Cancellation

From time to time we appreciate that plans may change and where possible we will work with delegates to find a suitable solution, but due to the impact that late cancellations have on our course and other delegates’ experience, we would like to state the following:

All course cancellations must be sent directly to us, in writing, by email to info@barefootcoaching.co.uk. Apologies, but we cannot accept verbal course cancellations.

A delegate may cancel the contract by notice in writing, via email at any time up to 14 days after the application approval date (unless the commencement date is less than 6 weeks away at the time of notice).

Where the delegate is a consumer, they will receive a full refund, including any deposit (unless they have started to attend the course within those 14 days). Where the delegate is not a consumer:

(i) it is the delegates’ responsibility to ensure and confirm that any notice of cancellation has been received by Barefoot and that the delegate has received an acknowledgement of receipt from Barefoot; and

(ii) Barefoot will retain any deposit paid (but the balance of the charges shall not be payable).

Cancellation terms may differ from course to course, please refer to your course-specific cancellation policy document to review the terms and conditions. Please note, if you are a corporate client, cancellation terms will be set out in your terms and conditions of work.

For our accredited programmes (e.g. Flagship or Team Coaching Programmes):

• If the booking is cancelled with less than 6 weeks’ notice of the start date, the course deposit will be retained as a cancellation fee, unless you can transfer to another course date in which case no cancellation fee will apply. Delegates may also choose to move to another course if there are places available and any differentiation in price should be paid/refunded
• If the booking is cancelled with less than 4 weeks’ notice of the start date the full course balance will be retained as a cancellation fee

For our Coach Continued Professional Development (e.g. Short Courses or Supervision) and Development for Non-Coaches (e.g. Women’s Development Programme, Coaching Foundation Programme etc:

• If the booking is cancelled 48 hours before the course commencement date unless you can transfer to another course date, the full payment fee will be refunded
• If the booking is cancelled within less than 24 hours before the course commencement date, the full course balance will be retained as a cancellation fee

Absence inlcuding Illness or extenuating circumstances

Employee/Tutor/Assessor Illness or Absence
If we’re unable to undertake any session, course, or event due to illness or absence of any of our employees, associates or tutors (where another suitable replacement cannot be offered), we will inform all delegates at the earliest possible time via phone or email.

Please see our terms and conditions available on our website for further details here.

Delegate Illness or Absence of a session(s)
All notification of absence must be confirmed directly to us, in writing, by email to info@barefootcoaching.co.uk before (if possible) the session begins. Apologies but we cannot accept verbal confirmation.

If delegates are unable to attend one (or more) of their sessions within a course or programme, we expect delegates to review any required content in self-directed study and self-organised peer support. Where possible, Barefoot Coaching and associated tutors may share guidance on appropriate self-directed learning. The exception to this would be your Mentor Coaching sessions as part of our ICF Accredited Flagship programme as these must be attended to qualify for your accreditation.  Please note there are no refunds in part for non-attendance to a session or sessions.

For any questions or further enquiries, please call us on 01332 863641 or via email at info@barefootcoaching.co.uk.  

What to do if things go wrong
We hope that you never have any cause for complaint about Barefoot Coaching Ltd. However, we appreciate that sometimes things can go wrong, and, if they do, you want to know what to do about it. All complaints and grievances will be addressed to the best of our ability to prevent further problems. The process for filing these complaints or grievances can be found below.

Dealing with complaints: Informal procedures
We seek to ensure equitable treatment of every person and to attempt to solve complaints or grievances in a timely and fair manner. Attendees have the right to file a complaint or grievance regarding presentation, content, services, facility or access concerns, or tutor/associate/employee behaviour.

If possible, any complaint you have should first be dealt with informally. This means that you should raise the complaint verbally or via email with the Managing Director. This should hopefully result in a suitable solution to your issue being identified without further action such as an explanation or an apology where necessary.

Dealing with complaints: Formal Procedures
If it is not possible to resolve your complaint informally, and you are still unhappy and wish to take the matter further, you must follow our formal complaint procedures.

To do this you should set out your complaint in writing and send it to The CEO at 6E Boundary Court, Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donnington. DE74 2NN.

You may be asked to attend a personal interview with the CEO to discuss your complaint.

Barefoot Coaching Ltd aims to ensure a courteous and efficient initial response within ten working days to your written complaint, and a response within five working days following any meeting with you.

