Supervision & Accreditation

Who Holds the Room Today

Heart iQ programs are led by our lead faculty — facilitators with a decade or more of direct experience in Heart iQ and in adjacent somatic modalities. They are the people with enough lived practice to hold the depth, intensity, and unpredictability of this work.

Assistants are selected on a case-by-case basis. They are chosen for their depth in the work itself: typically multiple completed immersions and trainings over several years, visible nervous-system capacity, and resilience under pressure. Assisting is a role we give rather than a level you graduate into; lead faculty are the ones who decide, and they decide conservatively.

We are naming this plainly because "who is in the room with you" is one of the most important questions a participant can ask — and we would rather you have a truthful answer than a polished one.

The Facilitator Pathway — As It Stands Today

This is how the pathway currently works for people training to become Heart iQ facilitators. It describes today's structure; it is not a promise that any individual will be certified, and we reserve the right to evolve it.

1. 1

   Foundation: The 90-day Heart iQ Challenge

   The foundational training. Every prospective facilitator moves through the 90-day Heart iQ Challenge as a participant first, so the work has been lived, not just studied.

2. 2

   Three 90-day immersions — one per domain

   Facilitators-in-training are then invited into three 90-day containers, each focused on a different domain of Heart iQ facilitation: (1) Alchemy, (2) Intimacy and relationship coaching and facilitation, and (3) Somatic shadow and circle work. Each container includes a two-week in-person immersion at the Heart iQ Sanctuary (New Eden). Completing any single immersion is treated as a level-one accomplishment in that domain; it does not yet confer Heart iQ Facilitator certification.

3. 3

   Certification: All three immersions complete

   Once a trainee has completed all three domain immersions, they are recognised as a certified Heart iQ Facilitator. Exact titles and recognition are reviewed at the time of certification. Certification means they have the foundational depth to use Heart iQ tools, principles, and methodology in their own work.

4. 4

   Apprenticeship: Leading Heart iQ-branded programs

   Certification alone does not grant the right to run a Heart iQ-branded program. To lead programs under the Heart iQ name, a certified facilitator then enters an apprenticeship pathway: assisting in the room under lead faculty, sitting in hot-seat positions, and completing further training until lead faculty are satisfied they can hold a full program responsibly. This is a deliberately high bar.

5. 5

   Post-certification: Independent practice

   Once certified, a facilitator is free to build and run their own programs, using the Heart iQ body of work — the IP, the tools, the methodology — under their own brand and naming. Those programs are theirs, not Heart iQ-branded programs, unless and until they've also completed the apprenticeship in step 4.

The three-immersion structure above is the current pathway and the best description we can give today. Specifics — the exact recognition at each stage, the format of the apprenticeship — continue to evolve as we refine it. We'll update this page as the structure settles.

Ongoing Requirements: Where We Are Heading

Certification is not terminal. The culture we are moving toward expects every active Heart iQ facilitator to hold the following on an ongoing basis. Some of our facilitators already operate this way today; others are in transition. Over time, the list below becomes the shared standard:

• Named supervisor and regular supervision cadence. Minimum of one supervision session per six programs led, or one per quarter, whichever is more frequent. Supervision logs are kept and reviewed annually.
• Personal practice. Evidence of ongoing therapy, coaching, or inner-work practice as client. Facilitators who have not sat in the participant seat in the past twelve months are not cleared to lead.
• Continuing professional development.A minimum of twenty hours per year in external training relevant to the facilitator's scope: trauma, somatics, safeguarding, ethics, cultural competence.
• Peer review. At least one observed program session per year, reviewed by a senior colleague not in a supervisory role.
• Current safeguarding training. Completion of an external, up-to-date safeguarding module relevant to adult educational settings, renewed every two years.
• Annual code re-signing. Re-signing of the Facilitator Code of Conduct at the start of each calendar year, with any breaches from the previous year disclosed and documented.

External Accreditation

Heart iQ is a proprietary body of work. We do not claim equivalence with regulated professions such as psychotherapy, counselling, or medical practice, and our certification does not confer professional status in those fields. Where a facilitator holds external professional credentials (a psychotherapy licence, a coaching accreditation, a medical qualification) they continue to be bound by the ethics and supervision requirements of those bodies, in addition to the Heart iQ requirements described here.

Heart iQ is exploring recognition and affiliation with external bodies appropriate to experiential and somatic work. Candidate affiliations under active consideration include:

• The International Coaching Federation (ICF) for coach-track facilitators
• The European Association for Somatic Experiencing and related somatic bodies
• The International Institute for Complementary Therapists (IICT) for facilitators practising in the complementary and experiential-therapy space
• Specialist retreat and wellbeing industry associations with appropriate safeguarding standards

Affiliations will be confirmed publicly on this page as they are secured. We will not claim affiliations we do not hold.

Transparency About What We Are

Heart iQ work is educational and experiential. It is not psychotherapy. It is not medicine. It is not a regulated profession. It is a body of teaching, practice, and community that many people have found transformative, and that, like any human endeavour, can be done well or badly, safely or carelessly.

The structures described on this page exist so that we do our version of it well, and so that where we fall short, the fall is visible, addressable, and remediable. Nothing on this page is meant to suggest that Heart iQ is equivalent to clinical care, nor that it is a substitute for it.

Questions About Our Facilitators

If you would like to ask about the training, supervision status, or scope of a specific facilitator who will be leading a program you are considering, we will tell you. Write to connect@heartiq.org and we will respond within five business days.