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Introducing ELEVATE: Advancing Professional Divorce Coaching in Canada with Dori Braddell · Divorce Coaches Academy

• Tracy Callahan: Thank you for listening to the Divorce Coaches Academy podcast. For more insights and training, visit divorcecoachesacademy.com. Welcome to Divorce Coaches Academy podcast, where we explore the role of divorce coaching in conflict resolution, decision making, and navigating divorce with clarity and intention. Tracy: Welcome back to the Divorce Coaches Academy podcast. I'm Tracy, and today's episode is one I have been especially looking forward to because it reflects something we have been watching happen across the field of divorce coaching for years now. Growth. More professionals are finding this work. Therapists are adding divorce coaching to their practices. Mediators are adding divorce coaching to their practices. Guess what? Even attorneys are adding divorce coaching to their practice. And I don't want to forget the life coaches who have expanded into divorce support. So what does this mean? Well, it means that other divorce professionals, mediators, attorneys, financial professionals, and other helping professionals are. Recognizing that people navigating separation and divorce need more than information. They need structured support. And I think that growth is super exciting. But one of the things I've been observing, particularly in Canada, is that divorce coaching is no longer being entered exclusively by people who entered the field specifically trained. As divorce coaches. We're seeing attorneys incorporating divorce coaching into their practices. We're seeing mediators adopting the title. We're seeing professionals entering from adjacent disciplines. And we're seeing professional organizations and accrediting bodies beginning to create pathways for credentials and communities specifically around divorce coaching. To me, that is not evidence of competition. It's evidence that people recognize there's a real need. People navigating divorce are looking for more than legal advice, more than emotional support, more than information. They're looking for guidance through uncertainty, conflict, decision making, transition, and change. But we know growth also creates an important responsibility. When more people begin using the same title, While being trained through very different lenses, it raises meaningful questions. What is divorce coaching? What competencies should clients reasonably expect? What distinguishes education from certification? What ethical standards should guide the work? And what role should conflict and dispute resolution play in preparing professionals to support? Clients effectively. Because supporting people through divorce is not automatically the same thing as understanding conflict. Understanding emotion is not automatically the same thing as understanding decision making under pressure. And identifying as a divorce coach is not necessarily the same thing as developing competency as a divorce coach. At DCA, we've always believed divorced coaching exists within the broader field of dispute resolution, which means our work requires more than encouragement, accountability, or just general coaching skills. It requires understanding conflict systems, decision support, ethics, process fluency, scope of practice, and helping clients navigate one of the most destabilizing transitions of their lives. So that brings us to today's conversation. Today, we are introducing Elevate for Canada. So, Elevate was initially developed for professionals who are already operating in this space or adjacent to it, but are looking to deepen and formalize their education and training. This includes professionals already calling themselves divorce coaches without specific formal training in divorce coaching. And professionals who previously completed divorce coach education that was not grounded in dispute resolution. Importantly, this is not a shortcut. In Elevate, students complete the full educational curriculum of the DCA divorce coach certification program. What differs though is the delivery structure. Elevate does not include live QA sessions or The nine weeks of enter coaching, that's part of our full certification pathway. Participants still receive ongoing support through contact office hours offered twice monthly with our Director of Education and Development for Canada. And completion of education alone does not equal certification. Those pursuing certification must still successfully demonstrate competency through the DCA certification examination. And to talk more about this, I am joined today by someone who has been instrumental in bringing this offering to life and helping shape DCA's educational vision in Canada, Dory Brattle. Hi, Dory. Dori: Hi, Tracy. Tracy: Okay, so Dory serves as DCA's Director of Education and Development for Canada and has been instrumental in advancing divorce coach education across Canada. Through her leadership, she is helping elevate professional standards, expand access to quality education, and advocate for more informed, ethical, and skilled support for individuals and families navigating divorce. Dory brings extensive experience to this work and a strong educational