Policy
Barefoot Coaching Ltd will fully investigate your complaint and speak with other Members where appropriate. We will endeavour to deal with your complaint fairly and quickly and to keep written records throughout the process to assist in the communication of the facts. Following an investigation of your complaint, you will receive a response from Barefoot Coaching Ltd, detailing its findings and any action taken.

Download a copy of our complaints form.

Enrolment
All enrolments are secured on a first-come, first-served basis. Your enrolment on a course is dependent on receipt of full payment before the course commencement date, unless by written agreement with Barefoot Coaching.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accept partial credit from other organisations or courses.
Even if you have completed an ICF Level 1 course or any other equivalent, you must enrol for the entirety of an ICF Level 2 course.

Partial Completion 
We will not offer credit for partial completion of a course or programme.   

At this time, we are not able to offer credit for partial completion of a course. You must complete the entire course to receive credit. Individuals with questions about this policy are encouraged to email the ‘Director of Studies’ at info@barefootcoaching.co.uk.  

Payments & Fees
The charges for our courses shall be as described on Barefoot Coaching’s website at the time of the commencement date of each course. To secure your enrolment onto a course, payment in full of the charges shall be received by Barefoot Coaching in cleared funds no later than 6 weeks before the date of commencement of the course, unless by prior written agreement with Barefoot (e.g., there is a written agreement to pay in instalments.) Should the fees for the course not be paid within this agreed time, the delegate will not be permitted to commence the course.

All payments should be made in pound sterling. We accept payment by Credit Cards, Debit Cards, and BACS. Credit Cards and Debit Cards we accept are Visa, MasterCard, Maestro & Delta

All amounts payable by the delegate under the contract are exclusive of amounts in respect of value-added tax chargeable for the time being.

It is always possible that some of the courses we sell may be incorrectly priced. We will normally check prices before accepting your order so that, where the course’s correct price at your order date is less than our stated price at your order date, we will charge the lower amount. If the course’s correct price at your order date is higher than the price stated to you, we will contact you for your instructions before we accept your order.

If we accept and process your order where a pricing error is obvious and unmistakable and could reasonably have been recognised by you as a mispricing, we may end the contract, refund you any sums you have paid and cancel your position on the relevant course.

For any questions or further enquiries, please call us on 01332 863641 or via email info@barefootcoaching.co.uk.

Barefoot Coaching Ltd is committed to encouraging equality, diversity, and inclusion throughout our business. We pride ourselves on creating a supportive and inclusive culture throughout our business.

Our aim is to ensure that all employees and job applicants are given equal opportunity and that our organisation is representative of all sections of society. Each employee will be respected and valued and able to give their best as a result.

This policy reinforces our commitment to providing equality and fairness to all in our employment and not provide less favourable facilities or treatment on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, ethnic origin, colour, nationality, national origin, religion or belief, or sex and sexual orientation. We are opposed to all forms of unlawful and unfair discrimination.

All employees, no matter whether they are part-time, full-time, or temporary, will be treated fairly and with respect. When Barefoot Coaching Ltd selects candidates for employment, promotion, training, or any other benefit, it will be based on their aptitude and ability. 

This commitment includes training managers and all other employees about their rights and responsibilities under the equality, diversity, and inclusion policy. Responsibilities include employees conducting themselves to help the business provide equal opportunities in employment, and prevent bullying, harassment, victimisation, and unlawful discrimination.

Supporting Learning
Barefoot Coaching Ltd supports individuals with disabilities and is committed to providing reasonable accommodations where appropriate for our learning interventions. 

In addition, Barefoot Coaching Ltd prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and ensures equal opportunity for all qualified individuals with disabilities. Individuals with questions about this policy should contact us to talk through reasonable adjustments.

Our goal is to create a learning environment which meets the needs of each individual delegate where possible. We are able to accommodate certain learning disabilities to make our programme accessible. Please share your requirements on your application form, or call /email us to determine if specific needs can be met.

Why Ethical Marketing?
We believe that all marketing efforts should provide genuine value to the target audience to earn their attention and their trust. Our strategies are based on a foundational belief that marketing should be honest and that marketers should not take advantage of anyone’s personal data. This policy statement lays out the ethical marketing practices we follow at Barefoot Coaching Ltd and the commitments we have made to ensure that our client’s work meets or exceeds the highest ethical standards of our industry.

