Coaching Supervision as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in a Justice-Oriented Coaching Context- Review of the Literature

Amid longstanding calls for coaches to expand competence in diversity, equity, and inclusion(DEI) across multiple dimensions of identity, including disability (Brown & Bourne, 1996; Roche & Passmore, 2021; Ryde et al., 2019), professional credentials remain the dominant, though insufficient, marker of quality in justice-oriented coaching contexts (Lawrence & Whyte, 2014). Credentialed coaches may resist the deeper reflective work of interrogating assumptions and biases, thereby limiting the transformative potential of coaching (Clutterbuck, 2021b). Coaching supervision, in which an experienced coach supports supervisees’ developmental , resourcing, and ethical capacities (Hawkins & Smith, 2013), has been advanced as a promising form of continuing professional development (CPD) for advancing justice-oriented practice (A.F. Bernstein, 2019; Gong, 2021; Roche, 2022). Although models such as Hawkins and Schwenk’s Seven-Eyed Model (2011) offer structured approaches to reflection, they are embedded in colonial psychological traditions that privilege Eurocentric worldviews. In contrast, emerging evidence indicates that coaching supervision can foster psychological safety, critical dialogue, and capacity-building to address systemic inequities, particularly those faced by people with disabilities (R. S. Bernstein et al., 2020; Edmondson, 1999; Wood et al., 2021). This review argues that current scholarship, while valuable, remains constrained by its reliance on credentialing, Eurocentric supervisory models, and fragmented empirical evidence on justice-orientation. By synthesizing and interrogating these limitations, the review positions coaching supervision as a site of critical potential for reorienting the field toward equity-driven practice and calls for research that develops more inclusive, evidence-based approaches.