foundation specific to divorce coaching. She has completed divorce coach training and certification through multiple organizations, including DCA, providing her with a broad exposure to different educational models and approaches within the field. This depth of training informs her perspective on competency, professional standards, and what meaningful preparation. For divorce coaching practice can look like. Her work reflects a commitment to strengthening divorce coaching as a profession and continuing to raise the standard of support available to individuals and families experiencing divorce throughout Canada. Dory, so happy to have you here again. Dori: Always happy to talk to you on a DCA podcast, Tracy. Tracy: Thanks. So I'm really excited to dig into this because I think this conversation is bigger than just one program, right? This is really a conversation about what happens when a profession begins maturing and asks deeper questions about standards, competency, and public trust. So before we really talk about elevate specifically, Can you tell us a little bit about what you've been seeing in Canada? Who who's who's entering this divorce coaching space today? What trends are emerging? Dori: Absolutely, Tracy. And you use the word maturing, and that really resonates. It feels like the profession is starting to grow up a little bit, right? Not fully grown by a mile, but we are starting to get out of what we would refer to as that infancy stage of a field. And that's really exciting to see. And we're seeing people come in on with my path, for example, and that's that they had their own personal divorce experience and inspired a Tracy: Hm. Yeah. Dori: desire to learn how to work in the field and how to support people. And that brought me here. But we're also seeing people coming in from all those divorce adjacent industries that you mentioned, mediation, family law. We're seeing in-house divorce coaches, love that, want to see more. We're seeing people come in from the financial field, mental health. So we're coming at this from all different backgrounds, previous education skills and experience. And I love the diversity of it, but it does make it quite confusing at times as different people with different backgrounds join this field. And what's great to see is the momentum building in Canada. We have more divorce coaches practicing in this country than there's ever been by the numbers. We have more awareness, both with the public. Those are our clients that are going to find us. And also with divorce professionals at large. There are is more of a welcoming attitude from the divorce professional field than there's ever been before. They're referring to us, they're interested, they're valuing the work. It's really exciting. But at the same time, undeniably there's some growing pains. And growth is good. And we take the growing pains because that means that that things are expanding. And you touched on it a little bit, but ⁓ real definition of the role, there's some lack of clarity. Tracy: Mm. Yeah. Dori: There's different interpretations about the work that we do. Does a divorce coach is a divorce coach the person that brings the lipstick and the Kleenex to the courthouse? Is a divorce coach the one that fills out court forms? Is a divorce coach primarily a lawyer referral service? Right? Moving that role along to the understanding in Canada of what we are, what our value is, that it's far beyond being that emotional bestie. ⁓ Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Dori: That's really important and that's where we're at right now. Tracy: Yeah, it's this, so there's a lot of misconception, I think, when there are people out there defining the practice of divorce coaching who have actually never been in the field of divorce coaching. And I think that's why it is so important for consumer trust that we shouldn't have to guess what one client's experience is going to be like if they're working with one divorce coach because they were trained or accredited. through someplace versus somebody who was at DCA and received their certification through a competency-based assessment. So I think there's real need in terms of client trust and for people to experience a similar service within that scope. Right. Because there is a huge continuum between right being the person who's at a courthouse with you holding your hand or giving you a tissue all the way to the other end ⁓ of completing court docs. So so one of the yeah, one of those things that I have noticed right in Canada is that there are attorneys and mediators and organizations, associations entering. this divorce coach space and developing sort of their own education credentialing pathways. And what always concerns me are like I just said, these are people who have never really been trained in divorce coaching. And I understand divorce coaching is young. But what concerns me then is they're sort of self-defining what that looks like without sort of having this model. What are your thoughts on that? Dori: Yeah, I think there's a growing need, a growing interest in discernment in divorce credentials. And I'm all for regulation. I'm all for uniformed and united definition of the role. But I think it's really questionable about who gets to do that. And is the right people to do it, the ones that have taken specific divorce coach education that are practicing. Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. Dori: That are in line with the trends that are happening globally and in Canada, and that's dispute resolution and conflict awareness. Tracy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so is that what you think we should be paying more attention to, sort of in Canada as these pathways are emerging, more sort of kind of looking at them or questioning what's happening there. Dori: I really do believe it's time to question it. It's important. It's a field that we're shaping. And we want to make sure that it's explained properly. We've got a a vast public that we're trying to serve. Everybody in this field wants to make divorce better for families. Full stop. Right? We do. And and you know, what is the right way to do that as we promote the role to the public and we advocate for what's important. Tracy: Yeah. Yes, I I was gonna say shared meaning, right? We do have shared meaning. Dori: And I think it's a confusing time. And I think we're seeing consumers become more discerning. We're definitely seeing referrations become more discerning. There is conversation now. It wasn't just, ⁓ you do you know a divorce coach? It's where's that divorce coach trained? What type of credential do they have? Do they have any specialty certifications as well? Do they have errors and omissions insurance? Do they have liability insurance? Are they a professional practicing divorce coach? With the standards of practice, ethics, and some sort of competit competency based credential. Tracy: Yeah, yeah. It's I see it as really the this ability to encourage innovation without creating confusion for consumers. And because this again, I'm gonna go back to consumer trust. That if again, if I'm hiring ⁓ I don't want to equate divorce coaching to being a plumber, right? But that if I'm hiring a plumber, my expectation is is they're all gonna be able to clean my drain, right? Out. If it's it's clogged. Some might use a really fancy snake and somebody might use more of a chemical approach, but the idea is similar, right? That there is a a shared methodology in this process and a shared awareness that consumers can be able to have a mutual or shared expectation, regardless of whether you're in Ontario or Calgary or someplace else. Dori: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, there's there's commercial plumbers, residential plumbers, new build plumbers, retrofit plumbers. Divorce coaches can have different flavors and specialties. There's no doubt about it. We're not all to be identical and exactly the same. But the foundational education, understanding, and skill of a plumber, of a divorce coach, should be something that you can rely on. Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. I think this is also kind of ⁓ pointing to this, right? It's and I've been in ⁓ anybody who follows me on LinkedIn, you'll you'll see some of my debates around this subject, right? That this question of whether divorce coaching is its own profession or is it an extension of other existing professions. And I've always said that it is a profession. And we have our own scope and our own standards of practice and and code of ethics. But what are your thoughts on that? Right. Is divorce coaching? Because this is where we run into this whole issue of, well, I'm a mediator, so I'm a trained dispute resolution specialist, which I am, right? I've been a a practice and family mediator for 17 years. ⁓ that just because I'm a mediator, therefore. And I work in family mediation, therefore I am equipped to be a divorce coach, which I am going to say, no, I am not. I was not. When I was a mediator, I was not equipped to be a divorce coach. I had to learn how to become a divorce coach. And and both of those professions work beautifully together. My skills are very aligned, but my approach is very, very different. Dori: Right. What we do is unique. It it is similar. A lot of the education can go both ways when we talk about working in in family law and all of the periphery of family law or in in coaching in general. But it is unique and distinct what we do as divorce coaches. It requires training. It's not intuitive. It's not something that you can figure out on your own. They're they're There is a way to do this to get the results. And, you know, maybe lawyers can do legal coaching. I can see that being some sort of crossover there that doesn't require distinctly different skills and tools. But no, divorce coaching is different. And we know that because lawyer after lawyer after lawyer after lawyer goes through our training. And they marvel at how different. Right? Same with ADR professionals. Tracy: Mm, yes. Marvel. They did. Dori: Mental health professionals. We get that feedback from them in our training all the time. I didn't know how to do this. I wish I had some of these tools to use in my law practice previously, but divorce coaching is a different service, done differently. And it's not something that you can assume you know how to do just because you've been working and supporting divorcing families for a long time. Tracy: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So