We Commit to Honesty in Marketing
As a coaching business, we commit to absolute honesty in our marketing for our own campaigns.

We pledge to:

• Never use dishonest marketing tactics including:
  • False advertising: exaggerating values and benefits of our products and services
  • Fake or overly doctored reviews and testimonials
  • Only use words that are realistic descriptors of the products, services, or impact we are promoting.

We Commit to Rejecting Impact Washing
Impact washing is similar to greenwashing and happens when a business exaggerates its positive impact to gain a marketing advantage or uses “feel good” marketing to cover up or distract from negative outcomes that its core business model is having in other areas–socially or environmentally.

Impact washing is a broad topic that includes:

• Communicating false promises or making unrealistic claims about expected results
• Sharing stories or creating impact initiatives that aren’t rooted in an authentic mission or intention for good–but purely for the marketing benefits
• Using a social impact initiative to distract from negative social or environmental problems

We pledge that our campaigns:

• Are fully honest and transparent
• Are reviewed to ensure the marketing and communications strategies and tactics are not engaging in impact-washing

We Commit to Cultural Sensitivity in Campaign Creative
Many marketing campaigns and messages have the potential to be insensitive. It takes a combination of self-awareness and the inclusion of others in the creative process to avoid marketing campaigns that are insensitive.

Our Marketing Projects Will Avoid the Saviour Complex
Sometimes well-intentioned people target a perceived need for support without including and empowering the affected community. They may use their access to resources to provide a solution solely from their external position of privilege. This approach can be characterised as a saviour complex and resulting communications, solutions, and power dynamics are often problematic and reinforce systems of oppression.

Dignity vs Focusing on the Problem
As a coaching business, we choose how to represent people. Typically, people who have barriers in their lives are in the best position to remove those barriers. The process of dignification, deep understanding, and empowerment are the first steps toward solving key social issues. It is also important to recognise and understand the social and economic systems that lead to the issue in the first place.

Using images of people in need, especially stereotypical images, to elicit an emotional response and drive engagement and/or donations from the audience is problematic. This approach all too often misrepresents or oversimplifies issues while dishonouring real people and communities that need support. While it may be tempting to take this approach, it can easily lead to insensitive campaigns and messages that may disempower the communities that we are striving to empower.

We pledge to:

• Take steps to avoid any exploitation, appropriation, or stereotyping of underrepresented or historically oppressed people or groups within marketing content.
• Seek out feedback on the appropriateness and sensitivity of marketing content.
• Ongoing internal training to increase awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We Commit to Permission-Based Email Marketing
We pledge to focus our email marketing on:

• Creating value within any free content (including videos, blogs, online resources, online classes, social media posts, etc.),
• Being GDPR compliant
• Maintaining the trust of email lists by continuing to offer value and restricting messaging to content related to what the original opt-in intent.

We Commit to Ethical Digital Advertising
All advertising content lands somewhere on the honesty spectrum– from manipulative and dishonest to accurate, ethical, and honest. Barefoot Coaching is committed to ensuring the accuracy and ethics of the content we promote through digital advertising.

Aside from considering the accuracy and honesty of the content, we must also consider the ethics of the targeting approach.

Digital advertising brings its own unique set of ethical issues related to data privacy. Facebook, Google, and many other digital media companies have developed sophisticated tracking technologies to understand, profile, track, and target users online so that their paying advertisers can reach their exact target audience via their digital advertising products and services. This kind of granular targeting often comes at the cost of individual users’ privacy. As consumer attitudes and technologies change, the ethical considerations that surround digital advertising are rapidly evolving. It is highly likely that the line between what is both legal and ethically acceptable will shift many times over the short and long term.

Our Approach to Ethical Advertising Includes the following considerations:

• False advertising: If an advertisement makes untrue claims about a product or service or clearly misrepresents what is being offered then it is false advertising which is clearly an unethical marketing tactic.

Issues with Advertorial Advertising:
It is important that an online user can tell what is paid advertising vs what is editorial content. Advertorial content is content that looks like unbiased editorial/earned media but is actually paid to advertise. This type of content can take place in written articles, social media posts, written reviews, or videos. Influencer marketing often relies on the process of well-connected social influencers promoting products or services to their audiences, often through content that would be considered advertorial if the influencer is not transparent that the content is a paid promotion.

