profession by giving voice to both the BACP Coaching membership and beyond. For instance, not every writer who features in the pages of this journal is a member of BACP or has come to coaching from a therapeutic background. Many of you are working in healthcare, education, academia, private practice, business, the arts or a combination of these fields. I have also always been conscious of following BACP’s aims as an organisation to actively promote and encourage equality, diversity and inclusion, and to reflect that within the pages of this journal.

But in endeavouring to reflect the diversity of our profession, I am naturally led to ask – just how diverse is it? And what is the day-to-day experience of a coach or coach-therapist who is situated outside the dominant culture – ie white, able-bodied, cisgendered, heterosexual?

I’m honoured therefore that, for this issue’s Thinking Global piece, Jackee Holder has bravely offered to share her personal perspective as a coach and a woman of African-Caribbean origin working in the UK. Jackee’s experiences make for sobering reading. In her piece she challenges the notion that diversity is homogenous – that we are all in some way ‘diverse’ – and calls for more conscious conversations around issues of race, ethnicity and inclusion. Jackee’s piece suggests that the quality of conversation and dialogue is seriously lacking both in public and private debate and in our professional training and development. Reading her piece, I was particularly struck by her sentence: ‘Yet it is the thread that truly connects us to the other and the other to us if we are willing to take the risk starting with the self.’

Conscious communication and connection is at the core of our work as coaches and therapists, and I publish Jackee’s piece in the hope that it seeds further conversation and debate around the issue of diversity and difference in our profession.

Some of you may recall Jackee’s feature in an earlier issue of Coaching Today on writing as a creative personal and professional development practice. This issue welcomes other writers back to the Coaching Today fold and sees the launch of a special three-part series on supervision by writing partnership Sarah Corrie and Jo Birch (whose piece on marketing and branding for dual-trained practitioners proved to be very popular with readers back in April). I am also delighted to welcome back Louie Gardiner who, in a follow-up to her fascinating article last year on human systems dynamics, continues her investigation into complexity sciences and introduces her new model for supporting clients through deep and lasting change and transformation.

As ever, I hope you will find some food for thought in the pages of this issue. Your feedback and comments are welcome. If you haven’t done so already, please take the time to complete our online survey. Also, look out for the new online edition of Coaching Today, which launches with our winter issue in January.

Diane Parker
Editor
editorial@bacpcoaching.co.uk

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