ICF MCS Prior Learning Pathway: How to Find and Verify Your 5 Mentees

A step-by-step guide shared by Betsy Block, PCC, ReciproCoach Mentor and Supervisor.

One of the benefits of belonging to the ReciproCoach community is being part of a coaching community where colleagues support each other not only through coaching, but also by sharing knowledge, experience and resources. This article is one such example.

Many thanks to ReciproCoach mentor and supervisor Betsy Block, PCC, for generously sharing the process she used to identify five successful mentees for her ICF Mentor Coach Specialization (MCS) Prior Learning Pathway application.

If you are planning to apply for the ICF Mentor Coach Specialization (MCS) via the Prior Learning Pathway, one of the requirements is demonstrating that you have successfully mentored coaches who later earned an ICF credential within the last three years.

For many mentor coaches, particularly those who mainly facilitated group mentoring sessions or one-off individual mentoring sessions, the mentoring relationship may have developed organically over time. In many cases, mentors did not necessarily follow mentees all the way through to their credential application, and record keeping may not always have included whether the mentee ultimately achieved their credential.

As a result, tracking and verifying this information retrospectively can take more time than expected.

If you have maintained organised mentor coaching records, you may already have much of this information available. However, you will still need to identify which mentees successfully achieved a credential. The following process is the system that worked for Betsy, along with a few additional tips from ReciproCoach to make the process easier.

How to Track and Verify Your Successful Mentor Coaching Clients

Step 1: Search your email archives for ICF Mentor Coaching Notification emails

Each time a coach who received mentor coaching from you applies for an ICF credential and lists you as their mentor coach, ICF typically sends an email with the subject line:

“ICF Mentor Coaching Notification”

Search your email archives for this subject line and review the emails one by one. These emails can help you verify:

• Who identified you as their mentor coach
• Approximate mentoring dates
• Which credential they were applying for

If you are a ReciproCoach group mentor, you can also review your mentoring session history through ReciproCoach to identify participants who attended your mentoring sessions.

As you work through this process, begin collating the following information:

• Name: the mentee’s full name
• Mentoring Date(s): important if the coach later achieved multiple credentials over time
• Credential Level: if you were mentoring a group of mentees at different credential levels, you may not know this until the next step in the process

Step 2: Cross-reference and organise your records

Create a spreadsheet or tracking document to organise your evidence.

• Add names from your session records
• Add names from ICF notification emails
• Cross-reference dates where possible
• Highlight any coaches you believe may have successfully achieved their credential

Step 3: Verify credentials via the ICF directory

For each person on your list, ICF members can verify credentials via the ICF directory here.

When checking credentials, make sure you:

• Look for the date the credential was awarded
• Only include mentees whose credential was awarded after the mentoring took place
• Only include mentor coaching connected to a new credential application. Under the current Prior Learning Pathway guidance, mentor coaching provided for credential renewals cannot be used towards an MCS application.

Automation Tips: Save Time with AI

If you have a large number of mentees or mentoring sessions to review, AI tools may help speed up the process.

• Add your ReciproCoach mentoring records to an AI tool such as Claude and ask it to extract mentee names, dates and mentoring details automatically
• Be mindful of coaching ethics and confidentiality. You may need to de-identify records by removing surnames before uploading them to any third-party platform
• Connect your Gmail account to an AI tool to help search for “ICF Mentor Coaching Notification” emails and extract relevant details
• Use AI tools to cross-reference mentoring records against ICF notification emails and identify likely matches

That’s it. While identifying and verifying your five successful mentees may initially feel overwhelming, these three relatively straightforward steps can make the process much more manageable.

For many mentor coaches, particularly those who have been mentoring for years across multiple settings and platforms, much of the required evidence already exists. It simply needs to be located, organised and cross-referenced.

Hopefully Betsy’s process, along with the additional tips shared here, helps make your MCS Prior Learning Pathway preparation clearer, easier and less time-consuming.