let's go to that other end now of that spectrum, right? So we were just kind of talking about those ADR professionals who have been working, or or family law professionals been working and divorce coaching. Let's go now to the other side, right? Individuals who may have been trained as life coaches or other quote unquote forms of coaching, right? And we hear this all the time is I've already been coaching people through divorce for years. Right. So so what do you think about that relationship between experienced and formalized education now from that perspective? Right. Now they may not have the divorce information or the ADR information, but they've been coaching. Dori: Mm-hmm. Right. Or or they do have some knowledge of divorce and they've been calling themselves a divorce coach for five or ten years. I say if you have had a successful, sustainable divorce coaching practice for all of this time, bravo. You're my people, right? I'm a lifer entrepreneur. I greatly deeply admire people that say I see a need for a good or a service. Tracy: Yeah, Dori: And it's not being served, and I'm gonna create something to fill that need. These people are pioneers. These are the people that build concepts instead of buy franchises. Cool. Good for you. That's how I came into this field. In tw in 2019, I saw a need and said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be that. I'm gonna fill that need for people. I didn't know divorce coach training existed. And there certainly, as we know, wasn't Canadian divorce coach training. It wasn't available to me at that time. Tracy: No. Yeah. Dori: So I would have done it. I would have been one of them that was out here in the Wild West, willy-nilly, divorce coaching with a business. Whether I would have survived or not, who knows? Right? There's a 50% small business failure rate. I think it's an 80% failure rate when we're talking about coaching practices. What I do know is my work would not look like it does now. I probably could. Tracy: Or I'm gonna or I'm gonna say your success as well. Dori: Right. Yeah. I I mean I I found the training, thankfully, as the ink was still drying on my business plan. ⁓ and was able to learn the tools and it learned taking the training, my initial training, I learned that what I thought I wanted to do and how I was going to plan on doing it was not at all what I should do. So I have more results, more value, my practice has become successful and maxed out sooner, my referrals are stronger, my clients get better results because I have the education. I had all the desire and and I admire it. And I I'm a figure outer. I would have, I would have made my way winging it to a certain point. But I know I couldn't have had this level of success and I couldn't achieve these results with my clients without that formal education. So if there's a coach out there that's practicing, good for you. You figured it out. You found a way to do it. Not easy. It's much much harder path. But now's the time. Because the industry's maturing. We're having more coaches, more credentialed coaches. And the heat's on. Here comes the competition. So the best case to me is education plus experience. They're complementary. One doesn't replace the other. So if coaches have experience, come get the education. Stay relevant. Tracy: Yeah. Dori: And and work on helping us legitimize this field by having a credential behind your name. Tracy: Yeah, I I really appreciate you saying that, right? And this is exactly why Elevate was originally created, right? Because not everybody who is out there or been practicing, right, based ⁓ kind of on these conditions that we just talked about, calling themselves divorce coaches without formal divorce coach education and competency based training. They've been doing it. So they may be saying to themselves, Well, I don't have the time or the money. To do the full divorce coach certification pathway, right? Which is 20 weeks for us, which includes 11 weeks of core course curriculum with actual live ⁓ support and review processes every week, then leading into a full nine week mentor coaching program. Elevate was taken down a bit, right? It's sort of more student driven in terms of the time. How much time they have to dedicate to doing this. It's all pretty much virtual, ⁓ online, it's asynchronous. So ⁓ people are out there dictating how many modules they want to do at a time, but it doesn't have some of those other components. I think this is a more appealable process for those individuals who, again, like you said, have the experience or maybe were trained. In some other training program that was not grounded in dispute resolution to really level up, to get a credential behind themselves, but also a methodology that's proven. Right. And I think that there's something to be said about that, right? That we know the methodologies that we're teaching work because they were developed by people who actually practice and have been practicing. Dori: Absolutely. Tracy: seen for years, right? Not as just not just as mediators or attorneys or financial professionals. Right. Dori: Real people to me. That's right. Tracy: So so it's recognizing, right, that helping and professional preparation are not always the same thing and why this is so important. Dori: It entirely important. And, you know, Elevate offers people a starting point in a certification or training program that's not the basement. We honor that they have been doing this for, you know, ample amounts of time. They have experience. They've been trained elsewhere. And so the starting point with the training is much further down the road than somebody that's that's coming new into this field. So the full training program, amazing. We believe in it. It's fantastic. Even if you are an experienced coach. ⁓ but Elevate was designed to be a faster track, to be more economical for experienced coaches, ⁓ and and a much less ⁓ much smaller time commitment. 