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What is COMENSA
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In the last five years, coaching and mentoring have sprung to prominence in South Africa. Because coaching and mentoring are relatively new, still-emerging disciplines in South Africa, a group of experienced business and life coaches initiated a discussion process in 2004 to facilitate the development and professionalisation of these fields. The result was Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA) - the inclusive, umbrella professional association for individual and corporate providers and buyers of coaching and mentoring services.
Click here for the History of COMENSA |
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Being used more and more by individuals and organisations to facilitate change and enable self directed learning, coaching and mentoring have developed the one-on-one relationship between practitioner and client as one based on trust and shared values. Both coaches and mentors use an experiential conversational approach in a powerful developmental process for the client.
COMENSA's Mission is to support professional practice and a learning culture in coaching and mentoring through standards and ethics.
COMENSA's Vision is to empower people to achieve their full potential in a consciousness of sustainable well-being. The vision underlines COMENSA's integral commitment to the process of national development, transformation and empowerment in South Africa.
Empowerment is seen as a fundamental focus of the way that COMENSA does business, and of the business that COMENSA does. The empowerment initiative is to act as the organisation's professional conscience.
COMENSA is a professional association not for gain, incorporated under Section 21 of the Companies Act of 1973 as amended. COMENSA is not just an association of providers, but is inclusive of all those providing or using services.
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What is Professional Practice?
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| With the increasing demand for qualified practitioners, coaching and mentoring are at a critical juncture worldwide. Buyers are not just demanding measurable results and value for money but also sustainable ethics and standards within these two growing fields. Internationally there are various professional bodies developing ethics, standards, and frameworks for continuing professional development (CPD) for coaches. Important questions have arisen worldwide about the maintenance of professional standards, the development of practical codes of ethics, social concerns, social contribution and continuing education. |
| The three critical ingredients needed to build a profession are: |
- a codified body of knowledge;
- a competence tested mechanism; and
- a code of conduct (ethics and standards of competence).
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| COMENSA is building a body of research to create a codified body of knowledge, is working with other worldwide associations to develop standards of competence, and is constantly evolving its code of ethics. |
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| COMENSA members are required to sign a Pledge on an annual basis, renewing their commitment to abide by the COMENSA Code of Ethics. In terms of this Pledge, members become subject to the COMENSA Ethics Complaints Procedure. |
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How is COMENSA constituted?
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COMENSA's stakeholders have also put considerable effort into drafting a flexible yet robust national constitution for the Association, which balances strongly democratic accountability and transparency to the membership with clear managerial discretion of its Executive Committee and other governance structures. In addition, provincial chapter constitutions have been drawn up to serve the three provincial chapters of Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Further, COMENSA's necessary legal and corporate status has been established through its registration as a Section 21 company (Association incorporated under Section 21).
Other critical foundations such as effective communication, marketing, membership and financial management systems are being developed to ensure that COMENSA successfully achieves its objective of supporting and developing coaching and mentoring in South Africa.
To download COMENSA's Constitution in pdf, click here
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