While advertorial content may be seen by some as an ethical grey area, it is increasingly becoming clear that misleading users into believing that a brand mention is based on editorial merit alone, when in fact the placement was paid for by the brand is an unethical marketing tactic by both the publisher and brand buying the paid content.

We Commit to White Hat Search Engine Optimisation
Search engines use algorithms to determine what content to show at the top. Anywhere where computers are making decisions that will affect business outcomes opens the opportunity for hacking and manipulation. In the world of SEO and content marketing, any tactics that are considered manipulative or unethical are typically referred to as “black hat” tactics. On the opposite end of this spectrum, you’ll find ethical or “white hat” SEO tactics based on providing valuable and useful content that aligns with what users and search algorithms are looking for.

We Practice the Best Practices for White Hat SEO and Content Marketing:

• Link building: Create valuable content that people will want to link to
• Using PR and aligned partnerships to build links
• Proper use of redirects to help users find the right content
• Creating helpful, well-branded 404 pages with useful navigation
• Put the user first, focus on value, and create content that aligns with our mission

Black Hat SEO: Tactics that We Avoid

• Purchasing links – Paying for links from other websites.
• Automated link building – Using software or online bots to build links.
• Hidden content and links – Intentionally hiding content or links so that only the search engines can see them.
• Automated, stolen, or plagiarised content generation – Using content scraping technology, AI content development, or direct content theft to generate high volumes of content to build your site’s size and perceived authority.
• Keywords stuffing, over optimisation – There is a fine line between manually optimizing content for SEO best practices (white hat on-page optimisation) and over optimisation which can also be called keyword stuffing. It takes experience and a deep understanding of the latest algorithms to learn where this line is. As the algorithm changes, the line may shift over time.
• Misdirection – Unethical redirects: Cloaking and doorway pages. These typically involve redirecting people away from long-form content into pages that are more focused on conversions/sales, affiliate marketing, or paid advertising. In these cases, the content that appealed to the search engine algorithm which resulted in the high organic ranking is not what the user sees after they click the link.

We Commit to Updating these Practices as the Industry Evolves
We expect ethical marketing practices to continue to evolve along with the technologies marketers use to discover, reach, and engage audiences. The line that separates ethical from unethical marketing practices can shift rapidly as major online platforms such as Google, Facebook, and other search and social applications roll out updates and new options for data-driven targeting. We will continue to monitor the state of the field across different marketing channels and tactics and update our practices accordingly.

Questions and Feedback
We always strive to do the right thing for our clients and adhering to these ethical practices is part of that work. If you have questions or feedback to share that will help us do better, we encourage you to reach out and let us know. Please contact us using our website contact form for any of the following:

• To request more information
• To provide feedback
• To access, edit, or delete the personal information we may have about you
• To register a complaint

As an ICF Accredited provider, Barefoot Coaching adheres to, and emphasizes, the International Coaching Federation Code of Ethics. The ICF Code of Ethics describes the ICF’s core values, ethical principles, and standards of behaviour for all ICF professionals.  Meeting these ethical standards of behaviour is the first of the ICF core coaching competencies.

You can read more about the ICF Code of Ethics on:

https://coachingfederation.org/ethics/code-of-ethics

Additionally, Barefoot Coaching commits to acting with integrity and transparency. We hold ourselves and our participants to the highest level of integrity and strive to be as transparent as possible by explicitly stating measures being taken to provide and run programs in an ethical manner in the context of adult learning and development.  This integrity starts with our programme content, which is underpinned by decades of established theory, sound principles of practice established by the profession at large and ICF principles, and the quality and experience of those who deliver and evaluate learners through our programmes.

We do not believe in using manipulative or dishonest sales tactics and strive to provide a safe and ethical sales process.  This approach is evidenced by the presentation of our programs in online and marketing materials, the provision of free and significant taster sessions, and our ethos of helping potential learners find the right program for them at the right time.  We provide fair and balanced information to prospective delegates in order that individuals and organisations can make informed choices about their coach Training provider free of undue influence.

Further, we work to provide fair and equitable pricing for all programs to ensure access and quality of coaching education, including the ability to pay for programs in instalments.  However, we also recognise the significant costs involved in training and developing the coaches of the future.