'Cause we know if they've made it this far, hopefully they're busy. Tracy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that one of the things that really distinguishes the DCA program and the Elevate program is this dispute resolution lens, right? Approaching the work that we do, not just grounded in emotional support or general coaching methodology, but now taking all of that and having an overlay of a dispute resolution process, right? For Clients to be able to identify what that conflict is, understand it, look at it from a larger lens to look at solutions and options to create the steps to move forward. So it's a very different, you may have amazing coaching skills, and I don't want to take away the the work that we do in developing facilitative communication processes to support clients in that thinking. But there's also something when we do that, seeing it through the lens. So what do you think changes in practice, right? When someone begins seeing clients through that ADR lens. Dori: Right. Well, I think if you're a divorce professional and you're not learning about honing skills in and focusing on ADR or DR, I think the A is really not necessary anymore. if you're not if you're not really working on dispute resolution, it reminds me of that song Video Killed the Radio Star. I mean, now is now is the time to have those skills Tracy: Yeah, it's true. Dori: It's much deeper work when we're talking about recognition of conflict, communication styles, boundaries, self-advocacy, ability to negotiate, interest-based negotiation, assessing ROI, Batna Watna, all those things that we use as ADR divorce coaches, they're critical to transforming the outcomes for people in divorce in general. ADR is on. In Canada as it is globally, Canada's doing a great job. We are more often by a landslide succeeding at divorce in dispute resolution than in litigation. In many, many of our provinces, it's mandatory. Accessing the court is really, really hard for very good reason. So if people are moving into dispute resolution, if that's how it's getting done, then being a certified ADR divorce coach. Tracy: Yeah. Yes. Dori: Is the way to help people in the process they're going to end up in. And divorce coaching is the difference maker between an ADR attempt and ADR conclusion, in my opinion. I get to see it every day. Tracy: Love that. I love that. Absolutely. And I think one of the other things that we see so much, right? ⁓ and being graded in a dispute resolution process, it's voluntary and self-actualized. Right. And then when we see individuals in this space who are coaching in the field of divorce without those methodologies, without that framework, that referenced framework. They are in intention maybe unintentionally or maybe intentionally, I'm not sure, crossing into directing or advising or or telling clients how to solve problems, which is clearly outside our intended scope. Dori: Absolutely. We see unintentionally the conflict by validating it, they've actually helped a client get more stuck in that position. Unintentionally becoming an advisor versus a coach, right? Divorced coaches, when doing their job as ADR professionals, teach a man to fish. If you're not doing it that way, you're just giving them the fish. And when we do the work that we do and we train our clients are learning tools that help them have autonomy and agency in their process, they get those tools to keep. They're permanent. And that's the difference maker. Tracy: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's very easy to tell somebody what to do. To be honest, it is. Right? And that's not where the work is. And and and that's not trauma informed work when we're taking the voice away from our clients. So there's Dori: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's right. I mean, 2019, Tracy, I didn't understand. And my my business name tells everybody that does this work that I didn't understand. I called my practice the divorce mentor in 2019 before I had taken training. And to me, if I had a do-over and I don't, I'm not going to go backwards on that. But to me, a mentor is a top-down advisor. And that's not, as I learned through my education, all my certifications, that's really not the work. Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that you've been able to have some reflection on it. But I do think it is innate that we talk about this all the time. People enter this field because they do want to help people. They want to make a difference. They they either experience it themselves or someone like me recognize ⁓ that it's just a horrific process that it's destructive on so many levels. Dori: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Tracy: So there's that passion and there's that interest, but we do people a disservice when we tell them what to do versus supporting them and navigating their own choices through a dispute resolution lens that's really is interest-based and solution focused. So Dori: Right. Tracy: I I I want to talk a little bit about Elevate to make sure that people understand because this is a new program that we're ⁓ rolling out for Canada. We have had Elevate in place ⁓ in the US, in the US market. We also have had Elevate available in the Australia market. So this is now new specifically for those in Canada. And I want listeners to understand. The elevate does include the full educational curriculum, right? So you're learning the frameworks, you're learning the structure, you're understanding how to support through that dispute resolution lens. And as Dory had shared earlier, right? Even attorneys who may know everything about the family law system come into our training and go, What? Wait, because we're looking at it with that different perspective. So so what do you think tends to surprise people most, right? When especially they think that they know everything they need to know about divorce and they've been supporting people in this process. What do you think people are most ⁓ surprised by when they come into this training or learn these frameworks specific to ⁓ divorce coaching at DCA? Dori: Well, within Impact, our Impact framework, I mean flow, session flow, we would assume that experienced practicing coaches are able to start and end a session and have some productivity in there. It's important. But maybe, maybe they would learn some new ways of looking at things. But I think about within impact in particular, I think the power of the P and the C in that acronym, perception and clarity are in. Incredible frameworks for more seasoned, more confident coaches to really get some results with. That spidey sense, how to use that skill as a coach to bravely reflect back to a client, you know, can I let you know that I've picked up A, B, and C and just wanted to share that with you and helping your client dive deeper and get to clarity? And then beyond that, it's it's resolve, our resolve framework, recognition of conflict. Trying to be solution focused, getting getting them out of the story of divorce. being productive, outcome-oriented, and and supporting a client's agency and autonomy. Critical to to getting the transformative result. So I think no matter how long you've been doing this, coaching, lawyering, mediating, I think that resolve framework is something new for you, something that you have. Tracy: Yeah, yeah. Critical. Yeah. Dori: Probably never experienced. Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. And how it wraps it all up, it just makes so much sense, right? ⁓ okay, so I just want to touch on a couple other things to to hopefully answer some questions that may be going through some of our listeners' minds in regard to the differentiation in the the two programs. So Elevate doesn't have these weekly calls like the full certification does, right? But we do offer access to you to ask. And answer some questions, right? So so what does that really look like for for individuals in this process? Dori: Right. ⁓ so with no mentor coaching and no QA's, we want to support people on this elevate path. We want to be available for regular touches. If somebody taking the training has questions about any of the content, pop into the twice-monthly office hours. Not a commitment, but come in if you'd like to. If those don't work for you, they can reach out to me and we'll schedule a one-on-one to tackle some of that. Tracy: Mm-hmm. Dori: But what's really amazing about Elevate for practicing coaches is they're learning by doing. You can learn something in module blah, blah, blah, today and put it to work with your 2 p.m. client. So that brings up lots of, hey, I tried to adopt this framework. I hit the wall with this, or I got this far, but I wanted to go deeper. They can bring that right into those office hours, sort of like our case consultation group. Tracy: Yes. Dori: And really get some good discussion and further learning because they're using it right there. Tracy: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. So they're taking sort of their real clients and using them, if you will, ⁓ as opportunities for application and then coming into office hours if they have some questions on that, right? Or or just to get a little more clarification. Because this is the piece that I also want to stress here is that although the the it's just the core course curriculum, there still is a competency based process. Dori: Mm-hmm. Tracy: process to get certified, right? We are not just you show up and therefore you get certified, which are so many models these days. We are still competency based. So even in Elevate, now you can certainly do Elevate and just do the education and say, you know what, I'm not interested in getting certification. Why I wouldn't, I'm not quite sure why you'd want to do that because if you put in the work, you you should get acknowledged for that by receiving the