Fiona Cosgrove
Fiona Cosgrove has been involved in the Health and Wellness Coaching industry since 2006 having founded Australia’s first training organisation in this new and emerging field.
Fiona completed her training out of the US in early 2000 where shortly after she published her book, Coach Yourself to Wellness, showing how the coaching model could be used for lifestyle behaviour change which has now sold over 5000 copies.
Coming from a background of health club ownership Fiona travelled around Australia running workshops to educate the fitness industry in how coaching could be used to support clients in a more effective way, bringing Margaret Moore to Australia from Boston to speak at an event, with a view to creating greater awareness of the possibilities of Health and Wellness Coaching.
She is a frequent guest speaker at conferences in health-related industries, specifically presenting on how the Health and Wellness Coaching approach could change the health of so many people and could be an addition to existing holistic models, as well as be used successfully in the corporate world. Conferences included Australasian Lifestyle Medicine, HAPIA summit on Health and Productivity on two occasions, Australasian Integrative Medicine Association, ICF Australasia, Australian Fitness Summit on numerous occasions, Novartis Symposium and the British Psychological Society’s, Coaching Psychology Special Interest conference in London.
Fiona co-wrote a module in RMIT’s Masters in Wellness on Wellness Coaching and taught in this program for several years, until the Masters was discontinued.
In her role as NGM of The Golden Door group of Health retreats, Fiona introduced the Health and Wellness Coaching model to the guest experience, offering support after their return home.
Over the years, Fiona has coached numerous people from all walks of life and supported them in their lifestyle change and instigated several corporate workplace coaching programs
After Board Certification was finalised in the US, Fiona was tireless in lobbying for the inclusion of international programs as approved providers, invited to attend the initial summit in 2007 and attending the Institute of Coaching’s conference on several occasions to be part of a meeting discussing this topic. WCA became the first international program, outside of the US to achieve this recognition and meet the stringent criteria required.
Through the training offered by WCA, over 6000 people have been trained in Health and Wellness Coaching which has been recognised as approved ongoing education by 10 organisations. The Diploma of Health and Wellness Coaching (10641NAT) was approved by ASQA in 2017.
Over her years in the industry, Fiona has had numerous articles published on Health and Wellness Coaching and was a member of the Advisory Board for Prevention magazine.
In the last four years Fiona has been undertaking research in Health and Wellness Coaching, aimed at the coaches themselves and had two peer-reviewed journal articles accepted. She plans to complete her Doctorate in the next few years and introduce a formal supervision program for coaches in the field.
Fiona is Vice Chair of the Global Wellness Institute’s Wellness Coaching initiative who have recently prepared a White Paper on Health and Wellness Coaching.
As a Board Member for the Health Coaches Australia and New Zealand Association (HCANZA), she strongly supports the work undertaken by this Association and actively promotes membership from her student base.