credential. ⁓ But there is a an exam process, which is the submission of a a coaching demonstration exemplifying the use of the frameworks and and the tools taught in the divorce coach training. Why why do we honor this competency based, right? It's this it's like this whole thing about, well, don't you just get a trophy for participating? And and we're kind of like, no. Dori: Ha ha Tracy: I mean I'm I'm not taking away the worth and the value that if you just participated, but you're not just getting a a a gold star for participating. Dori: Right. It's it's not an inten an attendance measure and not a participation trophy. And you and I have had so many conversations about this. For us to to insist on an examination, to evaluate it professionally, to ⁓ have that competent competency based standard, it's not easy for DCA. And nobody else does it. Nobody else does it. It's a you know, I showed up therefore I got the ticket in any other divorce coach training program. So it's really, really important to distinguish that when you finish this, if you don't challenge the certification, you are a DCA ADR divorce coach trained individual. And if you submit your video, have it evaluated, meet the rubric for all of the frameworks, then you are a DCA ADR certified divorce coach. Big difference. It's a measure that we can share with referrors, with our clients, to provide them some peace of mind to provide it's a really vulnerable time. We want to take advantage of anybody in it. We want to show show them that this is who we are. We not only learned it, but we've proven that we can use the theory. Tracy: ⁓ Yes, yes, yes. Dori: Sort reminds me of my mother was a piano teacher. Piano theory versus piano playing, right? Because you could do the theory book doesn't mean you can, you know, play the piece. Tracy: Mm. Yeah, yeah, and and essential again for trust within consumers. Okay. So as we as we wind down, if somebody listening realizes they have been relying primarily on intuition or adjacent experience, what would you say to them to encourage checking out the Elevate program with DCA? Dori: Well, good for you again. You're my people. ⁓ but really if I owned a practice and I was primarily relying on intuition, I would be very concerned about competition right now. I would be very concerned about taking my seat in the industry as we start to recognize credentials, competencies, standards of practice, and ethics. I think it's time to catch up or risk being left behind. If you've been winging it and figured it out, you know, why not take this step? We offer elevate in a way that's low cost, low time commitment. Get the credential. I think you you're joining a a professionalization of the field. And if you've been doing this work for a long time, it shouldn't be that big of a challenge for you to be able to Do this learning because you've already a lot of that teeth. So, I mean, I have six credentials, six specific divorce coach training credentials, two foundational divorce coach programs and four specialty certifications. And I want more. I don't want it to ever end. I think continuing education, growth, being part of a professional community, and you get that when you take the training. You get to Tracy: Yeah. Dori: Participate in ongoing continuing education once you become a DCA certified coach. Right? Yeah. You if you certify, you get to go on our coach locator. You're not alone on your island. We have a community. We have lots of people to bounce things off of, to build your business, to develop new skills. Get this one, and then you can take the specialty ones. On top of that, conflicted co-parenting coach, pre-mediation divorce coach. This opens the door. Tracy: Yeah, that's great. Dori: to more certifications and it will always be worth it to keep training. Tracy: Yeah. Yes, yes, and yes. Dory, I want to thank you so much for being here and for the leadership you continue to bring to education and professional development. What I am hoping our listeners take away from today is that Elevate isn't about creating an easier path. It's about creating a more accessible path while maintaining standards for those out there practicing. At DCA, we believe people deserve support during divorce from professionals who understand not only human behavior, but conflict and decision making and ethics and structured dispute resolution. Titles alone do not build professions. Competency does, education does, assessment does. And our responsibility to continue developing as practitioners does. So. If today's conversation resonated with you and you're already practicing in this space or consider expanding into it, we invite you to learn more about Elevate and whether this educational pathway is right for you where you are professionally. So you can learn more at divorcecoachesacademy.com. You can also reach out directly to Dory regarding the Elevate Canada program at Dory at divorcecoachesacademy.com. ⁓ we will put all of the contact information in the show notes and we're gonna be doing a lot of sharing of information on social media and on LinkedIn for you to learn more. So I wanna thank you, thank you, Dory, so much for joining us for this important episode. Dori: Thank you, Tracy. Tracy: All right, everyone. Until next time.